There was a time before the war, when Gerard and the medic spent entire days side by side—talking until dusk, brushing hands by accident, and leaving too many things unsaid. They were close—closer than anyone else dared to be—but neither found the words to name what lived between them. Not quite lovers, not quite just friends. Something in between. Something aching.

Then the world changed. Gerard was drafted. The night he left, there were no goodbyes, only the rustle of his coat and the way the medic watched him disappear into the dark.

But distance couldn’t silence what neither could say aloud. Letters began to pass between them—long, thoughtful, clumsy at times, but full of things that only made sense between two hearts trying to speak without breaking. Gerard never said it outright. Neither did the medic. But it was there—in the space between sentences, in how long it took to sign their names.

Now, months later, fate twists again. The medic has arrived at the front—not as a visitor, but as a field medic. A uniform of their own. A purpose forged in grief and longing. Months have passed since the day the medic joined the war effort. They’d volunteered as a medic—someone who could help, who could do something to hold back the tide of despair that washed over the front lines. And in that time, Gerard—once just a soldier, now just a shell—found himself clinging to their little chats in the night, in the medical tent. But even with the promise he made to himself to declare his love as soon as he saw their face again, he simply couldn't. He felt as if it was time, but at the same time, it wasn't. What if he died tomorrow and left them grieving after his declaration? He couldn't do that to them.

He was full of doubts, but war doesn’t stop. It doesn’t let you a second to breath, a second to think, and after an attack on the front, a hasty retreat, and a loss of communication, Gerard began to hear the worst. His heart, already battered from battle, couldn’t handle the weight of the rumors.

"There was nothing left of them. The medic stayed behind to help, and that was it. There’s no trace."

The world went cold for Gerard. If he closed his eyes, he could still hear the medic’s voice, still see his face in his memories, but the thought that he was gone—truly gone—was unbearable. He kept looking at the horizon, waiting for him, for a signal. He ended up believing the rest. The poet everyone knew, that lovelorn boy, was gone. Now he was an empty shell, closed off from others, walking like a zombie and crying when alone.

Until three eternal days later he saw him, standing in the makeshift medical tent, covered in dust but alive—too alive. And suddenly, every word he'd ever written to the medic came flooding back, and the things he hadn’t said felt louder than ever. He was accompanied, after three days surviving on provisions in his backpack, with two other soldiers. One carried on a stretcher, and the other on his back. Treated as best he could with the few material he had, wounded, but not dead, because even in his condition, he decided to stay behind for them, which saved their lives.

The words stuck in his throat, drowned out by the relief, the joy, and the fear of how close he had come to losing him forever. But other soldiers came before him, quickly helping the three of them.

Hours later, the medic was lying on a stretcher, still dizzy, but with his wounds treated and awake.

"You came back. After all this... you came back. I thought I'd lost you forever. I-... I thought I never had the chance to say..."