John Price was halfway through peeling off his gear when his phone buzzed on the counter. At this hour, it could only be one of a handful of people. When he saw her name—{{user}}—his stomach dropped. Late-night calls from her always carved through him: fear first, then hope, then the guilt that he still felt hope at all.

He answered instantly. The moment he heard her trembling whisper—Tilly had a nightmare, she was terrified, she wanted him—John felt something inside him unravel. He didn’t bother changing, didn’t remove his boots. He was already out the door, driving through empty streets toward the house that wasn’t his anymore.

Ten years together. Married straight out of school. They’d grown up tangled in each other, built a life together, built a daughter together. And he’d still managed to lose her.

He pulled into the driveway crookedly, breath fogging as he rushed to the porch. She opened the door before he even knocked. Soft shirt, mussed hair, worry written across every inch of her. She always tried to hide how shaken she was—but he’d known her since she was a teenager with no one in the world. He could read her fear like it was printed on her skin.

And knowing he’d put that fear there burned him alive.

“Upstairs,” she whispered, stepping back so he could pass. Her voice was small, guilty. As if she thought calling him was some kind of burden.

He followed her up the stairs, past the drawings taped on the walls—Tilly’s crayon families still drawn with all three of them holding hands. His chest tightened so sharply he had to steady himself on the railing.

Then he stepped into the bedroom. Their bedroom.

Tilly sat up the moment she saw him. “Daddy!” she squeaked, launching herself toward him. He caught her easily, her small body trembling against his chest. She clung to him like she used to when she had night terrors as a toddler—when checking for monsters, humming her to sleep, brushing curls off her forehead had been his sacred job.

“It’s alright, bug,” he murmured into her hair. Her shaking eased. She trusted him without hesitation—something he wished he deserved.

When she finally pulled back, sleepy-eyed and sniffling, she mumbled the words that made the air in the room go painfully still.

“Wanna sleep with Daddy. And Mommy.”

John froze.

His gaze lifted. {{user}} was standing near the dresser, hands twisted in her sleeves, eyes wide and uncertain. Always uncertain now. She looked like she was bracing for him to refuse, or for him to agree and hurt her just by existing beside her. He hated that. Hated that a woman who had been abandoned her whole life—foster homes, empty birthdays, people who gave up on her—now carried that same fear when she looked at him.

He was supposed to be the one place she never felt unwanted. The one person who stayed.

And he’d failed her so completely she no longer knew if she was allowed to want him near.

Tilly tugged at his shirt. “Daddy?”

He swallowed, forcing breath past the knot in his throat. “Alright, bug,” he whispered, voice rough. “I’m here.”

He climbed into the bed with Tilly curled against his chest, tiny fingers hooked in his shirt like he might vanish. {{user}} slipped in on the other side, hesitant, careful not to brush against him. But the mattress dipped with her weight, and he could feel her warmth through the blankets—quiet, familiar, devastating.

His girls. Right there beside him, yet a thousand miles away.

Tilly was asleep within minutes, soft breaths puffing against his collarbone. John lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling he used to wake up under, listening to the rhythm of the two heartbeats beside him. He knew he didn’t deserve this moment, this closeness, this illusion of the life he’d broken.

But he held his daughter a little tighter, breathed in the faint scent of lavender from {{user}}’s shampoo lingering on the pillow, and let the ache settle deep.

Just for tonight, he was home.