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Something in the Way She Moves || Sam (Warfare) || 15

In progress!

Pairing: Sam* (Warfare) x OFC Jolene Johnson *Walsh is the last name I gave him for purposes of this story

Series Warnings: mentions of life in the military/active duty; PTSD and vivid flashbacks; hyper-vigilance; Survivor’s guilt; mentions of death and KIA (Killed in Action); detailed grieving and funeral imagery; chronic physical pain and combat-related injuries; traumatic brain injury (TBI) symptoms; mentions of cancer and parental loss; mentions of childbirth; family dynamics and loneliness; Mature Content: Explicit smut including dominant/submissive dynamics, recording sex/sex tapes, mentions of breeding but not actually doing so (the fantasy of it is hot), remote control vibrator, oral sex, and other sexual encounters.

Word Count: 17k+

Author's Note: Sorry for disappearing for a bit. Life's been busy lately, and I've had a few personal things requiring my attention. One of the bigger ones is kind of adjacent to this story in a weird way. Life imitates art? Sort of? Either way... My partner and I got a German Shepherd puppy. His name is Zeppelin, and he has fully committed himself to being an adorable menace. Most of my time lately has been spent chasing after him, making sure he's not eating something he shouldn't, and generally trying to keep up with the little guy. That said, this chapter is a heavy one. Just a small warning (and apology) in advance. I like to think that perhaps Jolene hasn't inherently been the most reliable 'narrator' in a way... As always, thanks to everyone who's stuck with this story and keeps coming back for more. I appreciate every single one of you. Peace and Love ~ Mae

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Jolene

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It was crazy how quickly time managed to fly during the early months of the year. One moment they were celebrating the small victory of on-site housing, and in a blink of an eye, Sam had managed to successfully prove he could move himself from a bed to his wheelchair with confidence. Just enough proven independence that his doctors at Walter Reed released him for months of ongoing outpatient physical therapy back in Virginia. Randy and Loretta had driven up with their SUV, knowing Jolene’s truck couldn’t successfully provide a comfortable way for Sam to keep his leg elevated during the five-hour drive home. In some ways, it was nice having them trailing behind in hers while she drove Sam in theirs. They’d helped out as much as possible without seeming overbearing by pulling off at gas stops, running in to grab her and Sam food while she gently nudged him awake for meds.

When they got home, Randy had walked them through all the modifications to the house with an anxious pride. The ramps out front and back were sturdy, and carefully thought over in the way only a man who loved Jolene like a daughter could manage. The door frames had been widened, the fresh trim not yet painted, smelling of sawdust and love. Loretta had spent the days prior shifting the entirety of essential items in the kitchen to the lower cabinets for easy access to accommodate Sam’s needs.

The downstairs bedroom, however, was the hardest hurdle. It was homier than Jolene gave it credit for. Filled with the familiar scent of cedar and the soft glow of the lamps they’d brought down from the second floor. But no amount of decorative pillows or a brand new king sized bed could mask the fact that she was sleeping in the room where her father had taken his final breaths. It was unnerving to be there alone. Luckily between Chewie and Sam that was rare.

The first week back was a blur of exhausting firsts. There was the reunion between Sam and Chewbacca. A moment Jolene had braced for with a mixture of hope and terror. The eighty pound German Shepherd had been vibrating with months worth of suppressed energy when they finally pulled into the gravel drive. Jolene had to practically tackle the dog to keep him from launching himself at Sam’s leg. Eventually, their dog settled into a state of watchful vigil once he calmed. A heavy head resting on Sam’s good knee, his tail thumping against the hardwood every time Sam so much as shifted a blanket. It was almost as if, in that big Shepherd head of his, he was acknowledging that his dad came back, thus it was his responsibility alone to watch over Sam until he was upright to do it on his own.

The rhythm of their days became dictated by the kitchen timer. The ding signaled the rotation of ice packs, the swallowing of pills, or the beginning of the home exercises that left Sam drenched in sweat and shaking with a silent rage. Jolene watched him from the doorway, her heart aching as she saw the Chief Petty Officer tremble as he tried to lift his leg six inches off the mat a few seconds faster than the previous attempt.

He was improving, though. To Jolene, it was like watching a glacier move. To Sam, it may as well have been the fastest he’d ever felt life move. Jolene assumed it was because he was finally doing something. The messy-headed teenager look she’d teased him about at Walter Reed had stayed. He hadn’t asked for the clippers, and she hadn't offered. Instead, she spent the quiet evenings sitting on the edge of the king-sized bed, her fingers working through the darkening curls, gently working through the knots from laying back most of the day. When she’d first met Sam, they’d hovered between honey brown and medium. Now, likely due to the stress, it was beginning to darken and taken on a more ashen color. Not that she minded at all.

They were finally home, and Jolene found herself breathing deeper. Her ribs started to find their curve again as she actually ate the meals Loretta dropped off. It was a conversation that hadn’t gone over well at all the moment Loretta finally laid eyes on her in February. She’d walked out of the room, away from Sam’s ears only to get met with sternness and a frightening level of love only her Godmother could muster. She’d tossed out promises to start being better about eating. Agreeing that Sam wouldn’t benefit if she was unwell because she stopped taking care of herself along the way. Mostly concessions just to get Loretta to stop yelling in the hallway of a military facility. But being back home finally, Jolene allowed herself to believe for the first time since the phone call in November, that things were finally looking up.

Sam was talking about the future again. Not ‘just the getting through today’ kind of future, but their Little Creek future. He’d spend his PT sessions grilling the therapists about functional movement, his eyes bright with the prospect of the Lead Instructor role once he was back to normal. He was convinced that by the time the Winter was over, he’d be out of the chair for good, and by the end of the year he’d be trading the titanium pins for a pair of combat boots and a whistle. Jolene didn't have the heart to tell him that she’d seen the latest emails from the Personnel Office, or that the "purgatory" they thought they’d left behind in D.C. had followed them home in the form of a thick, manila envelope marked Medical Evaluation Board. She just kept her hand in his hair and watched him sleep, waiting for the inevitable day the Navy would come knocking on their front door to reclaim what was left of their hopeful bubble.

As for her shop, being the boss had its perks, mainly the ability to treat her schedule like a rough draft. She’d pop in during the mid-morning to check the progress on a frame alignment or help her lead mechanic. Sometimes she’d help source a hard-to-find part for a classic restoration with Ruth in the front office. She wasn’t pulling full days yet, but those four-hour stretches were her own version of physical therapy. She’d work until noon, her hands getting grease-stained and calloused again, before wiping down and racing back to the house to check on Sam.

Tuesdays and Thursdays were the real anchors of their week, given those were PT days.

Getting him into her truck was still a choreographed dance of grunts and careful bracing. She’d help him leverage his weight from the chair to the passenger seat, tucking his leg into the specific, cushioned configuration he needed to avoid the jarring of the Virginia backroads. Sam usually spent the drive in a focused silence, his jaw set as he prepared for the hour of torture disguised as rehab that awaited him. By the time they pulled back into the driveway around lunch, he was usually a shell of himself. Pale, trembling with muscle fatigue, and smelling of the gym’s stale sweat.

"Come on, Grumpy," she’d murmur, her arm around his waist as she guided him toward the modified bathroom. The shower had become their most sacred ritual. In the hospital, it had been about simple hygiene, but here, it was about trying to get him to relax. She’d get him settled on the newly installed shower bench. The water hot enough to steam up the room and loosen the tight, angry knots in his back. Jolene would step in behind him, her own clothes usually getting damp in the process, and reach for the bottle of expensive, sandalwood-scented shampoo she’d bought specifically because it didn't smell like a pharmacy and the fact the earth fragrance really fit the man she knew who loved to run in the pines back in New England.

She’d work up a thick lather, her fingers disappearing into the dark, unruly curls that had now fully claimed his head. This was the only time Sam truly let the armor go. He’d lean his head back into her touch, shaky exhales escaping him as Jolene used her nails to scrub his scalp. She’d take her time, her fingertips moving in slow, deliberate circles, massaging away the tension of the PT session until she felt his shoulders finally drop.

"Better?" she’d ask, her voice barely audible against the hiss of the spray.

He’d usually just offer a muffled grunt of affirmation, his eyes closed, letting her hands be the only thing keeping him tethered to the world. Once he was dry and settled on the bed, the caregiver in her would resurface, shifting from the soft intimacy of the shower to the clinical nature his recovery demanded. She’d lay out a clean towel beneath his leg, exposed metal catching the light in a way that still made her stomach lurch if she looked at it too long. Cleaning the pin sites was a silent ritual. Jolene would sit on the corner of the mattress, a bowl of saline and a stack of sterile swabs at her side. She’d work with the steady hand, clearing away the crust and discharge from the places where the titanium met the skin. Sam usually looked away during this part, staring at the ceiling or tracing the pattern on the quilt, his body tensing with every cold swipe of the cotton.

"No redness, Sam. The skin looks tight," she’d provide him with updates. She was always checking for the tell-tale heat of infection, knowing the slight swelling would send them racing back to Walter Reed. It was a weight she carried every time she touched him. The knowledge that his recovery was a house of cards, and she was the one tasked with keeping the wind at bay. The worst of it was his heel. It had been a constant battle since those first two weeks in the ICU when he’d been too broken to move. The sore there was stubborn, and still refused to fully close. Jolene would carefully lift his foot, cradling his ankle in her palm to check the dressing before she’d take the time to apply the medicated cream, her touch light as she tried to keep it from turning into a full-blown bedsore.

"Still tender?" she’d ask, though she already knew the answer by the way his toes would curl inward.

"It's fine, Jo. Just do what you gotta do," he’d rasp, the exhaustion of the day finally bleeding into his voice.

