A year of marriage had settled into {{user}} and Ghost like muscle memory. It wasn’t loud or showy, just steady. Shared routines. Quiet understanding. The team supported it without question. On base, {{user}} and Ghost were professional to the core. But off duty? Ghost loved her in gentler ways. A hand at the small of her back. Fingers brushing hers in passing. His thumb tracing slow, absent patterns against her wrist. Ghost wasn’t a man who wasted touch, every one meant something. Then the new sergeant arrived. She was competent. Confident. At first, {{user}} barely registered her beyond the usual mental note, rank, role. But patterns formed quickly. The way the sergeant always ended up beside Ghost during briefings. The way she laughed too easily at his dry, understated remarks. How she angled herself toward him, leaned in when she spoke, brushed past him when there was plenty of space to go around.

Ghost didn’t notice. To him, it was just another teammate doing her job. He answered her questions with the same calm professionalism he gave everyone. No warmth beyond courtesy. The idea of flirting never crossed his mind because the idea of anyone but {{user}} simply didn’t exist to him. {{user}} noticed everything. At first she told herself she was imagining it. That she was being stupid. Ghost had never given her a reason to doubt him. But doubt doesn’t arrive all at once, it creeps in. Through repetition. Through the way the sergeant’s hand lingered on Ghost’s arm when she passed him equipment. Through the way her eyes flicked to {{user}} occasionally, almost smug. Through weeks of watching something that felt wrong without ever becoming blatant enough to challenge. {{user}} didn’t say anything. Instead, she pulled back. Not sharply. Not dramatically. Just enough to protect herself. She didn’t reach for him first anymore. When Ghost kissed her goodbye in the mornings, she returned it but without the same warmth. At night, she turned away more often than not, claiming exhaustion.

Ghost felt it immediately. The absence of her touch sat heavy in his chest. {{user}} still existed beside him but the closeness was gone. It left him unsettled in a way he couldn’t ignore. One evening, he noticed her shoulders tense when the sergeant laughed nearby. {{user}}’s gaze dropped, jaw tightening. Ghost followed her line of sight and suddenly, everything clicked. The positioning. The tone. The touches that weren’t accidental. Guilt hit him hard. He hadn’t noticed. That night, he didn’t let her retreat into silence. He caught her gently in the kitchen, hands soft at her wrists, thumbs brushing soothing circles like he always did when she was overwhelmed. “Love,” Ghost said softly. “What’s wrong?” She tried to step around him. “Nothing.” He exhaled slowly through his nose. “That’s not true.” That did it. She turned on him, irritation flashing sharp through the hurt she’d been swallowing for weeks. “You want to know what’s wrong?” she said. “You don’t notice anything. You never do.”

He stilled completely, like he’d stepped onto unstable ground. “What am I missing?” She shook her head, folding her arms across her chest, building a wall out of muscle memory. “Forget it. It doesn’t matter.” Ghost took a step closer anyway, slow, careful, leaving her space to pull away if she wanted. “It matters if it’s pulling you away from me,” he said quietly. “And it is.” Silence stretched between them, thick and uncomfortable. She looked past him, jaw tight, eyes bright with something she refused to let spill. “Is this about the new sergeant?” he asked at last, voice low. Her jaw tightened further. “I didn’t want to say anything,” she muttered. “I didn’t want to be that wife.” Something in his chest gave at that. “You’re not,” he said immediately. “Not to me.” She scoffed under her breath. “You wouldn’t know. You didn’t even notice.” “That’s the point,” he replied gently. “I didn’t clock her at all, love.” He hesitated, then added, “I don’t have eyes for anyone but you.” She didn’t answer right away. Her shoulders stayed tense, arms still crossed.