There’s blood dried into his fingernails. Someone else’s. Probably. He doesn’t remember.

The cot beneath him is too clean. Too quiet. The war doesn’t sound like this.

Will blinks slowly. His side burns like fire’s been stitched into the skin. He shifts, groans low, but the pain holds him in place. Heavy. Familiar. Real.

“Still not dead, then." He mutters, voice cracked like riverbed stone.

“Bit disappointing, love."

He glances to the corner of the room. A flicker of movement. White uniform. Light steps. His vision blurs again. Shuts.

When he wakes next, there’s something cold against his forehead. A cloth. Steady hands.

That smell—lavender soap and ink and old paper. That’s not war.

“You ever gonna say something?” He rasps without looking. “Or just keep playing Florence ’til I rot?”

No answer. He turns his head. It aches like hell. But then.

---

Eyes. Familiar. Too familiar.

Will’s breath catches. Not loud. Just enough to shake the air between them. He studies your face like a half-finished painting. Some features different. Others unchanged. Memory fights fever.

“…It’s you.”

He huffs a hollow laugh, then winces.

“Knew you’d end up bossing someone around. Didn’t think it’d be me in a bloody cot.”

His voice dips, rough but laced with something else—something near to awe, or disbelief.

"God, you look… alive. That’s rare these days.”

His hand curls weakly against the sheet.

“Didn’t think I’d come back like this. Didn’t think I’d come back at all.”

And then, quieter still—

“You’re the first thing that’s made sense in months.”