She’d finish the wound care with a fresh wrap, before moving on to the rest of the checklist. She’d check the backs of his thighs, making sure no other pressure points were developing, and then move to the nightstand to organize the afternoon cocktail of meds. She was a hawk about the timing, knowing exactly when the nerve blocks would start to wear off and the "lightning strikes" in his leg would begin.

"Three pills, Sam. Then you’re eating this entire sandwich," she’d command, sliding the plate toward him. Jolene learned early on that if she didn't watch him swallow the last bite, he’d neglect it once the lethargy hit. She’d sit there until the plate was empty, watching the color slowly return to his face as the food and the quiet of the house did their work.

Finally, once the dressings were clean, the meds were down, and the sandwich was gone, she’d help him maneuver his pillows into a fortress of support. She’d tuck a final bolster under his knee, making sure the elevation was exactly as the therapists demanded. "You good?" she’d ask, leaning over to press a kiss to his forehead.

"Yeah," he’d breathe, his eyes already heavy, the fog of the painkillers finally winning. "I'm good, Baby."

She’d offer a small, genuine smile, snagging her keys from the dresser. She’d wait until his breathing shifted into that deep, heavy sound of a man who had finally found safety, before she’d quietly click the bedroom door shut. It was only then, she would feel confident enough to walk across the gravel driveway and head toward the shop for the afternoon. And for a few hours, she could be Jolene Johnson, the owner of the best damn mechanic shop in Virginia Beach, while the woman who was holding Sam Walsh together took a much-needed breath.

She tried her best to carve out space for herself. Small, quiet pockets of air where she wasn't just an extension of a medical chart. Truly. But it was a losing battle when everyone around her seemed to exist in a constant state of hunger for updates. She understood, of course. Sam had nearly died. He was currently a miracle with a metal leg, and people cared. But being the sole curator of his trauma meant that every interaction was a reminder of what they’d lost. She found herself unhealthily invested in the most mundane of places. One afternoon, while a teenager at the Piggly Wiggly helped her load groceries into the truck, she’d felt a surge of genuine adrenaline just hearing him mention he went to Princess Anne High.

"I was the kicker there," she’d blurted out, her voice a little too loud, a little too eager. She’d probably weirded the poor kid out, but she couldn't help it. For three minutes, she wasn't the woman with the "injured SEAL boyfriend." She was just a former athlete talking shop with a fellow Cavalier. It was a rare, precious oxygen bubble. No updates on pin-site infections. No debating mobility milestones with a therapist. No logistics talk with Randy or insurance paperwork with the Casualty Liaison. Even at the shop, where she went for sanctuary, she had to dodge Ruth’s well-meaning but heavy-handed inquiries and offers of dropping by groceries. Not to mention, the proximity community was one thing, Sam’s mother was somehow more overbearing despite the hundreds of miles.

Mary had been a persistent, static-heavy presence in Jolene's ear ever since they’d crossed the state line. If the doctors were in charge of Sam’s physical recovery, Mary Walsh considered herself the spiritual foreman. She called twice a day, her voice vibrating with that Northeast Upper-middle class pace barely masked her judgment of the southern grit Jolene was using to keep the house running.

Jolene would grit her teeth, her knuckles turning white against the steering wheel or the kitchen counter, and offer the same patient, hollow reassurances. She was a buffer for him. A human shield between Sam’s fragile ego and his mother’s suffocating concern. Sam didn't have the patience for his mother's fussing, and Mary didn't have the stomach for the raw, ugly reality of Sam’s temper, so the burden fell to Jolene. She was the one who translated his "I’m fine" into something Mary could digest, and Mary’s "He should be treated tenderly" into something Sam wouldn't throw a remote at.

By the time she’d hang up, the weight of the balancing act felt heavier than the truck she was driving. She’d pull into the gravel drive, the gutters overflowing with leaves from months of neglect, heart panging because she knew under normal circumstances he’d already have taken care of it. She loved him. She would walk through fire to keep him breathing. But as she watched Chewbacca jumping on the other side of the door with his tail a happy blur, Jolene felt a pang of envy for the dog. He didn't need to know about complications of Sam's recovery and career. He just wanted a head scratch.

Inside, Sam was likely waking up from his nap, his mind already churning through the day's frustrations. And tucked in the glove box, hidden beneath a pile of napkins and a spare wrench, was the manila envelope from the Navy. She hadn't told him yet that the home visit from the Naval Officer had been scheduled for Friday, mostly because she wanted him to have one more night of believing that he was a man returning to his career, and not a liability being measured for his exit.

"Just a little more time," she whispered to the empty truck, smoothing her hair. She climbed out and headed toward the ramp, the weight of the world settling back onto her shoulders with every step. The house was cool, the air smelling of the lavender-scented floor wax Loretta had used to scrub the place within an inch of its life before they arrived. Usually, the sound of the door was enough to send a ripple through the house, but today, there was only the low, steady hum of the refrigerator.

The door was cracked, letting a sliver of the afternoon sun slice across the hardwood floor. Sam was out. Not just resting, but truly, deeply submerged in a narcotic-induced heavy sleep. He was sprawled on his back, the mountain of pillows she’d meticulously arranged still holding his leg in its elevated position. The sheets were kicked down to his waist, revealing the stark contrast of his body. The slightly softened but still corded muscles of his chest and arms, leading way to the thinning shape of his legs and the brutal reality of the fixator below.

"Sam," she whispered, leaning over him. She reached out, her hand hovering over his shoulder before she gently shook him. "Hey, Baby. Time to join the living." He didn't move. She tried again, her voice a little louder, her hand sliding up to the side of his neck where his pulse beat slow and steady. "Sam. Wake up, honey."

He let out a long, shuddering sigh, his head rolling toward her touch. His eyes didn't snap open with the alertness she’d seen for years. There was no bracing for a threat, no immediate tensing of his jaw. Instead, he surfaced slowly, like someone rising through deep, clear water. When his eyelids finally fluttered open, they were unfocused and soft. He looked at her, and for a fleeting, devastating second, the hardened bastard she’d come to know well the last few months was nowhere to be found. The defensive lines around his mouth were gone, smoothed over by the remnants of sleep. He looked younger. Almost boyish in a way.

"Jo?" he murmured, his voice a thick, sleep-warmed rasp. He didn't ask about his meds. He didn't complain about the ache that always followed a nap. Instead, he reached for her, his hand trailing up her arm until his fingers found the back of her neck, pulling her down toward him with a desperate tenderness. "You're back," he whispered against her skin as she let herself be pulled into his space. He tucked his face into the crook of her neck, inhaling deeply. He sounded vulnerable. Like a man who hadn't yet remembered that he was supposed to be angry at the world.

Jolene felt a sharp ache in her chest. A pressure so intense it made her eyes sting. She hadn't realized until this exact moment just how much of him she’d been missing. She’d been so focused on the patient who required frequent medical intervention, the soldier who needed her logistics on paper, and the survivor he was lucky to be that she’d forgotten about the man who used to look at her like she was the only thing that made sense. The version of Sam she’d been living with lately was a fortress she so often felt outside of, but here, in the dim light of her father’s old room, the gates were wide open.

"I'm back," she managed to say, her voice trembling just enough for him to notice. She ran her fingers through his hair, her nails lightly scratching the scalp she’d scrubbed earlier, and he let out a soft, contented hum that vibrated through her own body.

He pulled back just an inch, his thumb tracing the line of her lower lip. His gaze was clear, for once, and filled with a raw, unburdened affection that made her want to sob. "I missed you," he said simply.

It wasn't a joke. It wasn't a sarcastic remark meant to deflect. It was a Glimpse. Seeing him like this, so open and tender, nearly broke her. It was a reminder of the man who existed beneath the titanium and the trauma. The one she was fighting so hard to preserve even as the Navy prepared to write him off as a loss. The one who may never walk properly again, and was doing his best to not be angry or worried about that fact. The man who promised her the world and now demanded too much of it to give her that. She leaned down and pressed her forehead against his, closing her eyes to hide the moisture. She wanted to stay in this moment forever, in the quiet space where the hardware didn't matter and the manila envelope didn't exist. She wanted to hold onto this boyish and sweet version of him before the world rushed back in and he remembered he was broken.

"I missed you too, Walsh," she whispered, her voice fracturing on his name.

She pressed her face into his shoulder, the tears finally winning as they soaked into his t-shirt. To anyone else, it would have sounded like the standard greeting of a girlfriend who’d been gone for a few hours at the shop. But internally, Jolene was grieving a much longer absence. She wasn't talking about the three hours she’d spent at the garage; she was talking about the months she’d spent looking for him in the wreckage of hospital rooms and bureaucracy. She missed the man who didn’t need her this intensely, and instead chose to allow himself to want her.

She stayed there, feeling the tightening of his arm, and let her mind drift back to the version of Sam Walsh she had first fallen for.

It felt like a different lifetime, that first night in the bar. She could still see him sitting at the counter at Randy and Loretta’s. Just a handsome stranger with a half-drank Michelob and a quiet, observant air that had instantly stilled the noise of the room. She’d walked in, fresh off a long two weeks in Baltimore for Elijah’s delivery and welcome home, and had fallen into those honeyed eyes before she could even think to put up a guard. There had been a warmth there that melted into a heat that wasn't aggressive, but steady and sure.

In those early months, she’d grown addicted to the quiet, casual way he claimed her space. It wasn't about the grand gestures, but the small, mindless touches that defined their rhythm. She thought of the way he’d come through the front door after a long day at the base. His uniform smelt of sea salt and jet fuel, and he’d immediately find her at the stove. He wouldn't say a word, just slide a large, warm hand onto the curve of her waist, wrapping himself around her while she stirred a pot of pasta or flipped a grilled cheese. It was a silent check-in, a way of saying I’m back, you’re here, and that’s enough.

At night, when they’d settle onto the couch to catch up on a show, his hands were never still. His fingers would find the bare skin of her shoulder, tracing the lines of her old shop related injuries or the faint freckles there with a distractingly gentle ease. He’d do it while his eyes were fixed on the screen, a subconscious movement that made her feel more seen than any conversation ever could.

