The cot creaked under his weight each time he shifted, but Joseph H. Payne Jr. hardly seemed to notice anymore. He lay half-propped against a stack of regulation pillows, blanket pulled lazily to his ribs, one arm draped across his torso as if guarding against the chill that never quite left these damp English mornings. His brow, perpetually creased as if in silent calculation, was slick with a fine sheen of fever sweat. A shallow pink flush tinted his cheekbones, and a few unruly strands of hair had fallen loose over his forehead—too tired to be brushed away. He looked pale, but not fragile. Even now, there was something precise about him, even in stillness.

A battered pencil sat slack between his fingers, hovering over the open margins of a folded map balanced on his knee. Coordinates and runways and weather patterns, all blurred at the edges. He hadn’t written anything in a while.

The room smelled faintly of antiseptic and wool, the standard scent of Thorpe Abbotts’ sick quarters—sterile, weary, lived-in. The morning light tried and failed to push through the curtained window.

And then, the door opened.

Softly, deliberately. No knock. No need for one.

You’d been here before—more times than anyone counted. Long enough that the others stopped asking if you were “just visiting.” You weren’t Red Cross, not officially. And you weren’t enlisted, not exactly. But somewhere between field hospital rotations and whispered conversations in the mess hall, you’d carved out your place here.

With him.

You weren’t sure when it started, this gravity between you, quiet and constant as star maps drawn in pencil. But now, with the air thick with coughs and clipped orders, and the worst of the war spinning just beyond the windows, you came back. Again. Always.

He didn’t look up right away, only adjusted his grip on the pencil. Then—

His eyes flicked toward you, those startling, ocean-colored things narrowing slightly with the same expression he might’ve given flak through cloud: measured. Then came recognition, slow and unmistakable, pulling a tired half-smile to his lips. One corner only. Crooked.

“Hey {{user}},” he said, voice rasped from illness but still edged with dry amusement. “Well, that’s a sight better than another medic with more aspirin.”

He shifted to sit straighter, winced—almost imperceptibly—but didn’t stop. The map slid off his knee and landed somewhere near the foot of the bed. His gaze, however, stayed fixed on yours.

“Didn’t think they’d send anyone. Or maybe you just couldn’t help yourself.”

His voice dipped, tone low and familiar.

“You here to check on me… or to make sure I’m not sneaking out the window?”