This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Iveron_ on 2025-06-26 18:54:32+00:00.
It’s a short story, but if you read it, please read it all the way to the end, it’ll make sense.
After the war, the ship landed quiet.
Steel on steel, the kind of sound you feel in your knees.
He walked down the ramp, head low, bag on shoulder.
Crowds stood behind the fence. Faces close, hopeful, tired.
Some held signs, some flowers, some nothing.
He looked at them without stopping.
Then he turned, glanced back at the ship, maybe one last time.
A woman leaned toward him, a cloth apron tied at her waist.
“Need more coffee?” she asked, already reaching for the pot.
The cup in front of him was chipped near the rim.
There was music playing low, and someone was coughing near the door.
A fan spun lazily on the ceiling, ticking with each turn.
She poured without waiting for an answer, steam curling in the yellow light.
Outside, rain tapped against the window.
He watched it for a moment, not really thinking.
She smiled and moved on to the next table.
His hand rested near the cup but didn’t lift it.
The chair across from him was empty.
He stared at it, not moving, as if it might fill itself.
A breeze moved the trees, and she sat down across from him.
Her coat was too thin for the season.
She tucked her hands under her thighs and smiled like they’d been talking for hours already.
Birds called out above them, loud and invisible.
The bench creaked slightly under her weight.
Leaves shifted across the gravel path.
She crossed her legs, uncrossed them, then rested her elbows on her knees.
“I thought you’d say no,” she said.
He didn’t answer right away.
A child shouted somewhere in the distance, chasing nothing.
He looked at her shoes. Scuffed. Ordinary. Real.
The sun was low and gold, soft around the edges.
Someone was playing guitar nearby, badly but with heart.
“I almost did,” he replied.
She smiled wider this time, but not too wide.
“Why didn’t you?”
He shrugged, looking past her for a moment, into the trees, into something else.
“I don’t know,” he said.
And he meant it.
A pause held between them, warm and safe.
She reached over and flicked something off his sleeve.
He watched her hand as if he didn’t recognize it.
Then he was holding it.
Her fingers curled inside his palm, small and uncertain.
The sky behind her was different now, deeper, violet, touched with stars.
Streetlights flickered to life.
He raised her hand a little, slowly, like he was testing gravity.
“Will you marry, me?” he asked softly, not quite smiling.
The ring was already between his fingers.
He didn’t remember buying it.
He slid it on without ceremony.
It fit.
Her other hand came up to her mouth, but she didn’t speak.
Wind pushed through the trees behind them.
Somewhere, a car passed, headlights drifting by like ghosts.
They stood beneath a statue, he didn’t know what it was of.
She stepped forward and put her head against his chest.
He looked over her shoulder, into the nothing beyond the square.
She didn’t say yes.
She didn’t need to.
Her hand gripped his tighter, suddenly, sharply
a breath caught in her throat, the kind that doesn’t come from surprise but from pain.
The light above them was white now.
Too white. Too still.
Machines hummed somewhere behind the walls.
She was lying down.
He was kneeling beside her, his other hand on her forehead.
She was sweating, jaw clenched, eyes locked on nothing.
Someone said, “Almost there.”
He nodded, but no one had spoken to him.
Her hand crushed his fingers.
She screamed once, short and low.
Then it was over.
Just a sound, wet, new, impossible.
A cry, small and angry.
She let go of him, only then.
He stood there, not knowing when he had stood.
A nurse, or maybe a stranger, handed him the child.
Wrapped in white. Red-faced. Breathing.
He looked down and didn’t recognize his own eyes in the baby’s face.
But he smiled anyway.
She reached up, her fingers brushing the child’s cheek.
He viped cream from them,
sticky with icing.
He laughed with his mouth open, full of cake,
crown tilted sideways on a mop of sunlit hair.
The yard buzzed with quiet joy, paper streamers fluttering in the breeze.
She sat beside him at the table, one hand resting on her belly,
watching him tear through wrapping paper with wild delight.
The sun dappled through the trees, and shadows stretched slow across the lawn.
A toy train circled endlessly on its track.
Someone turned up the radio.
Neighbors clapped. A dog barked twice and was never seen again.
He stood at the edge of the porch,
holding a half-deflated balloon and a plastic cup of lukewarm juice,
watching his son run, trip, get up again,
laughing like he had never fallen.
She looked over her shoulder and said,
“He doesn’t stop, does he?”
He shook his head and smiled,
but his eyes never left the boy.
And the world, like breath between sentences,
held still for just one more second.
“Just one more!” someone yelled,
and her whole body pushed against the bed,
teeth bared, eyes shut tight.
The room smelled of sweat and bleach and too much light.
He was beside her again, gripping her hand like it could hold the world together.
The nurse moved fast, too fast, no face, just motion.
The cry came smaller this time, softer, but still sharp enough to cut the silence.
She collapsed into the pillow, trembling.
The doctor smiled, he thought it was the doctor,
and said something, but he didn’t hear it.
A second baby. A girl.
Wrapped and warm and red-faced.
Her tiny hand opened and closed like she was already dreaming.
He looked at her,
then at the boy’s empty chair in the corner.
He had forgotten how small they start.
She turned her head, sweat in her hair, and whispered,
“She’s early.”
He nodded.
She wasn’t.
She was right on time.
“Just right on time,” he said again,
his voice quieter now,
hands folded in his lap, suit slightly wrinkled,
the weight of years sitting with him on the church steps.
The bell hadn’t rung yet.
The wind played with flower petals along the walkway,
lifting them like memories.
He looked up as the door creaked open.
She stood there, veiled and glowing, her arm looped through his.
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to.
He rose slowly, knees stiff,
and took her hand like he’d done a thousand times before.
The music started, low, trembling, unsure of itself.
They walked side by side,
her steps steady, his measured.
He stared straight ahead,
but felt her glance up at him once, just once.
The aisle stretched ahead, wide and golden,
lined with faces he almost recognized.
He blinked slowly,
and for a moment she was five again,
frosting on her cheeks, crown on her head.
He smiled, just enough to keep from crying.
They reached the altar.
He placed her hand in another’s.
And let go.
“Let it go!” a child shouted, somewhere close.
Laughter. Small feet pounding across the floor.
“Grandma, they’re running again!”
She was already standing, waving them toward the table.
“Come on, come on, it’s time.”
The chairs scraped gently across the floor.
He sat down last, hands folded, watching.
Plates clinked. Someone poured juice.
The cake was set down, slightly tilted, candles waiting.
A match flared. Orange light flickered across familiar faces.
His grandson leaned in, eyes wide, “Make a wish, Grandpa.”
He smiled.
Everyone smiled.
He drew a breath,
leaned in…
SIREN.
A cold AI voice blured.
“All units. Prepare for combat reintegration. Five hours to frontline.”
His eyes opened.
Blue light. Cold air. Metal walls.
The hiss of the crono pod releasing.
Fluid drained around his boots.
His hand moved slowly to his face.
Fingers pressed into his eyes, wiped nothing away.
He sat there for a long time.
Then said,
“I hate crono pods.”
A pause. A breath.
“The dreams are way too long… and way too real.”