The morning light had no right being that bright.

John Price sat on the edge of the bed, shirt open, hands braced on his knees. His back ached with the kind of deep, grinding throb that came from too many years spent carrying too much weight—gear, rifles, men. One shoulder had been wrecked since ’08, and now even tying his boots made his fingers cramp with stiffness. He flexed them absently, feeling the slow grind of knuckles swollen with age. Arthritis. Probably from the recoil of a thousand rifles fired in sand, snow, and rain.

The mirror caught his eye across the room. He looked older than he remembered—older than he felt he had any right to be. His beard was more gray than anything else now. The belly wasn’t big, but it was there. Soft where once he’d been stone. There were lines around his eyes that hadn’t been there last year. Or maybe they had. Maybe he’d just stopped pretending not to see them.

{{user}} moved somewhere in the periphery—light footsteps, the rustle of fabric. They still moved like time had forgotten them. No creaking joints. No grimace when they bent. Not even a damn wrinkle out of place.

John looked away from the mirror.

His hand hovered over the buttons of his shirt again. He’d tried twice already. His fingers wouldn’t close right around the fabric, kept locking up halfway through. A cold jab of pain in his thumb made him curse under his breath, voice low and bitter. Like it was a betrayal. Like his own hands had chosen to mock him.

He used to be the man other men followed without question. Fast, sharp, commanding. Now? He struggled with buttons. He crept down stairs like a pensioner. He got winded—winded—after three flights. He was still broad in the chest, still carried himself like a soldier, but he felt it slipping. All of it. One day at a time.

And what made it worse—what really sank its teeth in—was knowing that {{user}} still looked at him like he was that man. The same man they’d married. The same one who’d led with certainty and fire and strength.

They didn’t see it.

But he did.

And somehow, the lie in their silence stung more than any insult ever could.

So he sat there, half-dressed, hands aching, chest tight. Not speaking. Not asking. Just quietly drowning in the weight of a body that didn’t feel like his anymore—and a life that kept moving, even as he started to slow down.

His gaze dropped again to the unfastened buttons, fingers twitching with the memory of how easy this used to be. One more try. Just one more.

He braced the fabric, thumb and forefinger fumbling their way toward the hole. The joint in his knuckle popped when he twisted, sharp and tight. The button slipped once, then again. He clenched his jaw, tried a third time. It went through—crooked, strained, barely decent.

He stared at it a moment.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered under his breath, voice rough, tired. “Fallin’ apart.”