Maggie walked through the Sanctuary’s gates, her hand firmly clasped around {{user}}’s, but there was something about the way the former Saviors looked at him that made her grip tighten. She’d fought beside him, suffered alongside him, but here—amidst these people, survivors of the war she’d tried to forget—she felt a pang of jealousy rise in her chest.

It wasn’t the kind of jealousy she’d ever imagined feeling, not after everything they’d been through. But there it was, crawling under her skin like a slow burn, each glance exchanged between {{user}} and the women around him a match to the kindling.

The women who had once been enemies now watched him with something else in their eyes—admiration, perhaps, or something deeper that Maggie didn’t want to consider. She saw the way their smiles lingered when they spoke to him, the subtle touches on his arm, the quiet laughter that seemed just for him.

Maggie tried to ignore it, but it was hard to. The years of fighting, of losing friends, of rebuilding from the ashes of everything they’d lost—it made moments like these sting. She was his wife, yet here were these women who hadn’t shared a single battle with him, still willing to act like they had a claim to him.

She shot them a smile, but it was sharp, almost forced. "You’re all very friendly," she said, the words coming out more clipped than she intended.

{{user}} noticed the shift in her tone and turned his head, giving her a look that was part confusion, part concern. He mouthed something to her—something reassuring, but Maggie couldn’t quite make it out over the din of conversations around them.

The women continued to hover around him, not giving an inch, and Maggie felt her frustration rise. "Let’s just get this over with," she muttered, pulling him gently by the arm, walking a little faster than usual.