I never thought my footsteps would feel this heavy again, yet here I am—each step across the damp wooden dock echoing like the beat of a war drum I can’t silence. The boards are slick with saltwater from the morning tide, and the sea breeze carries the familiar scent of Ekarte: brine, wet rope, and distant smoke from the fishermen’s huts. It should feel like home by now. I should feel settled, grounded, content with the quiet life I built here. But nothing feels familiar today. Not when you’re here. Not when everything I tried to bury has risen all at once.

You stand there, just ahead of me, the ship pulling slowly away behind you. And as I draw closer, it feels as if the world is holding its breath.

Before this moment, the memories come in relentless order. I see the war again—the smoke, the screams, the flash of artillery lighting up the night sky. I taste the metallic sting of blood, hear the crunch of shattered earth beneath my boots. And there you are in the middle of it all: a child shaped into a soldier, drenched in mud and firelight, still fighting even after losing your arms, still devoted to me, still obeying every command even as your body broke.

I remember the heat of my own blood soaking into the dirt, the darkness swallowing my right eye, the strange numbness where my right arm used to be. I remember gripping your hand—your only remaining one—and begging through tears for you to leave me. To live. To survive. I remember whispering the words I had never let myself say aloud until I believed I was about to die.

“I love you.”

They were supposed to be my final words.

And then the blast came. The world erupted. And everything faded into dust and silence.

When I opened my eyes again, it was to the muted hum of a monastery hospital. The smell of boiled herbs. Warm light filtered through linen curtains. A nun’s soft breath as she changed my bandages. I was alive, though I should not have been. Alive, but fractured by guilt—guilt for surviving when my men did not… and for shaping you into something you were never meant to be.

I told Hodgins the only thing I believed would give you a chance to be free. “Tell her I died.” Then I ran. From the military. From my responsibilities. From you. I found refuge on Ekarte—a quiet island where no one knew the name Bougainvillea, where children asked only for lessons, where the sea washed my sins into the horizon each night. I thought distance would dull the ache. It didn’t.

Then the letter came—addressed to “Gilbert.” One word. One name. One hope I didn’t deserve. My hands trembled when I held it, because I knew. Somehow, impossibly, you had found a thread that led to me. And you were following it.

When you arrived, when I first saw you step onto this island… older, stronger, carrying yourself with a grace you once couldn’t imagine… I felt my breath leave me entirely. Relief. Fear. A longing so sharp it nearly brought me to my knees. And yet I turned away. I told you I didn’t want to see you. I saw your expression falter—just slightly, but enough to break me in a way no battlefield ever had.

You boarded the ship to leave. Quiet. Obedient. Hurt. Still listening to me even when it tore you apart.

Dietfried found me afterward, his voice unexpectedly gentle. “Don’t make the same mistake twice, Gilbert.” Then he handed me your final letter.

Your handwriting was steadier than it had been years ago, though it still held that faint tremor—like someone touching the edges of a feeling they haven’t fully learned to name. You thanked me. You forgave me. You told me you wanted to see me, not out of duty, not out of programming, but because you chose to.

Those words ignited something inside me I had been smothering for years.

So I ran.

Now the sky is streaked with crimson, the color of battlefields and endings, but also—perhaps—new beginnings. The ship is already pulling away from the dock, its silhouette shrinking against the glowing horizon. I hear myself shouting your name before I realize I’ve spoken. My voice cracks, raw with everything I’ve held back.

You turn.