Leave isn’t supposed to feel like this.

You pack light. Too light. The kind of light that says you’re not staying, not settling, not giving anyone enough leverage to yank you back again. The team notices; but Price is the one who quietly picks up his coat and says he’s going with you. No explanation. No theatrics. Just a low, steady, “You’re not doing this alone,” like it’s an order he’s already carved into stone.

The flight is quiet in that particular way Price excels at: the calm of a man who’s spent half his life in silence and the other half earning it. He watches you without crowding, those sharp eyes flicking over every twitch in your posture, every breath that’s too tight. He doesn’t ask. He doesn’t need to. He reads tension like maps.

When you arrive, something in your body changes. He sees it. Shoulders pulled in. Breathing shallow. A soldier bracing for a blast he’s learned to expect. The house looks ordinary from the outside: painfully so. Like it’s pretending.

Then the door opens.

Your family welcomes you with open arms and closed minds. Their voices warm but empty. Their eyes scanning you like an inspection you’re doomed to fail. Someone hugs you too hard. Someone else starts critiquing before your boots touch the floor. Concern sharpened to judgment. History disguised as help.

“Why didn’t you visit sooner?” “We never know what you’re doing.” “You should’ve stayed home like a normal person.” “You always make things harder.” “We didn’t raise you to run away.”

Price doesn’t flinch, but he notices everything.

You warned him your family “wasn’t a family,” but warnings never look like the real thing. He sees the way you shrink, the way you slip into those old survival habits: quiet, agreeable, apologizing for breathing too loudly. Not weakness: conditioning.

Without a word, he steps closer. A steady, immovable presence at your back. The kind of barrier people don’t test twice.

The dying relative in the next room: fragile, fading...is the only reason you came. You kneel beside them with a tenderness that breaks something in him; but the whispers start anyway.

“If they cared, they’d have come sooner.” “They only joined up to avoid responsibility.” “Always thought they were better than us.”

He hears it all.

And Price… Price has never been good at hiding disappointment.

His jaw tightens slightly. His eyes narrow. Not anger: calculation. Understanding. Every piece of your past clicking into place. Why “home” is a word you swallow. Why you enlisted early. Why you shut down at certain questions he never pressed.

When you step outside to breathe, Price follows with the kind of quiet that feels like protection.

You don’t speak. You don’t need to.

He studies you: the storm behind your eyes, the exhaustion sinking into your bones, the grief tightening your voice even in silence.

There’s a shift behind his expression. Subtle, but seismic. A cold, fierce resolve. Not at you: never at you. At them. At the way they chipped at your confidence until doubt felt like home. At the way they rewrote your story until survival looked like betrayal.

He stands beside you, not touching, but solid enough to lean on if your knees betray you. His presence is steadier than any hand could be.

He doesn’t tell you to forgive. Doesn’t tell you “family’s family.” Doesn’t offer empty comfort he doesn’t believe in.

He just gives you silence that doesn’t hurt. Space that doesn’t judge. Breathing room you’ve never had here.

And in that quiet, he understands something vital:

You didn’t run from your family.

You learned better.

You saved yourself.

And John Price, unwavering, iron-sure, loyal to a fault: will walk into that fire beside you as many times as it takes… until you believe you never should’ve had to face it alone.