Even in sleep, Sam had been a man who craved proximity. She remembered the dozens of times she’d woken up in the middle of the night to find he had shifted toward her, his heavy forearm tossed over her side. He had a habit of abandoning his own pillow, gradually migrating until he was leaning into hers, his face tucked against the back of her neck or his forehead resting against her temple.

Now, as she felt his hand stroking her hair in the quiet of her father’s bedroom, she realized she was holding a ghost of that man. He was still there. She could see him in the boyish curve of his mouth and the way he still sought out her scent, but he was buried under layers of pain and a desperate, clawing need to be useful again. Sam let out a soft, questioning noise, sensing the shift in her mood. "Jo? You're shaking, baby. What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she lied, pulling back just enough to wipe her eyes with the heel of her hand. She forced a small, watery smile, desperate to keep the front from crumbling completely in front of him, only daring to look up at his eyes for a brief moment before looking away. "Just glad to be home. I’m just... tired."

Sam’s eyes narrowed slightly, that observant streak she’d so usually associated with him flickering back to life. He didn't entirely believe her. He was too good at reading her for that, and the narcotic fog wasn't quite thick enough to hide the hitch in her breathing. In the half-light of the room, he didn't let it go. He may not have had the energy for a confrontation, but he had a surplus of that quiet, marrow-deep intuition that had always made him her perfect match.

"Jolene," he murmured, his voice a low, vibrating hum against her ear. He shifted, a small hiss of pain escaping as his leg protested the movement, as he hooked his thumb under her chin, gently forcing her to look up, though she tried to bury her face back into the cotton of his shirt. "Don't do that. Don't hide from me."

"I'm not," she whispered, the lie tasting like salt.

"You are." His touch was impossibly tender, his fingers tracing the wet path of a tear down her cheek with a reverence that made her chest feel like it was being squeezed in a vise. He sounded so much like the man who used to hold her in the dark before the world broke. "Tell me. Is it the shop? Is it Ma? Did someone say something to you?" The gentleness was her undoing. If he had been grumpy, she could have been firm. If he had been distant, she could have been busy. But this raw, soft version of him stripped away every defense she had left.

"It’s just exhaustion, Sam," she whispered, the first silent sob breaking through the dam. She collapsed against him, her forehead pressed into the center of his sternum, her hands fist-clenching the fabric of his shirt as if he were the only thing keeping her from drifting out to sea. "I just wish you weren't going through this. I miss the you who isn't hurting every second of the day."

She cried unlike how she had in the last months. Not the silent, polite tears she shed in the shower or the margins of the day, but the deep, racking sobs of a woman who had been carrying a mountain on her back for months. She cried for the bar in Virginia Beach, for the lightheartedness they once shared, for the future that was on hold and for the terrifying, looming reality of the Friday appointment she hadn't told him about yet. And the worst part of it all, was the excuse she muttered out as to why she was loosing it... was nothing more than a half truth to keep it all at bay.

"I'm okay, baby. Just breathe. I’ve got you," he murmured, his voice lacked even a trace of the detachment that had defined their interactions lately. He pressed a kiss to her temple, his lips lingering there as if he could draw the sorrow out of her skin. But his softness only acted as a catalyst. Every tender word was a reminder of the gentleness they had sacrificed at the altar of his survival, and it made her sob harder, her shoulders shaking with the sheer force of a release that had been months in the making. She felt like a frayed wire finally snapping under the current.

Halfway through the storm, a bolt of guilt pierced through her grief. She felt a sudden need to pull away, her mind racing with the realization that she was supposed to be the strong one. She was the one who cleaned the pins; she was the one who fought the Navy; she was the one who held the line. She shouldn't be letting a random Tuesday be the thing that finally leveled her. Not after she’d survived the ICU. Not after she’d stood up to Mary Walsh. Or after she’d swallowed the bitter pill of knowing the kind and soft man she’d known was nowhere on the horizon in the wake of what happened to him.

"I'm sorry," she choked out, her voice wet and thick. She tried to push back, her palms flat against his pectorals as she attempted to sit up and wipe the tears from her face with her sleeves. "I don’t know why I’m doing this. I’m just tired, Sam. I didn’t mean to... to put this on you."

But as she tried to retreat into her fortress, Sam’s grip tightened. He didn't let her move an inch. The grogginess was gone now, replaced by a sudden alertness that cut through the haze of his meds. He hooked his arm more firmly around her waist and used his other hand to press her head back down against his heart, refusing to let the distance grow between them.

"Don't," he whispered, "Don't you dare apologize, Jolene."

She tried to protest again, a small, muffled sound against his shirt, but he shifted just enough to tuck his chin over the top of her head, holding her there.

"Just stay," he breathed, his hand moving in slow, heavy strokes down the length of her spine. "Please. Just... let me be the one holding the pain for a minute. Let me feel like a man for once."

The honesty in his plea struck her harder than any of his previous outbursts ever had. Because of all the ways he'd needed her these past few weeks, this was different. Before, his needs had been practical. Humiliating, vulnerable, painfully human. There had been those awkward first sponge baths, his pitiful brown eyes fixed on the ceiling while she carefully pulled back his foreskin and cleaned the most intimate parts of him under a nurse's supervision. There were the countless transfers from bed to chair and back again, the constant adjustments, the medications she tracked because he simply didn't have the mental capacity to manage them himself. Those were real needs. Necessary needs. The kind that stripped away every trace of romance or sex appeal between them and left her in the singular role of caretaker. She had become the person who kept him functioning, who carried the weight when he no longer could.

But this was different.

This wasn't him asking her to care for him. It was him asking for the chance to care for her. To shoulder some of the emotional burden she'd been carrying alone. To offer strength instead of borrowing it. As though he'd been starving for an opportunity to give back even a fraction of what she'd given him every day since November. And somehow, that need touched her more deeply than all the others combined.

Jolene stopped fighting his kindness. She let her hands go limp against his chest, her fingers curling into the soft cotton of his shirt as she surrendered to the weight of his embrace. She stayed there, listening to the steady, powerful thrum of his heart. In the quiet of the room, with the late afternoon sun fading against the hardwood, the roles finally blurred. For the first time in a long time, the house didn't feel like a recovery ward. It just felt like home.

She lingered there for a long moment, the steady cadence of his heartbeat against her cheek. But as the silence deepened, the secret she was keeping began to feel less like a hidden burden and more like a betrayal. The warmth of his skin felt unearned while she was holding back a truth that would inevitably shatter this fragile peace. The guilt grew teeth, gnawing at her until she couldn't breathe under the weight of his kindness. Reluctantly, she pulled back just enough to look at him, her eyes red-rimmed and her voice still caught in the back of her throat.

"Sam," she started, her fingers nervously picking at a loose thread on his sleeve. "There’s something... I haven't told you yet. About Friday. The Navy, they're sending someone. A field representative from the PERS office and a medical liaison. They’re coming here, to the house, for a formal evaluation."

She braced herself for the impact. She expected the jaw to lock, the eyes to turn to flint, or for him to pull away in a fit of territorial rage at the thought of a suit sitting in their living room. Instead, Sam just exhaled a long, slow breath, his expression remaining maddeningly neutral.

"I know, Jo," he said casually, his thumb resuming its slow stroke against her temple. "Friday at ten, right? I figured they’d be here by then."

Jolene froze, her heart skipping a beat. She blinked at him, the tears drying on her cheeks as a wave of confusion washed over her. "You know? How? I haven't even brought the paperwork in from the truck yet."

Sam shifted slightly, the bed creaking under his weight, his gaze drifting toward the window where the Virginia sun was beginning to dip behind the pines. "Got a call on Monday," he admitted, his voice leveled out into a low, steady hum. "One of the Chief’s from the Command called my cell while you were at the shop. He gave me the heads-up that the paperwork for the training billet had hit a snag and that the medical board was fast-tracking the home visit."

"You’ve known since Monday?" Jolene sat up fully now, her hands dropping to her lap. She felt a strange, dizzying sensation, like the ground had shifted beneath her. "And you didn't say anything? You just let me sit here and agonize over how to break it to you? Sam, I’ve been losing sleep for three days trying to figure out how to tell you without... without you spiraling."

She searched his face, looking for the anger, the fear, or the stubborn denial that had been his constant companion at Walter Reed. But he just looked tired. Not the medicated tired, but a deep, soulful exhaustion. His calmness was eerie.

"I didn't want to ruin the week," he said simply, reaching out to snag her hand again.

"But Sam, they’re coming to evaluate if you're retainable," she whispered, her voice trembling with the weight of the word. "Don't you get it? This isn't just a check-in. This is the start of the exit. How are you so... okay with this?"

"I'm not okay with it," he countered, and for a split second, the old light of the Chief Petty Officer flickered in his honeyed eyes. "But I’ve spent enough time to know you don't jump the gun on a brief. I'm just waiting for the enemy to show up at the door so I can see what kind of fight we’re actually in. Until then, there's no point in us both drowning in the 'what-ifs'."

Jolene stared at him, her mind racing. She had spent weeks acting as his shield, his translator, and his primary defender, only to realize he had been standing in the rain right beside her, watching the same horizon. The shock of his composure was almost as painful as his previous outbursts. It was a reminder that even when he was broken, even when he was boyish and sweet in the margins of a nap, he was still a man who had been trained to endure.

"You're terrifying sometimes, you know that?" she breathed, her hand tightening around his.

"I'm just a man who’s trying to figure out how to function in those small gaps between meds, Jo," he murmured, pulling her back down into the crook of his arm. "The rest of it? We'll handle it on Friday. For now, just stay here."

The weight of the afternoon finally overtook her. Jolene didn’t mean to sleep. She just meant to close her eyes for a second, relaxed by the rise and fall of Sam’s chest and his fingers in her hair. Yet, when she finally jolted awake, the room was bathed in the bruised purple of twilight.

