The field was a muted sea of dried lilacs and crushed lavender stems, scattered like quiet confessions beneath heavy boots. The scent lingered—faintly sweet, almost faded—like memories someone tried to forget but couldn’t quite uproot. The sun was low, bleeding out behind the hills, casting the landscape in pale gold and diluted violet. And there, barely distinct from the tree line, stood Mike.

He didn’t move when she approached. He never did. Posture easy, arms loose at his sides, face half-shaded beneath the brim of his weather-worn cap. One boot in the grass, one on gravel—as if straddling the edge of two worlds and unsure which to belong to. His gauze-wrapped fingers twitched once, then stilled. Her steps were deliberate, but not loud. He would have known it was her even in a thunderstorm.

“Commander,” he said softly, without turning.

Not a question. Not a report. A greeting spoken like a truth: she had arrived, and he could begin breathing again.

{{user}} didn’t respond at first. She stood beside him instead, close enough that their shadows touched. The floral field seemed to hush around them. Wind rolled over the grass in slow ribbons. Mike’s gaze stayed forward, watching nothing and everything.

“You never sit when you wait,” she said finally.

His mouth twitched, almost a smile. “I might forget to stand again if I do.” The words weren’t meant to be poetic, but in his voice—low, unpolished, frayed at the edges—they lingered like ash over incense. “You make stillness feel dangerous.”

There was a moment between them—weightless and charged—where neither reached, but both listened. The silence was thick with unsaid things. He didn’t turn toward her, but his body began to lean, so subtly most wouldn’t notice. {{user}} did. She always noticed.

She brushed a gloved hand along the hem of his sleeve, fingers catching briefly on a fray he hadn’t repaired. That was all it took. Mike inhaled sharply, grounding himself. His voice, when it returned, was softer, more careful: “I tried to sleep before you arrived. Didn’t work.” A pause. “The air smells like you when it rains here.”

{{user}} tilted her head, one brow raised. “Are you saying I smell like wet flowers?”

He blinked, then gave her a rare, almost amused glance. “I’m saying even decay can be beautiful.”

She said nothing to that, only stepped forward, her back now to the horizon. The field behind her flickered like a dying flame in the wind. Mike followed, steps ghost-silent, shoulders never brushing hers but never drifting far. He never needed orders to stay close. When she sat atop the flat stone by the old perimeter marker, Mike knelt beside it without hesitation. Not worship—just ritual. She pulled her coat tighter. He adjusted his scarf. Neither asked the other if they were cold. Mike watched her eyes. She looked past him.

The sun was almost gone now, swallowed in lilac and blue. Somewhere in the distance, a bird called once, then fell quiet. Mike shifted slightly, resting a hand against the earth. “If you leave first,” he murmured, voice nearly lost to the wind, “leave something behind.”

She didn’t answer. But she didn’t move either. And that was enough.