By the time the base settled into night, Mac found himself walking toward the company offices again.
Melvin followed him down the hall without comment.
Mac unlocked the door to the XO’s office. The room smelled faintly of paper, dust, and old gear. Beneath it all, he caught the faint trace of his own scent.
“You think it’s going to feel real?” Melvin asked. “When we’re not in uniform all the time?”
Mac considered that. The wolf inside him had spent a year measuring territory in barriers and patrol routes. Now the space ahead felt wide.
“I think it’s going to feel possible.”
Melvin nodded once.
Neither of them reached for the other. It wasn’t necessary. Their presence had always been the most real thing in the room, and now the war wasn’t in the way. For a little while they just stood there in the quiet.
The Army had a way of turning the end of a war into paperwork.
Mac spent the next two days moving through a quiet maze of it. Medical checks. Gear turn-in. Counseling briefings in rooms that smelled like floor cleaner and burnt coffee. The language was always the same. Take your time readjusting. Expect sleep disruption. Reach out if you need support.
Mac sat through most of it with Melvin beside him, both nodding at the right moments, signing where they were told.
Outside the buildings the base looked almost unreal. Trees where there should have been Hesco barriers. Sidewalks instead of packed dust. Even the wolf inside him seemed uncertain what to do with the quiet. On the third morning Mac found himself back in Alpha Company’s motor pool.
Vehicles sat in neat rows waiting for maintenance cycles instead of convoy briefs. The silence carried none of the tight edge Iraq had held.
Melvin stood near the supply cage talking with Crawford when Mac walked up.
Crawford noticed him first and gave a low whistle. “Well look who finally decided to show his face.”
Mac leaned against the cage beside them. “Medical had me convinced I was dying for about twelve hours.”
“Standard procedure,” Crawford said. “If they can’t find anything wrong with you, they invent something.”
Melvin’s mouth twitched.
The wolf inside Mac settled as he took in the people around him. Familiar faces. Familiar ground.
Crawford’s eyes moved between them, lingering for a moment longer than necessary. Not on the ring. On the quiet gravity between them. “Well,” he said dryly. “About damn time.”
Melvin huffed a quiet laugh. “You’re late to the party.”
Crawford shook his head. “No. I just didn’t feel the need to interrupt it.”
Mac frowned. “Interrupt what?”
Crawford gestured between them. “Whatever the hell that is.”
“I’ve seen bonded pairs before,” he said. “Different traditions. Same energy.”
Melvin raised an eyebrow. “Energy?”
“Witch thing.”
Mac crossed his arms. “That supposed to make me feel better?”
“It should. Means the two of you stopped pretending.” Then Crawford’s expression softened.
“For what it’s worth,” Crawford said, “most of the company knew.”
