Mornings used to come gently.

Sunlight draped itself across curtains he’d insisted on, because “darlin’, if we’re doin’ mornings, we might as well do ‘em right.” He bought them like a man who’d never needed anything soft in his life before you: installed them himself, grumbling about the alignment, but kissed your hair when you teased him, murmuring, “Ain’t nothin’ worth doin’ half-assed.”

He always woke first. Shadow-1 or not, soldier or not, Graves had mornings for you, and mornings for himself, and for the brief hours in between, he was just a man leaning over you with that faint, private smile that softened the edges of a world full of orders and shadows.

Coffee hissed and brewed, black as sin, strong as him. A playlist shuffled gently through the kitchen: something he called “classics, sugar” while you staggered in half-asleep, wrapped in one of his shirts, hair in revolt, eyes blinking the sleep out, and he turned as if he’d never seen daylight quite like this before.

He’d kiss you slow.

Slow because mornings were sacred. Slow because he had a sense of ceremony. Slow because he wanted you to know, without saying a word, that nothing outside these walls mattered.

Dance first, breakfast second. He grinned shyly at the absurdity of it, but he learned the steps: careful, deliberate, cowboy twirl included, hands brushing against yours like he was holding the only thing in the world he couldn’t afford to lose.

His laugh rumbled low, a rich, warm vibration that filled the kitchen as he spun you gently, forehead resting against yours, hands lingering on small, sacred places. He smelled faintly of pipe tobacco, cedar soap, and summer nights on the veranda: the kind of warmth you never wanted to leave.

You didn’t know a moment could become a memory while you were still inside it.

Then the knock came.

Quiet. Polite. Efficient. The kind that spoke before it broke you.

A folded American flag. Dog tags laid precisely. His ring: a heavy thing, polished and scratched just enough to show it was lived-in, looped around the chain.

“Graves didn’t make it back.”

The house stood silent. The air refused to move. Your body froze, grasping for a man who had mastered everything except staying alive.

They spoke. You heard nothing. Your thoughts spiraled back to mornings: the way he poured the coffee for you first the way he guided you in that ridiculous dance the way he whispered your name like it was the only name that mattered, even when the world demanded obedience elsewhere

The world didn’t end, but it dimmed.

Lights too sharp. Rooms cavernous. Floors too cold.

His boots still by the door. His hat on the coat rack, brim facing the wrong way like he’d just stepped out for a minute. His mug, half-empty, waiting for him to sip and grumble about the strength of the coffee.

You still play his playlist. Even the ones that make you laugh at the anachronism. Especially those.

Sometimes you look to the doorway, expecting that quiet smirk, the slow blink, the drawl of a voice that could calm storms: “Mornin’, sugar.”

You start dancing again.

Not for joy. Not for closure.

But because your body remembers the warmth of his hands. The careful, deliberate sway of someone built to command and protect, who only let down the steel long enough to love.

Hands brush the air where his should be. Your chest aches. The floor beneath you is cold, but your memory is warm.

Some days… there’s no music.

Just the sound of your breath and the memory of a Southern drawl humming quietly, guiding your movements.

You close your eyes. You sway. And for a heartbeat, you almost feel him resting his chin on your shoulder, fingers threading through yours like he never wanted to let go.

You keep dancing anyway. Because loving Graves was living in a moment of stolen peace before a storm. And remembering him is the only way you honor the man who made you his calm before the world called him back to shadows.