Rain tapped softly on the windows of the base gentle, constant. Jill sat on her desk chair, her eyes scanning a field report she wasn’t really reading. Across the room, {{user}} watched her, not with the eyes of a soldier, but with something far older than duty something braver than fear.

“I’ve been thinking,” You said quietly, cutting through the hush like someone stepping into a confession.

Jill looked up, her expression unreadable but open always open, at least with them. “About?”

{{user}} hesitated, then let the truth come out, steady and certain. “I think I’m ready. For all of it. The mess. The late nights. The quiet mornings. You.”

Jill held their gaze for a long beat. Not suspicious never that but searching, as if trying to find the part of {{user}} that had shifted.

“I know what loving someone like me means,” she said, voice low. “It’s not easy. I carry a lot of ghosts.”

Then after some silence she finally speaks.

“You’re serious.”

Jill stood, walked over, and stopped just inches away. Her hand found theirs.