"Sam?" she croaked, sitting up and finding the other side of the bed empty, and the man she’d fallen asleep on long gone.

She scrambled to her feet, her joints stiff, and hurried toward the kitchen. She expected to find him struggling, perhaps stuck in a narrow turn or frustrated by a high shelf. Instead, she stopped dead in the doorway. The kitchen was warm. The low, golden light of the stove's hood lamp illuminated Sam, who was positioned in his wheelchair by the island. He’d already cleared a space on the counter. Beside him sat an empty glass dish, and the scent of bubbling cheese and roasted chicken was already beginning to fill the air. He’d simply taken the pre-made casserole Loretta had left and managed to slide it into the oven himself.

He looked up as she entered, a rare, genuine smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "You were dead to the world. Figured I could handle a thirty-minute bake without calling in reinforcements."

"Sam, you shouldn't have been leaning over the oven door–"

"I’m fine," he interrupted, but for once, it didn't sound like a defense. He looked settled, his posture relaxed as he patted the arm of his chair. "Go sit down."

Jolene watched him, a lump forming in her throat. Seeing him navigate the kitchen with that spark of stubborn competence felt like a promise. Not a grand one, but a small, precious assurance that the man she loved was still in there. Still fighting his way back to her.

As they ate later by the light of the candles on the table, Sam laughed while recounting a story about Chewbacca's antics that day. The sound caught her off guard. It wasn't the strained, obligatory chuckle she'd grown used to hearing over the past few months. It was his real laugh. Warm and unguarded. One that crinkled the corners of his eyes and made his shoulders shake. The one she'd fallen in love with. The shadows of the Navy and the pins in his leg seemed to retreat into the corners of the room. For the first time in months, she wasn't studying him for signs of pain or mentally calculating his next medication dose, wondering if he'd overexerted himself. She was simply looking at him.

The candlelight caught the copper tones hidden in his brown hair. A faint scar near his chin she'd somehow never noticed before despite years together. The way his hands moved when he told a story, animated even while seated. The tiny crease that appeared beside his mouth whenever he was trying not to laugh at his own jokes. She found herself collecting those details without meaning to, storing them away somewhere deep inside her. Like a bear preparing for winter. Like part of her already knew there would be another bad day waiting around the corner. Another morning where pain and frustration hollowed him out and left him snapping at her over something insignificant. Another argument started by a misplaced remote or a forgotten refill or a question asked at the wrong moment. Another day where she'd have to remind herself that the man lashing out wasn't the man sitting across from her now.

So she memorized this version instead.

The easy smile. The softness in his eyes. The way he leaned back in his chair with his arms folded behind his head, looking comfortable in his own skin for the first time in what felt like forever.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Each second stretching longer than it should have, as though the universe itself recognized how rare this was and was reluctant to let it pass. Jolene couldn't remember the last time she'd felt so present. Not trapped in the future, worrying about what came next. Not buried in the past, mourning everything they'd lost.

Just here.

Watching Sam tell a ridiculous story about a dog.

Watching candlelight flicker across his face.

Watching him become himself again.

And for a few fragile hours, she allowed herself to believe that maybe they were finally turning a corner. That maybe the worst was behind them. That maybe this version of him, the one laughing across the table, making her stomach hurt from smiling so much, was the man she'd get to keep from now on.

And somehow despite not having the chance to shower, still covered in grease from the shop, and eating reheated chicken and rice casserole, it was the best night they'd had since the world ended.

·· 〰 ⚓︎ 〰 ··

The meeting hadn't been the explosive confrontation Jolene had braced for. Instead, it was something far more corrosive. A bureaucratic drowning. The Medical Liaison had clearly delivered this speech a thousand times. He sat in her father’s living room and spoke about Sam’s life as if it were a ledger that wouldn't quite balance. He hadn't officially stamped the retirement papers yet. Not because there was hope, but because there was procedure.

"Look," the Liaison had said, clicking his pen. "Technically, you're in limbo. We can't finalize medical retirement until you've hit your Maximum Medical Improvement. You have to finish this course of physical therapy before the board can do the final tally. That's regulation."

Sam had leaned forward, his knuckles white as he gripped the armrests of his chair. "I’m at eighty percent mobility on the charts, for my current marker. Well ahead of what they expected, Sir. By the time I finish the last block of PT, I’ll be ready for the Little Creek billet. I just need a recommendation for the waiver until I can finish."

The officer had looked at Sam, not with malice, but with a weary pity that made Jolene’s stomach turn.

"In my experience, Sam, conditions like yours always hit that disability percentage. Even after the harshest PT, even with the best surgeons, or the most hard working soldiers. The math just doesn't work for a Lead Instructor role. You can’t be responsible for a range or a team if you can’t carry the weight or there’s concern about small shifts causing serious damages. It’s a liability even in a training setting. You shouldn't get your hopes up."

He’d leaned back, spreading his hands as if offering a consolation prize.

"For now, look at the silver lining. You're in active recovery. That means Uncle Sam is still picking up the tab for every hour of therapy, every pill, and every specialist. Use the insurance. Milk the recovery for everything it's worth. But you need to understand that at the end of this road, the result is likely going to be the same. In my experience, I’d assume you’ll be retiring regardless. Use this time to figure out what a civilian Sam Walsh looks like while you are getting paid to focus on getting healthy. Lord knows there are worse places to be in this economy."

Since the door had closed, Sam hadn't moved. He hadn’t spoken. He had wheeled himself to the window that looked out toward the gravel drive and the distant, blurred line of the trees, and he had simply stopped.

Jolene watched him from the kitchen as she handwashed a full load of dishes, because she couldn't bring herself to break the quiet. Sam was catatonic. His hands, usually so restless, were dead weights in his lap.

Deep down she knew that to Sam, the “silver lining" of free insurance was just a longer leash on a dog that was already being put out to pasture. Jolene wanted to go to him, to press her face into his shoulder and tell him they’d find another way, but for the first time, she felt like she didn't have the right. She was the one who could still walk out to the shop. She wasn’t the one whose career would be dictated by medical percentages.

She watched the sun track across the floorboards, inching toward his motionless chair, and realized that the boyish, sweet man from Tuesday had been buried under his hope clashing with the unfortunate reality of his situation. The fight wasn't over, but as she looked at the hollowed-out expression on Sam’s face, she feared the warrior had finally decided there was nothing left worth fighting for. She decided to give him space, though it felt more like leaving a man to drown in shallow water. Jolene poured her nervous energy into the house, tackling tasks that didn't require her to look at the hollowed-out expression on his face. She lugged baskets of laundry to the machine. She scrubbed the bathrooms until the scent of bleach burned her throat, and she swept the hardwood floors. And when the common housecleaning was finished she undertook those hardly tackled tasks: scrubbing baseboards, going through every kitchen cabinet to purge old spices or cans, and polishing wood furniture.

Every time she passed the living room, she’d steal a glance. He hadn’t moved. The light had shifted from a pale morning yellow to a sharp, midday glare, and Sam remained a statue in the window.

After three hours, she finally tried to break the seal. She approached him with a glass of water. "Sam? It's time for your afternoon meds."

He didn't blink. He didn't even acknowledge she was in the room. When she reached out to touch his shoulder, he didn't pull away, but he didn't lean in, either. His eyes remained fixed on a spot in the gravel drive, and he refused to maintain eye contact. It was as if he’d pulled a shutter down over his soul, and Jolene was on the outside looking at a blank wall.

She felt helpless panic as she retreated to the kitchen, her hands shaking as she pulled her phone from her pocket. She couldn't do this alone. Not this part. She dialed Randy.

"JJ? Everything okay?" her godfather’s voice was warm, but he caught the tension in her silence immediately.

"Randy... the Navy was here. The liaison," she whispered, leaning her forehead against the cool surface of the refrigerator. "He's... he's gone dark, Randy. He won't look at me. He won't move. He’s just sitting there. I can’t get him to take meds or even notice life moving in front of his face."

There was a heavy sigh on the other end of the line. Randy understood the weight of that sentence better than anyone. Decades ago, a fall had shattered several of Randy’s vertebrae and mangled his knee, ending his career in the SEALs in one brutal afternoon. He came back and Jolene had watched her father set him straight when he realized that there would be a life outside the Navy.

"He feels discarded, Jo," Randy said, his voice gravelly and knowing. "He thinks he’s a burden now, and he’s mad at the world for proving him right."

"Can you come over?" she asked, her voice cracking. "He won't talk to me. I think... I think he needs someone who’s been in a similar situation."

"I'm already grabbin' my keys Baby," Randy replied. "Don't push him, Jolene. Just let the house stay quiet till I get there. He's grievin' a man who hasn't died yet. That's a lonely kind of funeral." She hung up and looked back toward the living room. The sun was hitting the titanium pins in Sam's leg, making them glint. She went back to finding ways to productively keep her hands moving far away from Sam’s vicinity.

Randy’s old truck rumbled into the drive, and Jolene was out the door before he’d even cut the engine. She met him at the bottom of the ramp, her arms crossed tightly over her chest as if she were trying to hold her own ribs together.

Randy climbed out slowly and pulled her into a one-armed squeeze. He didn't ask if she was okay. He could see the shadows under her eyes and the way her hands were trembling. "He's in the same spot," she whispered into his flannel shirt. "He hasn't blinked in an hour, Randy. He won't even look at me. I feel like if I touch him, he’ll just... shatter."

Randy stepped back, adjusting his cap. He looked toward the house, his expression grim and knowing. "He’s in the why me phase, Jo. And the why me phase is real ugly when you've spent your whole life being the one people rely on. You go on and get out of here for a bit. Go to the shop, or go tinker in the barn. I’ll sit with him. We’ll just talk man-to-man."

