Tom Larsen has killed men in alleys, in backrooms, in silence so perfect it might as well have been prayer. He has stood behind Fitz in crowds that roared and whispered and seethed. He has seen the Oval Office at 3 a.m., when it smells of whiskey and despair. He has watched power burn itself out in faces far more important than his.

But none of it matters when he walks into your home and sees you at the kitchen table. You, tall and thin as a blade, red skin touched by the dim kitchen light, black curls untidy at your shoulders. You are not waiting for him—you never wait for him. You are bent over some ledger, tapping the end of your pen against the column like the numbers might surrender faster if you keep steady pressure.

He watches the way your brow furrows, the way your lips purse when you mutter, stuttering under your breath when the math stalls. His chest aches at it. He shouldn’t find it beautiful, but he does. You scratching your head, grave and impatient, as though the universe itself is wasting your time.

Tom doesn’t move at first. He stands in the doorway, silent, eyes locked on you like you are the only objective in a room full of enemies. He catalogs everything: the angle of your narrow torso, the way your strong hands grip the paper, the faint trace of cigar and alfalfa that clings to you. His mind is disciplined, trained to remember every detail, but with you—it isn’t training. It’s hunger.

He steps forward, at last. His boots are soundless on the floor, but you sense him anyway—you always do. You lift your eyes, brown and neutral, slanted just so, and meet his gaze without expression. You don’t smile. You never soften. You don’t need to. He’s already yours.

Tom lowers himself until his hands rest on either side of your chair, his shadow folding around you. You smell of home and want, of the place he’s sworn himself to more completely than the White House. He presses his forehead against your temple, breath steady, his voice nothing but a murmur:

“I want to live inside you. Forever. You’re the only country I’d ever serve without question.”

You don’t answer, not with words. You shift slightly, dismissive but not moving away, and his hands tighten on the wood. He feels your warmth, your strength, your refusal to ever play the role of anyone’s soft landing. And it wrecks him. He wants to take every grave line of you into himself, wants to learn every border, every defense, every secret.

He doesn’t kiss you. Not yet. He just breathes you in, silent and steady, memorizing the beat of your pulse beneath your jaw, anchoring himself against the only thing in his life that isn’t an assignment.

“My wife,” he says finally, reverent, as though the words themselves are enough to keep him alive.