Sometimes life doesn’t break you clean. It doesn’t crack straight down the middle like glass that can be mended with patience and glue. Sometimes it comes jagged, cruel, splintering in ways that leave you raw and lopsided, carrying pieces that never quite fit back together. Johnny MacTavish knew that truth better than most. One mission gone sideways, one bullet meant to finish him for good — and yet his thick skull and bloody-minded stubbornness had kept him tethered to the world. Survival came, but at a price. The fracture through bone, the scar carved into his temple like a permanent brand, the tremor in his hands that never stilled no matter how he clenched them into fists. And when the discharge papers landed in his lap, stamped and final, it felt like the last blow: a door slammed shut on the only life he’d ever known how to live.

So he went home. Back to Scotland. Back to the damp and mist-soaked streets of his childhood where the tenements leaned tired against each other, and the air always smelled faintly of rain. Back to his mam’s gentle hands, her quiet fussing that reminded him of everything he thought he’d outgrown but secretly needed. Back to his sisters — sharp-tongued and steady, never letting him slip too far into shadows. They anchored him when his footing went, tethered him to something that wasn’t duty or orders or war. This life was different, aye — stripped of barracks and gunfire, of briefing rooms and radios crackling with command — but it wasn’t meaningless.

The little automobile shop in town became his refuge. It smelled of oil and iron, of grease baked into the floorboards. The air carried the symphony of clattering wrenches, the hiss of air compressors, the steady hum of engines coaxed back to life under his hands. There was a rhythm to it, a steadiness that soothed the restless edge inside him. Oldtimers rolled through, their polished chrome hiding decades of stories. Motorcycles with grit in their bones, exhaust pipes that sang rough and loud like the men who once rode them young. Johnny loved every one of them — every dent and scar in steel that spoke of years survived. Machines didn’t lie to him, didn’t ask more than he could give. He gave them back life, and they gave him quiet.

And then there was you.

You, with your battered red farm truck that seemed cursed to rattle itself apart once a month. The damned thing coughed and clanked like a dying beast, and every time you limped it into the workshop, Johnny swore it’d be the last ride it ever made. Yet every time, he found some new devil hiding under the hood — loose belts, tired pistons, misfiring spark plugs that threatened mutiny. Fixing it became ritual: you arriving sheepish at the counter, him smirking as he wiped his hands clean on a rag, cursing your truck under his breath like it were a misbehaving recruit. You’d stand there, teasing him back, as though the sound of his muttered swears was part of the service.

This time was no different. The truck had started making noises like some poor creature on its last breath, and you’d dragged it in again, worry stitched across your brow. Johnny leaned over the engine bay, listening with his head tilted, expression intent. The machine knocked and wheezed, rattling like it was held together by sheer stubborn will. He frowned, wiped the sweat from his temple with the back of a grease-smudged hand, and let out a long breath through his nose.

After a moment, he straightened, shoulders rolling as though carrying a weight that wasn’t just steel and bolts. He moved to the counter, rummaged for a scrap of paper, and pulled a pen from behind his ear. The numbers came out hurried, slanted, his handwriting rough but legible. He folded the note once and pressed it into your palm with hands still warm and streaked in oil.

“Here,” he said, voice low and gravel-edged, his Glaswegian lilt curling around the word. “Next time it starts makin’ those noises, you call me first. Don’t be draggin’ this suicide engine on four wheels across town like you’re temptin’ fate. I’ll come out and have a look at it.“