"I'll give you guys space," she nodded, wiping a stray tear with the back of her hand. "I’ll be in the barn if you need me. I just... I can't watch him look through me anymore."

She watched Randy disappear inside, the screen door clicking shut. She crossed the yard to the barn that housed her personal projects. She pulled the heavy sliding door open, the scent of dust, gasoline, and old leather rising up to greet her. In the center of the floor, under a layer of fine Virginia dust, sat her ’69 Camaro. It was her sanctuary. She walked over to it, her hand tracing the long, aggressive line of the fender. For two hours, she didn't think about medical liaisons or titanium pins. She grabbed a rag and a can of polish and began to work on the chrome, the repetitive motion of her arm numbing the static in her brain. She checked the oil, adjusted a belt, and simply sat in the driver’s seat for a while, gripping the steering wheel and imagining a road that didn't end in a hospital parking lot.

The sun was starting to cast long shadows across the barn floor when the heavy door groaned open again. Jolene looked up, her heart leaping into her throat. Randy was walking toward her, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. He looked tired but the set of his jaw was less tense.

She climbed out of the car, wiping her hands on her jeans. "Is he okay? Did he say anything?"

Randy stopped a few feet away, looking at the Camaro and then back at the house. He blew out a long breath that puffed in the cooling air.

"He’s talkin'," Randy said softly. "Not a lot, and most of it’s cussing at the ceiling, but the ice is cracked. I told him about the day I fell. Told him about how I spent three months wishing I’d just hit my head instead of my back so I wouldn't have to deal with the bullshit that came after. Especially with how much of a bastard it made me towards Loretta. It took a long time to stop thinking death would’ve been a better solution than being angry all the time."

Jolene winced, the honesty of it stinging. "What did he say?"

"He asked me how I stopped being angry," Randy replied, a small, sad smile touching his lips. "And I told him the truth. You don't ever really stop being angry at the way it happened. You just eventually get too tired to hold onto it."

He stepped closer, clapping a hand on Jolene’s shoulder. "He’s exhausted, honey. He’s gonna probably keep seeing everything in front of his eyes with malice because it hurts and he feels useless. But he asked if you were still out here 'poking at that damn Chevy'." The relief that washed over her was so physical she felt her knees weaken. "Go on back in there," Randy nudged her toward the house. "I’m gonna head home and tell Loretta to double the batch of whatever she’s making for Sunday. We’re gonna get through this, Jo. It’s not easy, but he’s still alive and that’s what matters. I know that boy in there thinks the world of you, and that’s not something I take lightly."

Jolene let out a breath. "Thank you, Randy. I didn't know who else to call."

Randy’s expression softened, the hard lines of his weathered face crinkling into something warm and steady. He had that distinct, silver-bearded Kenny Rogers energy under normal circumstances. A kindness and gentleness. Today that look had largely been absent given the depth. He pulled her into a final, rib-crushing hug, "You don't ever have to thank me, JJ," he murmured into her hair. "I’m gonna start poppin’ in more often. Not to hover. Mostly just to be a nuisance. Keep his brain off the leg and maybe be a bit less snappy towards you. I didn’t give him an earful today about it, but he’s gotta reel it back in at some point. He said it himself but that’s my job to make sure it’s winding down as the meds ease up more and more."

He stepped back, his hands resting on his belt loops, and looked toward the house with a thoughtful squint. "And listen. If he starts really struggling, I mean really hittin' the bottom of the well, I’ve got something tucked away at my place I can drop off for him."

Jolene wiped a stray smudge of grease from her cheek, her brow furrowing. "What?"

Randy offered a slow, cryptic wink. "Top secret. Only for SEAL eyes, I'm afraid."

Jolene let out a dry, incredulous scoff, a small spark of her usual fire returning to her eyes. "Oh, for God's sake, Randy. Tell me you aren't planning on dropping off some ancient porn stash for my currently narcotic-brained boyfriend. The last thing Sam needs right now is a vintage collection of Playboy to distract him from his PT."

Randy let out a wheezing chuckle, shaking his head as he turned toward his truck. "Nothin' like that, baby. Give me some credit. It's just... a bit of advice I’ve held onto, if one of us falls off the wagon." He climbed into the cab of his truck, "Go check on him."

Jolene watched the taillights of his truck fade down the drive, leaving her in the deepening blue of the evening. She felt the weight of the cryptic promise Randy held for men who had been broken by the service they loved. She didn't know what that entailed, but as she turned back toward the house, she felt a sliver of hope with that in her backpocket.

She walked up the ramp, the wood solid beneath her boots, and stepped back into the quiet. The house felt different now. She moved toward the living room, ready to find whatever version of Sam Walsh was waiting for her. The screen door clicked shut, but Jolene didn't immediately call out. She silently stalked through the entryway, her boots making barely a sound on the braided rug as she navigated the dimming hallway. She was preparing herself for the worst. Bracing to find him still frozen by the window, or a statue of grief in her father’s old chair.

But when she turned the corner into the living room, the space by the window was empty.

A faint scraping sound drew her eye toward the kitchen. There, bathed in the low amber glow of the under-cabinet lighting, was Sam. He had wheeled himself right up to the counter, his large frame awkwardly angled in the chair as he stretched his arms upward. He was reaching the absolute best he could toward the back of the counter, his fingers straining to hook around the handle of the ceramic coffee canister. Right beside the left wheel of his chair was Chewbacca. The big German Shepherd was sitting completely still, ears alert and dark eyes tracking Sam’s every micro-movement. The dog was keeping a respectful distance, ensuring Sam wouldn't unbalance himself and hurt his leg.

Sam was breathing heavily, his entire focus consumed by the six inches between his fingertips and the counter, so he barely heard the soft scuff of her boots. Jolene didn't say a word. She just closed the distance between them, walking up right behind him. She extended her hand and gently placed her palm against the rigid line of his shoulder.

At the touch, the tension left his frame all at once. Sam let out an exhale and settled back into the cushion of the wheelchair, his arms dropping heavily into his lap. He paused for a beat, letting the dog lean its heavy head against his good knee, before he slowly turned his head to look up at her.

In the dim kitchen light, his brown eyes were wide open. Jolene looked down and saw it all. The fiery anger at a body that wouldn't obey, the profound confusion of a man whose roadmap had been torn up, the stark fear of the unknown, and a deep, heavy sadness that broke her heart. She kept her hand on his shoulder, her thumb lightly rubbing the base of his neck. "What are you doing?" she asked.

Sam looked away for a split second, his jaw working as he swallowed hard, before his eyes locked back onto hers. "I was gonna bring you coffee," he muttered. "You were out in the barn. It's getting cold out. Figured you’d want some."

He got quiet then, the hum of the refrigerator filling the space between them. Chewbacca let out a soft whine, his tail giving one hollow thump against the floorboards. Sam reached up, his large, rough hand covering hers where it rested on his shoulder, squeezing tight enough to let her feel the tremble in his fingers. "I didn't mean to scare you like that, Jo," he whispered, looking up at her with a vulnerability that stripped away every last boundary between them. "Earlier. I just... I didn't mean to scare you."

Jolene reached out with her other hand, her fingers gently cupping the side of his face. His skin was warm, the facial hair along his jaw rough against her palm.

"It’s okay," she murmured, "I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

She looked past his shoulder to the top shelf where the ceramic canister sat, just out of his reach. Instead of doing what she’d done for weeks and managing the task for him, Jolene simply stretched her arm over his head. Her fingers hooked around the handle, pulling the heavy jar down from the ledge.

But she didn't set it on the counter to start scooping the grounds herself. She lowered it into his lap, placing the weight of the ceramic directly into his calloused hands. "Here," she whispered, keeping her hands over his for a beat. "You make it. I like yours better anyway."

Sam didn't immediately move to open the lid. He just sat there, his fingers curling around the cold ceramic, holding it against his stomach. He stared down at his hands, his breathing slowing until the kitchen was completely silent save for Chewbacca’s heavy sigh as the dog settled flat against the floor. She realized then that in the wake of the Navy liaison’s visit, Sam had completely blown past his afternoon medication window. He’d missed his doses. For weeks, even as the doctors at Walter Reed had started the slow process of weaning him off the heavy-duty narcotics, he had still lived in a perpetual, sluggish fog. That heavy narcotic brain that made his reactions slow and his temper unpredictable.

But right now, the fog was entirely gone. The pain was likely creeping back into his shattered shin, but it had brought his mind back with it. He was fully present, looking at the kitchen, looking at her terrifying sharpness. He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple moving in the low light, his grip tightening on the canister until his knuckles turned white.

"The room stopped spinning about an hour after Randy got here," Sam said, his voice dropping into a quiet, raspy register that was entirely devoid of the chemical slur. He didn't look up from the jar in his lap. "The meds... they make everything feel like it's happening under twenty feet of water, Jo. When that guy was sitting on your dad's couch telling me I'm done... I couldn't even think straight enough to argue the way I wanted to."

He finally lifted his head, his gaze locking onto hers.

"I'm sorry I went dark on you," he whispered, his thumb tracing the rim of the canister. "I’m not... I’m not going to be a ghost in this house, Jolene. I’m a bastard right now, and my leg feels like it's on fire, but I'm here."

Jolene leaned her hip against the counter, her posture softening as she kept her eyes leveled with his. The clarity in his gaze was a relief, but it also meant the raw truth of their situation was sitting right there on the wood floor between them.

"Okay," she said calmly, "So, what does being here look like, Sam? What do you want from me right now?" She paused, watching the way his jaw tightened, before she gave him the options she’d been mentally cycling through for days. "Do you want me to just not bring it up? Do you want us to put our heads together and plan a strategy for this evaluation? Do you need help thinking about shifting careers? Or do you just want me to distract you, so we can just focus on the day-in, day-out grind of getting you moving?"

