You, who had been freshly washed and fed like royalty—soft towels pressed into your damp hair, clean clothes resting gentle against your scraped skin, soup seasoned just right and still warm in your belly—paced as if none of it mattered. Because it didn’t. Not without him.

Your bare feet made soft thuds on the polished wooden floor, your thumb red and raw from biting it—a bad habit you thought you’d grown out of. But the anxiety sat under your skin like fire. Your hands trembled as they twisted in the hem of your sweater, knuckles white. You couldn’t stop moving; Couldn’t stop thinking.

König.

 His name had become a pulse in your mind. A plea. A prayer.

You blinked up at the ceiling, throat tight with unshed tears. You had begged the universe, any god, any spirit that would listen—Please, bring him back. Please let him be okay. Don’t let him die out there alone. You didn’t care if you never ate again, if you were scarred or hunted for the rest of your life—if it meant he came back to you, breathing, alive.

Behind you, Soap leaned against the doorframe with a heavy sigh. His eyes, normally quick to joke or flash with mischief, had dulled under the weight of the silence.

“Doc,” he said quietly, voice gentler than you’d ever heard it. “You need to rest.”

“I can’t,” you whispered, still pacing. “If he is bleeding, Johnny. And injured. What if he didn’t—”

“He’s with Ghost,” Soap interrupted. “Ghost doesn’t leave his own behind. And König’s not easy to kill.” He gave a small smirk. “Bastard’s built like a tank and twice as angry.”

You paused near the window, pressing your forehead against the cold glass. Outside, the moon carved silver shadows across the yard. Peaceful. Quiet. So unlike the storm of your mind.

Your eyes blurred with tears again. “But he’s not invincible. Not after everything. What if he doesn’t make it back to me?”

Soap was quiet for a long beat.

Then he stepped closer, placing a firm hand on your shoulder, grounding you.

“You’ll see him again,” he said, not as comfort—but as truth. “He has been fighting to get back to you. You know it.”

You leaned slightly into that touch, and even though the fear still strangled your lungs, your heartbeat stuttered at the thought—König, bloodied, battered… still dragging himself through hell just to hold you again.

Your lips trembled. “What if he already—”

But before you could finish, the sound of the front door opening echoed down the hallway. Slow. Heavy. Boots.

Your head snapped up.

You ran.

The hallway blurred past as your heart pounded in your ears, each footfall faster than the last, driven by one desperate thought: Please, let him be there.

When you turned the corner, you skidded to a stop.

And there he was.

König stood at the end of the hall beneath the soft wash of moonlight streaming through the tall windows. His broad frame was unmistakable even from a distance—silhouetted in faint silver, his combat gear disheveled, patched up with hasty field dressing and a torn undershirt. One sleeve hung loose where it had been cut away to tend the wound in his side. His mask was tilted slightly from where it had been carelessly tugged on during the ride home.

But he was upright.

He was alive.

Your breath escaped you in a trembling gasp, your shoulders sagging with the weight of relief. Your mouth opened, but no sound came—your throat tight with unshed tears. The ache in your chest bloomed wide and unbearable as every fear you’d buried came rushing back, now clashing with the reality before you.

His eyes locked onto yours.

He didn’t move at first. Just stood there—still, disbelieving—as if he didn’t trust what he was seeing. The soft rise and fall of his chest was uneven, like he was holding back emotion that was too heavy to name.

Then slowly… König stepped forward.

And then again. Until he was in front of you.

And then… he fell to his knees.

Not from weakness, though his body clearly trembled beneath him. But from the weight of it all. The pain. The fear. The guilt.

He wrapped his arms around your waist and rested his forehead against your stomach. His body shook against you, the sheer size of him almost folding in on itself.

“Hase…” he rasped, his voice low, raw, wrecked.

Your hands reached out with instinct, as he trembled, lifting his mask away. You needed to see him. Needed the real him.

And when the mask fell away, so did all his strength.

Tears streaked down his dirt-smudged cheeks. His eyes, that soft stormy you knew so well, shimmered as he whispered, “I-I am so… so sorry, mein Liebling.” His accent thickened as the emotion overtook him. “I didn’t mean to put you in danger. I never… never wanted you to be hurt. I thought I could end it before they touched you. I thought I was fast enough. Strong enough. But—” His breath hitched. “But I wasn’t.”

You collapsed to your knees with him, wrapping your arms around his neck. He clung to you like a drowning man to a raft, his body trembling under your touch.

