“Stateside transfer.”
Marcus studied him half a second longer than most officers would have dared. “Medical?”
Mac held his gaze. “That’s what it’ll look like.”
Marcus accepted the answer without pushing.
“Well,” Marcus said, “Diaz is covering the afternoon convoy brief. Banks is still fighting with supply over those radio batteries, and Kessler wants to know if we’re actually getting the replacement trucks or if brigade’s just telling stories again.”
Normal problems.
“Beautifully normal.”
Mac nodded. “I’ll handle Kessler.”
Marcus hesitated before saying, “You look like hell.”
Mac almost smiled. “Feel like it.”
Marcus pushed himself off the wall. “Get some rack time, XO.”
Mac shook his head. “Not yet.”
Marcus studied him another second, then let it go.
Mac turned back toward the TOC before the silence could become a question.
The next few days fell back into the familiar rhythm of the base, though Hayes’ absence left a gap everyone pretended not to notice.
Battalion had already pushed the explanation down the chain: Hayes had been pulled home on emergency leave after a Red Cross message came in. It was the kind of answer that ended questions without really inviting more.
Convoy briefs in the mornings. Maintenance checks that always took longer than planned. Reports rewritten because battalion wanted different language than they had the week before.
Diaz kept the platoons moving with quiet competence. Banks swore inventively at broken equipment and somehow coaxed it back to life anyway. Kessler treated arguments with higher headquarters like a competitive event he intended to win.
Marcus carried more than his share of the command load without being asked.
Mac noticed. He always noticed.
But something in him kept reaching for a presence that wasn’t there. Melvin should have been beside him at the map board. Instead there was only empty space. Mac felt it every time he turned to speak, the expectation rising before he could stop it. The certainty that Melvin would be there. The realization that he wasn’t settled quietly but neverlightly. The distance sat wrong in his chest in a way he couldn’t explain. A low ache that followed him through the day and lingered into the quiet hours of the night when nothing else distracted him.
It wasn’t loneliness. Loneliness left room to breathe.
This didn’t.
He caught himself checking the time without meaning to, glancing at his watch in the middle of briefings or halfway through paperwork. They had only spoken briefly after the transfer, long enough for Melvin to tell him where he was. New York. He was safe.
The calculation came automatically now, Iraq to New York. The quiet arithmetic of distance measured in hours and darkness. Sometimes he wondered whether Melvin was asleep or awake. Whether the city noise outside his hotel window had faded into that thin silence before morning. Whether he had eaten or simply worked until exhaustion caught him.
None of it was worry exactly. Mac knew Melvin could take care of himself.
What unsettled him was how naturally the thoughts came, as if some part of him refused to accept that Melvin existed beyond the reach of his senses. Again and again he would turn, half-formed words already in his mind, expecting to find him there. Boots passed in the corridor outside and Mac’s attention snapped up on instinct before he forced it back down.
The space stayed empty. Every time.
He told himself it was habit. Working side by side for too long under too much pressure. But the explanation felt thin even to him. The wolf felt it more clearly.
It wasn’t agitation or hunger.
