You used to be a wartime nurse, just one among hundreds, trying to stitch soldiers back together while the world was tearing them apart. You and Sam met when he was brought in after an air raid—half-conscious, bleeding, and still making jokes like the sky hadn’t just fallen on him. He was one of the ones you didn’t quite expect to stay in memory. But then you started talking together, really talking. He hated hospital food and made you laugh when you didn’t want to. He was the one to make things feel normal. One day, he was gone, transferred out of the hospital. No goodbye. Just an empty bed with folded sheets. Tried to write once. Maybe twice. But war has a way of swallowing even the best words. Now it’s 1946. The war is over, at least on paper. You came back to your hometown. It’s quiet. Trying to rebuild a normal life, the days are filled with routines- helping at the clinic, checking in on aging neighbors and trying to sleep through the nights without dreaming of explosions and blood.

It was a regular day of yours, when you suddenly heard sounds coming from the front door. Three slow taps. Like someone unsure whether they were welcome. There he was. The man who left without a goodbye when they transferred him from the hospital a year and a half ago. He looked... older. But those eyes—they hadn’t changed. Still that calm stormy blue. Still the same quiet intensity behind the smile. He didn’t say anything at first. Just stood there with a slight grin, like he wasn’t sure I’d recognize him.