Sam looked down at the coffee canister in his lap, his shoulders dropping. The fierce intensity in his eyes faded into unvarnished honesty.

"I don't know, Jo," he admitted, his voice dropping to a rough whisper. "Honestly, I don't know." He let out a breath, finally looking back up at her, his expression thick with a vulnerability that made her throat tight. "I see everything you’re doing. Every single day. I wanted to rush back to that Little Creek job so I could be the one taking care of you once I’m back on my feet. I wanted to pull my weight again. I figured... hell, I figured you deserved an extended vacation for everything you’ve put up with since November."

A small, breathless laugh caught in Jolene’s throat, and she shook her head, a genuine smile breaking through her exhaustion. "Sam, I don't need an extended vacation. I’d go absolutely stir-crazy sitting around the house all day."

The moment the words left her mouth, the air in the kitchen shifted.

Sam went quiet. His gaze dropped back to his lap, his posture stiffening as the weight of her phrasing settled over the situation he found himself in. Jolene’s smile vanished instantly. A spike of regret hit her stomach as she realized exactly how those words sounded to a man who had no choice but to sit around the house all day.

"Sam... I'm sorry," she whispered quickly, her hand sliding down his arm to squeeze his wrist. "That was a terrible choice of words. I didn't mean it like that."

Sam didn’t look up immediately, his thumb continuing its slow circuit around the lid of the ceramic jar. But the tension in his broad shoulders didn't harden into the stone she’d grown to dread. Instead, a slow exhalation escaped his nose, and when he finally lifted his chin, he tried to crack a smile for her. It was a faint, lopsided thing that didn't quite reach the dark circles under his eyes, but it was there.

"Hey. It’s okay," he said softly, his voice rough but steady. "I’m going a bit nuts myself staring at the same four walls and the same pine trees out that window. If I have to watch another infomercial or hear the bedroom clock ticking as the hours pass between the ice packs, I’m gonna lose my mind."

Jolene let out a breath she felt like she’d been holding since Tuesday, her fingers loosening their defensive grip on his forearm, though she didn't move away. Chewbacca, sensing the shift in temperature between them, shifted his weight with a soft grunt, resting his chin heavily on the footrest of Sam's chair.

"Your godfather," Sam started, his gaze drifting toward the darkened hallway where Randy had exited, "he’s a smart old bastard, you know that? He gave me some advice before he left. Some things I probably needed to hear a month ago." Sam paused, his brow furrowing as a brief shadow of frustration crossed his face. He rubbed his temple with his free hand, the clarity in his brown eyes flickering just for a second against the residual weight of the medication still working its way out of his system.

"Look, I’m being straight with you right now because the fog is lighter than normal," he murmured, looking up at her. "I’m not entirely sure how mentally present I’m always going to be when I have to take the harder stuff on the bad days. When the pin sites start throbbing and the nerve pain acts up, the meds... they take the steering wheel, Jo. I know I’m a bastard to deal with when I'm under. But right now, while I’m actually sitting in the driver's seat? I need to tell you what he said."

Jolene shifted, leaning her weight against the edge of the counter so she was closer to his level, her eyes searching his face. "What did Randy say to you, Sam?"

Sam set the coffee canister down on his lap. "He told me that during moments like this, when the rug gets pulled out from under a man, it’s important that we both start doing things as a team. Real things. Not just the medical routine of it all." He reached out, his fingers winding through hers, his grip tight. "He said my physical health, the leg, the therapy... that’s obviously a joint effort. We don't have a choice on that. You’re the one holding the bandages and I’m the one doing the reps. But he told me we need to stop walking on eggshells for the rest of the stuff."

Jolene swallowed against the sudden lump in her throat, her heart ticking faster. "The rest of it?"

"My career," Sam said firmly, the reality of the situation finally hanging in the air without causing him to flinch. "If Little Creek is off the table, and Uncle Sam is going to push me out into the civilian world at the end of this road, then we don't just sit here and wait for the hammer to fall. We both need to make a plan on what comes next. Together. I need your brain on it, Jo. I need you to help me figure out what the next ridge line looks like, instead of me just brooding in the corner while you handle the grocery lists and praying I don’t cuss too loudly when I shift my leg."

He squeezed her hand, pulling her just an inch closer. "And he told me one more thing," Sam whispered, his thumb rubbing over the back of her knuckles. "He said you’re a Saint till you ain’t." His eyes locked onto hers, dark and demanding and entirely full of love. "I need you to stop harboring the pain of all this alone, Jolene. If I’m going to be useless on a range, fine. If I’m not walking by the end of the year, oh well. But I’m still your man. If you're scared, or you’re angry, or you’re just plain exhausted... you bring it to me. Let me carry my half of the weight. Even if I'm sitting in this damn chair."

Jolene stared at him, her hand swallowed up by the heat of his, the texture of his thumb still working a steady pattern over her knuckles. The absolute clarity in his eyes was blinding. It was the version of Sam Walsh she had been starved for honestly since he left in late June. The commanding man who looked at a problem and wanted to divide the load. She swallowed down the dry ache in her throat, nodding slowly. "Okay," she whispered, her voice cracking slightly before she caught it. "Okay, Sam. I hear you. And I want that. I want to stop hiding it from you."

She took a breath, her chest rising and falling unsteadily. She looked down at their joined hands, then back up into those stark brown eyes, testing the waters of this newfound lucidity. "But if we're doing this... if the fog is really gone right now, and you're in the driver's seat... are you open to hearing me out? Completely? Because if I open that can of worms, I need to know you're actually mentally here to take it in."

Sam’s grip tightened on her hand. His jaw set, but his expression stayed remarkably soft. "I'm here, Jo. Say your piece."

The permission was all it took for the dam to structurally fail. The tears spilled over hot and fast, blurring her vision as a trembling breath escaped her lips. She didn't pull away this time. She let him see her shoulders shake. She let him see the unmitigated exhaustion that had been eating her alive since November 16th turned their lives upside down. "I need you to try," she choked out, her voice fracturing on the words as she leaned a bit heavier against the kitchen counter. "I need you to try the absolute best you can, Sam, to stop being so snappy with me."

Sam flinched, a subtle tightening around his eyes, but he didn't interrupt. He just held onto her.

"I know it’s not your fault," she pleaded, the words tumbling out in an emotional rush, raw and bleeding. "God knows I know you’re in agony, and I know your whole world just got blown to hell. I don't blame you for being angry. But it is so damn hard to work my ass off every single day, running back and forth to the shop, managing the bills, scrubbing the grease off my skin just to come home and then scrub the bathrooms, constantly worrying myself sick about making sure you have exactly what you need, only for every single thing I do to be met with mild hostility. Or for you to just fly off the handle over the smallest, stupidest things."

She wiped at her face with her free hand, but the tears kept coming. The accumulated pain of the last fourteen weeks was pouring out into the space between them.

"Your words hurt, Sam," she whispered, her chest heaving as she forced herself to look straight into his eyes, wanting him to feel the weight of it. "Even when the narcotics are talking, even when you don't mean them, or you don't remember them the next morning... I remember them. Because I'm still hearing your voice say them to me. Then I’m the one who has to sleep next to you with the echo of it ringing in my ear."

She let the silence hang for a moment, lingering in the ache of the kitchen, before the specific memories rushed to the surface.

"Like last Tuesday," she said, her voice trembling. "I spent forty-five minutes rearranging the living room furniture just so your footrest wouldn't catch on the rug when you turned around. You wheeled in, looked at the couch, and just snapped at me to 'stop treating the house like a hospital ward’ and ‘leave my dad’s shit alone.' You didn't even look at me for the rest of the night. You just sat in the dark till you were too tired to fight me when I helped you to bed."

Sam’s throat swallowed hard, his eyes dropping for a fraction of a second as the memory slowly made it through the cleared fog of his mind.

"And two days ago," Jolene continued, a fresh sob catching in her throat, "when I brought you the ice packs for your shin. They weren't cold enough because the freezer door had been left unlatched, and instead of just letting me run down the road to the gas station for ice, you slammed your hand down on the armrest and barked that if I was 'too busy at the garage to mind the simple things at home, you'd just do it your goddamn self.' You know you couldn't get up, Sam. You knew it. But you made me feel like I was failing you because a block of ice melted."

She pulled her hand from his, not out of anger, but because she needed to press both her palms to her face, hiding the ugly sob that tore out of her throat. Chewbacca whined louder, shifting his heavy front paws onto her boot, trying to bridge the gap.

"I am trying so hard," she wept into her hands, her voice muffled and small. "I am stretching myself as thin as I can go, and most days, I feel like I'm walking into a minefield just trying to bring you breakfast. I can handle the Navy and all its red tape, Sam. I can handle us figuring out a new life. But I cannot handle you treating me like I'm the enemy when I am the only one standing in your corner."

"Jo, look at me. Jo, please–" Sam’s voice cracked, the command completely replaced by a panicked edge. He reached for her, his hands awkwardly tracking up her forearms to pull her palms away from her face, but Jolene wouldn't let him. She couldn't. If she looked at him now, if she saw the devastating regret she knew was burning in his eyes, the anger that was keeping her upright would dissolve, leaving her with nothing but the exhaustion.

"No, Sam, just let me finish," she sobbed, her words coming out in a suffocating rush against her wet hands. "Let me just say it, because tomorrow the nerve pain is going to spike again, or the doctors are going to change the dosage, and you’re going to go back under enough meds to sedate a horse and I’ll have to lock this all back up."

"Jolene, please," he pleaded, his fingers tightening around her wrists, trying gently but firmly to pry her hands from her eyes. He was pulling himself up as far as the wheelchair allowed, his good leg straining against the footrest, the sheer panic of seeing her break entirely overriding his own boundaries. "I didn't realize–God, Jo, I'm sorry. I'm so damn sorry–"

"You told me to take my ring off last night," she cut him off, the memory ripping out of her. She finally let her hands drop, her face blotchy and soaked, her eyes flashing with agonizing hurt that made Sam physically recoil. "The pins in your leg were throbbing, and I was just trying to gently rub the tension out of your thigh because the muscle was spasming so bad. My hand brushed against your skin, and you grabbed my wrist so hard it left a mark. You looked me right in the eye and told me to take it off because the feeling was driving you crazy, and that you didn't need a reminder of what a mistake it was to tie me to a cripple."

