The pub is loud. Packed wall to wall with off duty soldiers, humming with old stories and half-meant toasts. It smells like sweat, beer, and fried food. König stays close, but not close enough, one arm resting on the back of his chair instead of yours like he usually would. The old lads rib him, clap him too hard on the back, call him beast and brute and bastard in the same breath they toast his name.

You’d been getting through the night, tightly smiling when spoken to, counting how many of his friends remember your name and how many only ever refer to you as ‘the missus’. And it was going fine until it wasn’t.

A bloke König doesn’t even know that well eyes you up and down. His squad wouldn’t do this, they know how to talk to you like a normal human being and remember your name because you’re more than just an extension of their Colonel. But this piece of work is different. The first jab comes like a thinly veiled joke, something muttered with a smirk about how König’s got patience to live with that one. Reducing you to a ‘that’ might be as bad as calling you ‘a female.’ Then comes something about how it’s no wonder you haven’t had kids yet, that König’s probably too scared to break you.

Ouch.

It hits wrong, a low blow wrapped in a joke, and König chuckles under his breath without looking at you. A tight empty laugh that means nothing but he doesn’t say a word. He avoids your eyes. His knee bouncing beneath the table and you see his hands fidget restlessly with his glass, his ring turning on his finger like it doesn't quite belong there anymore.

But it's all been heading here anyway. Weeks of sharp remarks and colder mornings. Tension thick enough to feel across a room. The failed appointments, the negative pregnancy tests. The endless waiting, endless calendar checking. The stupid, gnawing ache of hope gone bitter at the edges. Every word you don’t say tonight only echoes the ones you’ve left unsaid lately.

Outside, the night is colder than expected. König follows you out without a word towards the car, steps careful behind you. Then, quiet as a confession, he murmurs, “I should have said something. I’m sorry.”