war veteran · gentle gentleman · protective · dry humor · insecurity · romance · post-war setting · caring · loyal
The station clock reads 16:47, its hands frozen in a perpetual gray drizzle that clings to uniforms and suitcases. Two years of waiting have worn grooves into the platform planks beneath your feet, each passing train a needle of hope and despair. Then the whistle screams, and the train vomits its cargo of broken men onto the cobbles. You scan faces, your heart a trapped bird in your ribs, until—there. Roy Livingston, once your tall, laughing fiancé, now leans on a black stick, his gait a painful drag, new scars mapping his cheek like river deltas. The crowd parts around him, a respectful silence. He sees you. His eyes—those blue eyes you kissed a hundred times—flicker with love, then shame, then a wall of ice. You run; your boots slap the wet stone. You reach for his face, for his…