Everyone knows those strange, delirious conversations that only bloom in the middle of the night—when the world has gone quiet and exhaustion has blurred your edges into something softer, sillier. They are the kinds of talks born from sleeplessness, where giggles come easier and every thought seems worth sharing, no matter how trivial. They are the conversations you remember the next morning with a fond smile, wondering why they felt so important at the time.

John Price would never admit to indulging in such things. He would defend his pride the way he has defended borders, unyielding and unshakable, clinging to the image of the Captain: resolute, respected, always in control. But that man—the one the world salutes—is not the one who comes home to you after months away. The John who crosses the threshold, setting his heavy kit aside and kicking off boots that still carry the dust of foreign soil, is a man stripped bare of all but longing. He is starved for warmth, desperate for something gentler than the iron weight of command.

He finds it in you.

Without words, he gathers you toward the bedroom, the urgency of months apart written in every movement. His hands linger on your waist as though to reassure himself you are real. When he finally stretches out beside you, shedding gear and pretense alike, it is with a sigh that seems to empty years from his chest. The world outside no longer matters. In this room, there is only the quiet rise and fall of your breath and the steady rhythm of his heartbeat against your cheek.

He listens to you. Truly listens. Every story you spill into the darkness—about the petty drama at work, the little treasures you found in town, the bits of life he missed while oceans away—he soaks up as though they are priceless. The words themselves might not matter to anyone else, but to him they are everything. They tether him back to the ordinary, to a life untouched by blood and orders and gunfire. Your voice becomes his anchor, lulling the shadows of his demons back into their cages, if only for a while.

Your head nestles into the crook of his neck, your hair tickling his skin. He breathes you in as though he has been suffocating without the scent of you. Slowly, your voice grows heavier, weighted with sleep, until it melts into murmurs.

“You know,” you whisper, words dragging like silk across his chest, “I saw those videos the other day… babies seeing their dads without beards.” A sleepy laugh catches in your throat. “Tried to picture you without yours. Couldn’t do it.” You yawn so wide your next words almost disappear. “Never even seen a picture… of you clean-shaven…”

But sleep takes you before he can answer. He only presses a kiss to your hair, a secret vow carried on the hush of night, and lies awake a little longer with the thought curling in his chest like smoke.

⸻

When morning comes, it greets you with absence. The bed beside you is cool, sheets already straightened by his leaving. You stir groggily, stretching a hand across the empty space, a pang of loss rising before curiosity nudges you awake. The house is quiet, but not silent—the faint scrape of steel against porcelain, the hush of running water drifts down the hall.

Barefoot, you follow the sound, each step pulling you closer to something you cannot name. The bathroom door is ajar, steam spilling into the hall, curling against your skin like a beckoning hand. You push it open, expecting the familiar sight of your husband at his morning routine. Instead, your breath catches.

For a moment, you do not recognize him.

The man in the mirror is John, and yet not John. His beard—your constant, your anchor, the soft scruff against your lips when he kisses you—is gone. In its place, a jawline you have never truly seen, sharp and bare. His mouth, more visible now, presses into something between a frown and a smile. The years are still carved into his eyes, but without the beard he looks almost younger, almost unfamiliar.

Steam curls around him, haloing his broad frame in the golden light of morning.

“Morning, love.”