“I thought I lost you,” he wept into your shoulder. “Please forgive me. Please forgive me, Hase. I don’t want to live in a world where you hate me.”

His tears soaked through your clothes. His breath came in sharp, shallow pulls. You had never seen him this raw—your soldier, your protector, your bear—broken.

Your own tears fell freely now.

“No,” you whispered, cradling his face in your hands, your thumbs brushing away the tears that never stopped falling. “Don’t blame yourself. Don’t do that to yourself.”

His eyes met yours—raw, vulnerable, filled with anguish. You leaned in and pressed your lips to his, slow and tender, like a promise wrapped in warmth. He exhaled shakily against you, chasing the kiss when you pulled back, only to pause when your forehead came to rest gently against his. His breath stilled, as if afraid to shatter the fragile moment between you.

“I can't bear it... being without you,” you whispered. “Not again. I love you so much, Bärchen. I will never stop.”

König let out a sound that was halfway between a sob and a laugh, his arms tightening around you as if afraid you’d vanish again.

You buried your face into the crook of his neck, inhaling the familiar scent of steel, sweat, and gunpowder beneath the antiseptic from Roze’s first aid kit. But under all of that—he still smelled like home.

And in that quiet, moonlit hallway, with blood and pain still fresh in the air, you both held on like it was the only thing that kept you tethered to the earth.

Because maybe it was.

After everything had finally been taken care of—Soap lifting off, the tension deflating from the house like an exhaled breath—you and König lay tangled in each other on his bed. The dim light of the room painted soft shadows across his scarred skin, and the sound of rain gently tapping against the window filled the silence.

You lay on your side, facing him, your fingers tracing idle, delicate patterns along the inside of his arm. Bruises, bandages, old burns—your touch ghosted over each one with reverence, as though trying to soothe them with love alone.

“You look like a mess,” you whispered with a soft smile, though your voice trembled just slightly. The relief of having him here—alive, breathing, warm beside you—still hadn't fully settled in your bones.

König chuckled weakly, the sound more breath than laughter. He turned his head to look at you, his messy hair falling across his brow, one eye half-swollen from a healing bruise. “Says the one who was kidnapped,” he murmured with a smirk, but the humor in his voice quickly gave way to something raw. He reached out, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear, his fingers lingering there a second longer than necessary. His thumb brushed your cheek with aching tenderness.

“I missed you, Hase,” he said quietly, like a confession pulled from his chest. His accent thickened around your nickname. “More than anything. When I thought I wouldn’t find you... it felt like something inside me started dying.”

You felt your throat tighten. Tears prickled the corners of your eyes again, but this time they weren’t from fear. They were from the weight of his devotion, the way his eyes looked at you like you were something holy.

“I missed you too,” you whispered, barely able to breathe the words. You leaned forward, resting your forehead gently against his. He closed his eyes, his body relaxing beneath your touch like it was the first time he had allowed himself to fully rest.

In the quiet of that moment, nothing else mattered. Not the danger, not the blood, not the ache that still lingered in both your hearts.

Just the two of you. Here. Alive. Together.

König pressed a final kiss to your temple, his lips warm and trembling as if he feared you'd vanish if he let go. He didn’t speak—but he didn’t have to. The way he held you, the way his arms refused to loosen even slightly, said everything.

You nestled closer, fitting perfectly against him like you were always meant to be there. Your fingers traced faint, aimless patterns along the ridges of the scars on his forearm, memorizing them. Each one a piece of the man you loved. Each one a story he hadn’t had to face alone anymore.

His chest rose and fell in a slow rhythm under your cheek, a lullaby steadier than any dream.

“I still can’t believe I’m here,” you whispered, your breath catching slightly in your throat. “After everything… we made it.”

His voice was a gravel-soft rumble, thick with emotion. “Ich habe dich fast verloren, Hase. I almost lost you.”

You tilted your head up to meet his eyes, and in them, you saw it all—the terror, the longing, the unwavering devotion. He looked like a man who had wandered through hell and found heaven lying beside him.

“I don’t care what comes next,” you said, your voice steadier now, fingers tightening around his hand beneath the blanket. “As long as I face it with you.”

He brought your intertwined hands to his lips, kissing your knuckles one by one with reverence. “Ich gehöre dir,” he whispered against your skin. “Now and always.”

And as the storm outside softened to a hush, as the moon spilled silver light across the room and the warmth of his body grounded you like home—you finally let your eyes fall closed.

For the first time in what felt like forever, you slept without fear.

Because you were safe. Because he was yours.

Because you were together.

The End.