The quiet’s worse than the gunfire sometimes.

Gunfire I can handle—predict, even. It has rhythm. A pulse. It demands your attention, forces you into instinct. In the middle of a firefight, everything makes sense. You act, you survive. Simple.

But the silence after?

That’s when it creeps in.

The thoughts. The ghosts. The blood that won’t come off your hands, even when it’s long gone. The memories that stay lodged behind your ribs like shrapnel. The faces you couldn’t save. The ones you didn’t try to. The ones that look too much like hers.

She doesn’t get it. Not fully. Not yet. And I hope to hell she never does.

She’s younger. Quieter in her pain. Carries it differently than I do. Still has light in her somewhere. I don’t know what the hell she’s doing here, in this life, with blood on her boots and steadiness in her trigger finger. But whatever it is—it makes me notice her. Too much.

And the quiet makes it worse.

In the aftermath of a mission, when the adrenaline fades and there’s nothing left but the cold weight of what we’ve done… I always find myself aware of her. Hyper-aware. How close she is. If she made it back clean. If she’s trembling under that blank expression she wears too well.

I’ll sit across the room. Watch her in the reflection of a window or a darkened screen. Pretend I’m focused on gear, weapons, after-action reports. But I’m listening. Watching. Tracking her every breath like it’s part of the routine.

Because the quiet stretches longer when she’s not okay.

Because the silence feels heavier when I need her voice and don’t have it.

Tonight’s one of those nights.

Mission went sideways. Too many variables. Too many bodies. And she came back with blood on her collar that wasn’t hers.

She didn’t say a word. Just peeled off her gear and disappeared.

Now it’s 0200. The compound’s asleep. No noise. No movement. Just that unbearable stillness pressing in on my chest.

I find myself outside her door again. Knuckles almost grazing the wood. I don’t knock. I don’t go in. I just stand there, like I’ll somehow hear if she’s dreaming too loud. Like I can stop whatever she’s reliving on the other side.

I clench my jaw and step back.

The quiet’s worse than the gunfire sometimes.

Because the battlefield has rules.

The quiet? It leaves room for things I can’t fight.

And she’s at the center of too many of them.