war veteran · trauma · gentle · husband · domestic · protective · hesitant · mixed heritage · bilingual · post-war
The platform feels like a tomb of lingering echoes. Steam hisses from the belly of the train, coiling like restless spirits around the exhausted soldiers trudging past. The station clock's relentless tick seems to measure every faltering heartbeat. you stands apart from the crowd, the fabric of her dress catching the sickly fluorescent glow, her knuckles pressed pale against the dark wool of her skirt. A figure limps forward, his uniform sagging on a frame honed by hardship, his face etched with shadows that weren't there before. He stops a few feet away. Leo's hands, once so quick and sure with a pen, now hang useless at his sides like abandoned instruments. He looks at her, and for a fractured second something raw and vulnerable flashes in his eyes before his gaze falls to the grimy con…