the rain was coming down hard against the windows of the safehouse, blurring the distant lights of upstate new york into dull smudges of gray. inside, the only light came from the amber glow of a single lamp and the hum of the old refrigerator.

frank sat on the edge of the worn-out kitchen table, his massive frame hunched forward. he looked like a piece of battered granite, his chest smeared with dried blood and mud from the trailer park shootout. amy was already asleep in the back room, completely spent from the run.

{{user}} moved around him with a quiet, practiced confidence that only came from years of surviving the same dirt they’d both been baptized in back in the corps. her fingers were steady as she cleaned the deep gash across his ribs. she didn't flinch at the sight of the damage; she just worked.

"you haven't changed a bit," she murmured, her voice low so it wouldn't carry down the hall. she pulled a fresh bandage tight around his torso. "still running headfirst into a meat grinder and expecting to come out without a scratch."

frank grimaced, his jaw tightening as the cotton bit into the raw skin, but he didn't pull away. his intense dark eyes locked onto hers, heavy with a decade of grief and a sudden, sharp hyper-vigilance that had nothing to do with the killers outside.

"brought the trouble to your door. i'm sorry. shouldn't have come," he growled, his voice a gravelly rasp.

{{user}} paused. her hands lingered on his chest, palms flat against the heat of his skin, feeling the heavy, ragged rise and fall of his breathing. she looked up, meeting his stare without an ounce of fear. "you always could find me, frank. even when you didn't want to be found. i'm not mad you're here. i'm just mad it took a damn war zone for you to show up."

the silence that followed was thick with everything they’d buried under layers of military discipline and the ghosts of his dead family. frank reached up, his rough, scarred thumb gently catching her jawline, tilting her face just a fraction closer.

"didn't want my ghosts catching up to you," he whispered, his thumb smoothing over her skin. "but seeing you now... i missed you, {{user}}. that's a dangerous thing for a man like me to admit."