Sam froze, his face draining of color. His mouth opened slightly, but no sound came out. The memory was clearly a blank spot in his narcotic-brained haze, but seeing the trauma of it written in the lines of her face made it undeniably real. "I went into the bathroom and I took it off," she whispered, her voice suddenly dropping from the high peak of hysteria into a dead, flat hollow that was infinitely worse. "I sat on the edge of the tub and stared at my bare finger for an hour, wondering if you actually meant it. Wondering if every time you look at me, you just see a prison sentence. You don't even remember saying it. You woke up three hours later and asked me to grab you some water like nothing happened. But I remember."

She took a step back, her boots dragging on the floorboards, pulling out of his reach. The space between them felt miles wide now, populated by the ghosts of a dozen different arguments she had quietly swallowed for the sake of his recovery.

"You're right. Randy is right. I am a saint until I ain't," she choked out, a bitter, self-deprecating laugh escaping her lips as a fresh wave of tears tracked down her chin. "But I'm at the end of it. I am completely empty, Sam. I don't have any more grace to give you when you're being a jackass. I don't have any more strength to pretend that it doesn't kill me a little bit every time you look through me like I'm just the nurse who handles the bedpans."

Sam’s gaze dropped instantly, his eyes frantic as they tracked the movement of her retreating hand. His calloused fingers blindly reached through the dim light until his palm caught her wrist. He didn't squeeze this time, likely terrified by her recounting of what happened previously to test his own strength, but his fingertips brushed over the back of her hand, tracing the base of her ring finger.

The skin was smooth. Bare.

The gold promise ring that he’d bought with his deployment bonus, was gone.

A devastating shockwave seemed to pass through Sam's entire frame. His hand began to shake violently against her wrist, his fingers curling inward as if he had just touched an open circuit. The unvarnished clarity that the missed medication had brought wasn’t just a window into his own mind anymore. It was a mirror reflecting a monster he didn't remember becoming.

"Jolene." The word was barely a breath. He stared at her bare hand, his chest heaving as the absolute horror of what he had done finally penetrated the neurons trying to fire in his brain. He hadn't just snapped at her, or been a bastard about a melted ice pack or a rearranged couch. He had fundamentally weaponized the one thing that was keeping them anchored in the storm. He had made her strip off his promise because he’d made it feel like a shackle.

The tough, unyielding Chief Petty Officer who had survived a blast in the dirt completely disintegrated in the wheelchair as Sam turned into an absolute wreck right before her eyes.

A sob ripped out of him, the sound so raw and guttural it made Chewbacca instantly stand up, the dog's ears pinning back in deep, anxious confusion. Sam’s head dropped into his hands, his broad shoulders shaking so violently that the ceramic coffee canister fell and crashed to the floor, shattering into pieces.

"Oh God, Jo... no," he wept, his voice thick and ruined as he pressed his face into his hands. "No, no, no... God, please, Jolene..."

He reached out blindly again, his arms trembling as he tried to bridge the distance she had put between them, his fingers grasping at the fabric of her shirt, at her wrists, wanting to pull her back but terrifyingly aware that he might not have the right to touch her at all. The tears spilled over his thick fingers, tracking through the rough stubble of his jaw.

"I didn't mean it," he choked out, his head shaking back and forth in a desperate denial of his own subconscious words. "I swear to you, Jolene, I don't remember... I don't remember saying it, but I know you wouldn't lie to me. I know I said it. God, what did I do to you? What am I doing to you?"

He lifted his face, and the sheer, unmitigated terror in his eyes was almost too much for her to look at. The clarity was a curse now. It was forcing him to feel every ounce of the burning pain in his leg alongside the crushing weight of his own failure as a man. He looked down at her bare finger again, his breath hitching in a panicked, suffocating cycle.

"I look at you and I see everything I ever wanted," he whispered, his voice cracking wide open, completely ruined by the tears. "I see the only good thing I’ve got left. I’m just so scared... I'm so goddamn scared that I'm dragging you down with me, and instead of telling you that, I... I took it out on you."

He slumped back into the chair, looking smaller than he ever had, his hands dropping to his lap where they hovered over the cold ceramic jar before it fell to the floor.

"And it's not just the house, Sam. It's everything outside of it, too," Jolene continued, the momentum of her heartbreak carrying her forward, refusing to let the dam close back up now that it had finally broken. She swiped a furious hand across her wet cheek, her voice trembling but relentless. "I'm the one who sits on the phone with your mother every single Sunday. I'm the one who had to hold her hand in that sterile, white waiting room at Walter Reed while you were back in surgery for the third time, listening to her cry because she thought her boy was going to die on an operating table."

Sam didn't look up, but his shoulders hitched, another breath catching in his throat as he listened to the reality of the weight she had been carrying entirely on her own.

"And do you know what she tells me, Sam? Every single time I call her with an update on your physical therapy, or your meds, or what the doctors said about the nerve damage?" Jolene’s voice cracked. "She sighs into the receiver and says she just wishes we would get married already. She tells me that this whole situation – the lifting, the driving, the middle-of-the-night panic attacks, the bureaucratic nightmare of the Navy – is just a hell of a lot of weight for just a girlfriend to carry."

She let out a harsh, breathless laugh that sounded incredibly lonely in the shallow light of the kitchen.

"And god help me, Sam... I agree with her. I sit there on the phone, nodding in the dark, because she’s right. It is a lot. Title aside, the whole goddamn situation is so much. The sheer size of it is crushing me. It doesn't matter if I'm your girlfriend, or your wife, or a saint. There is too much pain in this house for one person to manage without any help, especially when the person I’m doing it for is treating me like I’m the one who put that fucking shrapnel in your leg." She looked down at her bare ring finger, before looking back at him. "I am drowning, Sam. And I can't keep pretending I'm swimming just so you don't have to look at the water."

Sam’s head remained bowed, his large forehead pressing against his steepled fingers as he listened to the brutal, unvarnished truth of what he had become. The silence that followed her words was suffocating, broken only by the ticking of the kitchen clock.

Slowly, reluctantly, he lowered his hands. His face was a map of devastating grief, the skin around his brown eyes raw and swollen from the tears he usually refused to shed. When he finally spoke, his voice was thin, fragile, and terrified. "Do you..." He swallowed hard, his throat clicking in the quiet. He couldn't even look her in the eye as the question ripped out of him. "Do you not want me anymore, Jo? Is that what this is? Do you want an out?"

Jolene didn't even hesitate. The exhaustion, the anger, the bitter memories. All of it instantly took a back seat to the sheer instinct of loving him. She crossed the small gap between them, mindful of the large chunks of shattered ceramic and spilled coffee grounds. Her boots scuffing the wood, and dropped heavily to her knees directly in front of his wheelchair. Chewbacca shifted back a few inches, giving them space as Jolene braced her hands on the cold metal armrests of his chair, forcing him to look down at her.

"Absolutely not," she said fiercely, her voice thick with fresh tears but utterly unyielding. "Don't you dare think that, Samuel Walsh. I am not looking for an exit sign. I am right here. I’ve been right here the whole damn time."

She reached up, her fingers digging into the fabric of his gym shorts just above his good knee, her forehead against his thigh for a brief, desperate second before she pulled back to look into his shattered eyes. "But I don't know what you want anymore, Sam," she whispered, her voice fracturing on the admission. "That’s what’s killing me. I don't know where I fit in your life right now. Every time I walk into a room, I feel like you don't see me anymore. I feel like you only see a nurse. Someone who brings the ice packs, someone who times the narcotics, someone who monitors the physical therapy charts. I feel like the man who used to look at me like I was the center of his universe now just looks at me and sees a chore he's forced to rely on."

A single tear tracked down her nose, dripping onto his hand from where it had caught her cheek.

"I don't want out, Sam," she choked out, her gaze locking onto his with a desperate plea for reassurance. "I just want my boyfriend back. I want the man who talks to me, even when the news is bad. I can't keep living with a drill instructor who only speaks to me to bark orders or snap because he's hurting."

"I don't deserve you," Sam whispered, the words falling flat and hollow into the space between them. He didn't pull away from her touch, but he went entirely rigid, his eyes fixing on the cabinet hardware behind her head because he couldn't bear the reflection of his own failure in her eyes anymore. "Maybe... maybe it is better if you just leave me, Jolene."

The cold detachment in his tone was worse than the shouting. It was the sound of a man executing a retreat because he thought the position was already lost.

"I can call my folks," he started rambling, his speech gathering momentum as his brain raced to build an exit strategy out of their heartbreak. "I’ll call my mom tonight. They can drive down from Connecticut this weekend, pack up my stuff, and we can transfer my physical therapy to the naval clinic up there. Or hell, I can just move back into the transient lodging on base at Little Creek. The Navy has rooms equipped for this. I can find a buddy to help me out, get a medical liaison to assign a real corpsman to handle the charts, and you can get your life back. You can go back to the garage full-time without having to–"

"Sam, stop. Just stop!"

Jolene grabbed his wrists, squeezing hard enough to physically interrupt the cadence of his voice. A sickening wave of regret washed through her mind as she stared up at him. God, I shouldn't have said anything, she thought, the panic rising hot in her throat. I shouldn't have opened my mouth.

She had wanted him to see her pain so they could carry it together, but his soldier’s brain had done exactly what it was trained to do: Identify the liability and eliminate it. He wasn't hearing a partner asking for a course correction. He was hearing a casualty report, and his immediate instinct was to remove himself from the field so he’d stop bleeding all over her. She had been so desperate to break through the narcotic fog and the anger that she hadn't realized how fragile the foundation beneath him actually was.

