Melvin nodded. “She kept it all these years. Said it belonged with you now.”
Mac stared at the words longer than he meant to.
Under the frame sat the second item, smaller and softer. Mac picked it up and turned it once in his hand, the worn rubber and squeaker inside giving a faint chirp.
“A dog toy?” Mac turned it again, the squeak muffled beneath his fingers. The edge of a smile tugged at his mouth before he let it show.
Melvin settled beside him on the bunk, watching the reaction. “She said every place needs something normal in it.”
Mac rolled the word around in his head a moment, thumb pressing absently into the worn plastic. “Normal,” he said quietly. “That what we’re calling this now?”
Melvin’s mouth curved faintly. “Closest thing we’ve got.”
Mac glanced over at him, something lighter in his expression than it had been in days. “Could’ve sent a ball of yarn.”
Melvin huffed a laugh. “Wrong animal.”
“Still might keep you busy,” Mac said. “Long shifts. Limited entertainment.”
“You’d just trip over it and blame me.”
“Only if it showed up on a supply inventory,” Mac said. “Unaccounted-for yarn ball. I’d have to open an investigation.”
The joke settled between them, quiet but genuine. For a moment the room felt less like a place where everything had to be guarded and more like something shared.
Mac looked back down at the toy, turned it once more, then set it carefully beside the framed poem on the desk. He nudged it into placewith a small adjustment, like the position mattered more than he’d ever admit.
“Tell her thanks,” he said after a moment.
Melvin studied him. “For the toy?”
Mac shook his head slightly. “For the reminder.”
Melvin didn’t ask what he meant. He didn’t have to.
After a moment, Mac bent forward slightly, studying the ground between his boots. “Funny thing,” he said quietly. “I didn’t realize how tight everything felt until something like that showed up.” He gestured faintly toward the desk. “Like a piece of a normal life making its way in whether we planned for it or not.”
Melvin leaned back against the wall, shoulder brushing Mac’s. “You don’t have to earn every inch of ground,” he said quietly.
Mac didn’t answer right away, but some of the tension in his shoulders eased.
“Still feels like I do.”
Melvin nodded once. “Maybe. But not alone.”
Mac looked at him then, steady and searching.
“Yeah,” Mac said finally. “Not alone.”
The words settled into the room alongside the framed poem and the worn rubber toy, ordinary things that made the space feel less temporary. Outside, the base carried on, engines idling somewhere in the motor pool and a distant radio crackling through the night.
And for the first time since the trouble with Laird had started, Mac looked like a man who might actually rest.
Chapter 26 - Melvin
They didn’t get many nights off-duty at the same time. Briefings, patrols, reports, someone always needing something. But tonight, by chance or quiet design, they both had the evening free.
The sun had just started sinking when Melvin found Mac leaning against the wire fence behind the comms building, hands in his pockets, gaze fixed on the dusty horizon. The light outlined him in a soft edge and threw his shadow long across the gravel.
