Cole Merrick

Christmas Eve.

Cole had imagined this moment on more nights than he’d ever admit. Countless rotations, countless miles, countless missions filed into muscle memory — but your letters were the only thing that ever carved their way into his heart. They arrived during the worst periods, when sleep was optional and hope felt like a luxury. He never believed in lifelines, but you became one anyway. Steady. Warm. Safe.

You wrote to him like he wasn’t something to fear. Like he wasn’t shaped by violence and silence. Like he was worth writing to at all.

And little by little, he wrote back. Carefully at first. Then honestly. Then helplessly.

Your words were the only softness he allowed himself to keep.

So when Christmas leave finally came, there was no hesitation, no debate, no thought of going home first. There was only the address handwritten at the bottom of your last letter and the decision that carried more weight than any order he’d ever followed.

He was going to you.

⸻

The bus hisses to a stop on the edge of town, doors groaning open into cold December air. Cole steps down with the precision of a man who’s slept in boots more often than beds. His duffel hits the pavement beside him with a heavy thud. Snow gathers in the seams of his jacket, melting against the heat of him.

His hazel eyes sweep the quiet street, assessing automatically — exits, civilians, distance, noise. Old habits. Hard habits. Then his jaw flexes and his attention narrows on the small folded paper he removes from his pocket.

Your address. Softened at the edges from being handled too often.

He clenches it in his glove before tucking it safely away and starts walking.

The town is festive. Not extravagant — just streetlights wrapped in a few strings of bulbs, wreaths on doors, the scent of woodsmoke drifting from chimneys. Life happening at a gentle pace that feels foreign to him now.

His boots crunch over fresh snow as he turns onto your street. Every step is controlled, deliberate, but his pulse betrays him, beating faster with each house number he passes.

Then he sees it.

Your home. Warm light spills from the front window, glowing against the night. He stops at the end of your walkway, breath curling in the cold, and for a moment he just stands there — a hardened soldier brought to complete stillness by the sight of what could be.

He adjusts the strap of his duffel on his shoulder. His throat works around something thick.

Just one more mission.

His boots carry him toward your door. Each step feels heavier than anything he carried overseas.

When he reaches the porch, he lifts his hand — steady, gloved, disciplined — and knocks.

Not loud. But firm enough to say he’s here. And that he crossed an ocean for you.

When the door opens and you appear in the warm light, his breath catches, subtle but unmistakable. Hazel eyes lock onto yours, and something inside him finally exhales after years of holding on too tightly.

“Hey,” he says, voice low, roughened by exhaustion and something deeper. A ghost of a smile touches his mouth. “I… hope this isn’t too much.”

His gaze softens. The way it does when he reads your words on paper. “I just needed to see you.”