"I promised you," Sam choked out, as a fresh, heavy sob, pinning his shoulders back against the wheelchair. He didn't look down at her, but his fingers twitched against her wrists, his grip weak and trembling. "The last time we had a real fight, back before the deployment, when I got stupid and tore off when you were asking questions. I swore to God and I swore to you that I’d never shove you again. I promised you that if things got hard, if the shit hit the fan, I wouldn't do this. I wouldn't push you away."

He finally dropped his chin, his face completely ruined by the tears as he forced himself to look down into her eyes, his breathing coming in shallow catches.

"But I’m drowning in it, Jo," he wept, the admission ripping out of him. The truth made Chewbacca nudge his wet nose against Sam's hand. "Every single morning I wake up and I hear your boots hitting the floor before the sun’s even up. I lie there in that bed, entirely useless, listening to you brew the coffee, listening to you feed the dog, hearing the front door click shut because you’re running out to the shop to log hours before you have to come back and drag me to therapy or scrub my skin. I sit by that window all day long and I just... I suffocate under the guilt of how hard you are working to keep a roof over a man who can’t even stand up to kiss you properly."

His fingers curling into the fabric of her shirt at her shoulders, holding onto her like a drowning sailor clenching a piece of driftwood.

"The guilt is turning into something ugly, Jolene," he whispered. "It's making me resent you. Not because of anything you’re doing wrong, but because you’re doing everything right. You’re being perfect. You’re being the saint Randy said you were, and every time you smile through the exhaustion or tell me it’s no trouble to change the ice packs, it just reminds me of what a pathetic, broken shadow of a man I am right now. I snap at you because if I can make you angry, if I can make you fight back, then at least you aren't just a nurse pitying a casualty. At least then I feel like I'm still something you have to reckon with, instead of just a chore on your checklist."

Hearing him speak those words – unearthing the toxic, twisted logic that his pride had built out of his own helplessness – shattered whatever distance she had tried to maintain. She didn’t pull away from his grip on her shoulders. Instead, she leaned into it, burying her face into his knee for a fraction of a second before pulling back up, her hands moving to cup the sides of his face, her fingers sinking into the thick, rough stubble of his jawline to force his eyes to lock onto hers.

"You fucking listen to me," she sobbed, the profanity ripping out of her, “I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry that this whole goddamn situation sucks. I hate seeing you in this wheelchair. I hate the Navy liaison. I hate every single piece of metal they screwed into your bone. But don't you ever tell me you're a shadow of a man, and don't you dare think I look at you and see pity."

She squeezed his face, her fingers catching the hot tears tracking down his cheeks.

"You think I lie awake in that bed counting the chores? You think I’m resentful because I have to do the heavy lifting right now?" Jolene shook her head violently, a fresh wave of tears blurring her vision until the amber light of the kitchen turned into a fractured smear of gold. "Sam, I am so fucking grateful that you are in that bed. Every single morning when my alarm goes off and the room is still dark, the very first thing I do is hold my breath until I hear you snore. I listen for the heavy chest-rattle of you breathing next to me, because every time I hear it, it means you are not in the ground. It means you survived that horrible fucking day in Iraq. You survived the surgeries that would make it so I couldn’t eat for days. And you came back to this house. Having you here, broken, angry, narcotic-brained, whatever version of you comes through that door, is enough for me. It is always going to be enough."

The mention of the finality of death, brought the real edge of her grief screaming to the surface. The shadow that had been hanging over the house since November wasn't just the specter of Sam's involuntary retirement. It was the heavy, hollow ache of neither of them willing to admit how close he’d come from losing his life.

Her voice dropped, fracturing entirely into a small, ruined weep that sounded like a child lost in the woods.

"I couldn't have managed if you left me too, Sam," she choked out, as her shoulders hitched in violent sobs. The confession bled out of her, carrying the weight of the grief. "My dad... my dad is already gone. His boots aren't by the door anymore, his coats are still hanging in the hall, and I walk into the garage every single morning and I have to look at his empty workbench. I am still drowning in the middle of losing him. If you had died over there, or if you call your folks and pack up your gear and leave me in this empty house now... I won't survive it. I can't do it. So don't you run away to Connecticut, and don't you dare go back to base housing," she whispered into the dark fabric of his shorts, her voice trembling against the steady heat of his leg. "You stay right here in this shitty situation with me. We'll figure out your career, and we'll scream at each other every day if we have to. But you have to let me keep you."

Sam’s arms came down around her like a collapsing scaffold, his large, heavy frame bending forward out of the chair until his chest was pressed completely against her back and shoulders, burying his face into the crook of her neck. He held her with a terrifying, desperate strength, his hands fist-fucking the fabric of her flannel shirt as if he were trying to pull her straight into his skin, to anchor both of them to the floorboards so the house would stop spinning.

The distance he had tried to build to protect his pride was entirely gone. He was weeping openly now, the heavy, silent sobs of a soldier who had finally run out of trenches to hide in. The heat of his breath and the wetness of his face soaked into the collar of her shirt, his rough beard scratching against her skin as he shook.

"I’m sorry," his voice vibrating directly against her collarbone. "I’m not going anywhere, Jo. I’m right here. I’m so sorry. God, I’m so sorry."

He pulled back just enough to look at her, his hands coming up to clutch the sides of her face. His palms were trembling violently, his thumbs sweeping across her cheekbones to smear the tears that wouldn't stop falling from her eyes. The stark, unvarnished clarity in his brown gaze was absolute now, stripped of every ounce of the narcotic fog, leaving nothing but a fierce, burning focus that she hadn't seen since the day he deployed.

"Listen to me," he commanded softly, his forehead dropping down to press hard against hers, closing the universe down to just the space between their lips. "I am going to do better. I’m going to stop being so fucking grumpy. Do you hear me, Jolene? I am going to do the reps, I am going to do the therapy, and if I have to crawl across the floor of that clinic on my hands and knees every single day, I am going to get back on my feet for you."

He let out a shallow breath, his fingers sliding into her hair, gripping her tight enough to make her feel the solid, unyielding reality of him.

"And I am going to marry you," he whispered, the promise hanging in the kitchen like an iron vow, heavy and undeniable. "As soon as I can stand up on my own two feet to look you in the eye in front of a preacher, I am making you my wife. We aren't doing this 'just a girlfriend' shit anymore. My mom is right. You are my future, Jo. You're the only future I want."

He kissed her forehead, then her eyelids, his lips rough and salty with their shared tears, before he pulled back just an inch to look down into her blotchy, exhausted face.

"I am going to be better to you," he vowed, his voice cracking wide open with the weight of his regret. "No more snapping. No more barking. When the pain gets bad and the meds take the wheel, I will bite my own tongue until it bleeds before I let another cruel word slip out to hurt you. I’m going to let you see the dark stuff, and we’re going to face this together, but I am done treating you like garbage. I promise you, Jolene. I swear it on Mike and your dad's memory. I’m staying right here with you."

The air in the kitchen remained thick, heavy with the dust of the foundation they had just violently cleared away. Neither of them knew how to end the conversation. There was no clean transition out of a collapse of that magnitude. The silence stretched, turning clumsy and fragile, the kind of quiet where the slightest sudden movement might shatter the truce. Jolene stayed on her knees, her hands still resting on the dark fabric of his shorts, her breathing slowly leveling out into shallow, trembling hitches. Sam kept his palms flattened against her cheeks, his thumbs tracing the dry, salt-crusted tracks on her skin, his brown eyes searching her face with an intensity that felt almost intrusive in its nakedness. They were stuck in the wreckage of the truth, entirely exposed, waiting for the ambient heat of the argument to cool into something they could actually live in.

Then Sam’s gaze flickered downward, his eyes tracking the movement of her shoulder as she shifted her weight against his good knee. His focus landed once more on her bare left hand. He swallowed hard, the rough line of his jaw tightening as he forced his hands down from her face, his fingers searching blindly for hers.

"Jo," he whispered, the quiet register of his voice cracking on the single syllable. "Where is it?"

Jolene blinked through the residual sting in her eyes, her head dropping slightly. "Sam, don't worry about it tonight. Let's just–"

"Where's the ring, Jolene?" he repeated, louder this time, though the command was entirely stripped of the old irritation. It was just a plea now, a desperate necessity from a man who needed a tether to the promises he’d just made in the dark.

She let out a small breath and pointed a trembling finger toward the bedroom. She stood without thinking, leaving him and the weight of the argument behind as her feet autopilot to collect it. When she made it into the lamp lit room, she saw it was sitting in a small glass dish on the top of the dresser. When she turned around, he was in the entry way to the bedroom.

Sam didn't look away from her face, his fingers awkward and heavy as they fumbled with hers until they finally hooked around the gold band. He brought it down into the space between them, holding it between his thumb and forefinger. The metal was cold from the draft by the window. He looked down at it, his lip trembling against the rough grain of his mustache, before he lifted his eyes back to hers. The absolute, unvarnished terror of losing her was still swimming in his pupils once more.

"Let me put it back on," he whispered, a plea that broke her heart all over again. He didn't wait for her to answer, his hand shaking violently as he took her left wrist and turned her palm toward the ceiling. "Please, Jo. Let me put it back."

Jolene looked at the band, then at the desperate, sweating line of his forehead. The weight of what they were doing with the sheer, terrifying scale of the recovery still waiting for them over the coming months, the board evaluations, the doses of the heavy medicine that would soon demand to be taken, all settled back into her bones. She knew this clarity was temporary. She knew that by midnight, the nerve pain would likely have him screaming or the narcotics would drag him back under to the point he wouldn't remember the color of her eyes. But right now she didn't move away. She opened her fingers, and let his trembling hands guide the gold back home.

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