The ranch was quiet in a way Bryan had almost forgotten. Not the silence of war—war had never truly been silent—but the kind that hummed through the fields, threaded through the rusted fences and the old wood of the porch. A silence filled with life. Birds in the distance. Wind brushing across the dry grass. The creak of the front gate as he’d pushed it open, one hand on the rail, the other gripping his cane a little too tight.

The sun hung low in the sky, bleeding soft gold across everything it touched. He had stood there for a long time, just breathing. Just being. Just home.

And you weren’t there.

He’d called out once, twice, your name sharp against his tongue like it didn’t belong in his mouth anymore. Like maybe he’d forgotten how to say it right. The door was unlocked. The place was clean. A shirt of yours still hung over the chair inside, boots by the hearth, dishes in the sink. But you weren’t there.

So Bryan stepped outside again, the limp in his walk more pronounced than he liked. The metal of his prosthetic groaned softly beneath the worn fabric of his pants, but he didn’t stop. Instead, he found himself in the field near the tree line, where wildflowers still bloomed like they didn’t know what year it was, like nothing had changed. He knelt slow—god, it hurt, everything hurt—and began gathering them with scarred, steady hands.

His fingers shook.

He didn’t know why he was doing it. Maybe it was instinct. Maybe it was the memory of you, barefoot in this very field, laughing at him years ago as he clumsily tried to make a bouquet with hands more used to reins and rifle triggers. He wanted to do it right this time. He wanted something beautiful in his hands when you came back.

But then—he heard it. The distant thud of hooves against dry earth.

His heart caught somewhere in his throat. His grip loosened on the flowers. Slowly, painfully, Bryan pushed himself up, leaning on his cane, and turned around.

You were there.

Sitting atop that old dappled horse like you’d never left, backlit by the setting sun, hat tilted low, boots dusty from the trail. And for a long moment, neither of you moved. Neither of you spoke.

Bryan just looked at you.

His eye—his one good eye—drank you in like water after years in a desert. You looked older. Leaner. Hardened by time, but not unkind. You looked real, and somehow, that was the hardest part to swallow.

He could feel the sting building at the corner of his eye, but he didn’t blink.

He wanted to run to you. God, he wanted to. But his body didn’t listen anymore. Half a leg. Half the man. And inside—there were pieces of him you couldn’t see, jagged and blackened by things he never wanted you to know. You were looking at him. Really looking. And all Bryan could do was stand there, frozen in the middle of a blooming field with wildflowers clutched in his rough hands, and wonder— Are you going to turn away now?

Would you see what he’d become and decide that love wasn’t enough anymore? That the man you’d promised forever to had died out there on a battlefield and this—this limping, scarred stranger—was all that was left?

His throat tightened, his jaw clenched. He bit down hard on the ache swelling in his chest, but it spilled anyway, painted across his face in the quiet anguish of someone trying not to break.

He wanted to tell you he was sorry. That he tried. That he came back because of you. That every step he took, every breath he forced through the wreckage of his body, had been in the direction of home. Of you.

But he said nothing.

He just stood there, surrounded by wildflowers and silence, with his heart torn open behind tired ribs—looking at the man he loved like he was a dream about to vanish.

And his lips didn’t move, but the truth bled from his eyes.

Please don’t leave. Please still want me. Please still be mine.