(Days later, Kadena AFB; Japan Elaine Mercer POV)

  Elaine found him outside the medical building, sitting on a concrete barrier like he’d been dropped there and forgotten by the world.

  He didn’t hear her approach — or pretended not to.

  “You walked out,” she said.

  Dig didn’t look up. “They wanted imaging.”

  “Because you need imaging.”

  “I don’t,” he said. “It’ll heal.”

  Elaine stepped around in front of him until he had no choice but to see her. Rain from the BX roof dripped rhythmically behind them, punctuating her silence.

  “Dane,” she said. “Go inside.”

  His jaw flexed. “If they run the tests, they’ll pull me off flight duty. You know what that means.”

  “It means you’ll get treatment.”

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  “It means the end,” he said quietly. “You know it.”

  Elaine held his gaze, unblinking. She had packed too many chutes, taught too many aircrew, and watched too many young men pretend nothing hurt.

  “What happens,” she said softly, “if next time that knee gives out and someone else pays for it?”

  He looked away, jaw tightening.

  “That’s not fair.”

  “It’s not supposed to be fair,” she said. “It’s supposed to be true.”

  He closed his eyes, pain flickering across his face — not physical pain.

  “Why’d you have to pull that lever?” he whispered. “There were a dozen ways to push me. Why that one?”

  Her voice softened. “Because if that ever happened, if someone died because you tried to pretend you were fine, it would break you. And I love you too much to let that happen.”

  He stared at her then. Really stared. Like he was seeing a different future than the one he had imagined.

  She reached out, gently covered his hand with hers.

  “We have a life,” she said. “A good one. Maybe the Air Force stays part of it, maybe it doesn’t. But you? I need you alive. I need you whole. And whatever retirement looks like — it’s a far better future than watching you become a man who hates himself for something he couldn’t control.”

  For a long moment, neither of them moved.

  Then Dig let out a slow breath — the kind that comes from somewhere deep in the soul.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Okay?”

  “Yeah.” He stood, winced as his knee stiffened. “Let’s go in.”

  Elaine walked beside him, matching his pace without comment. At the clinic door, he hesitated.

  She touched his arm — warm, steady, certain.

  “You’re not doing this alone,” she said.

  He nodded once, opened the door, and they stepped inside.

  Together.