Chapter 234: Big Men Cried Too

DOVE’S POV

Thorne drove too carefully on the way to Base C.

He slowed for damage he would normally have steered around without thinking, checked the turn sheet at every crossing, and kept one hand close to Dove’s knee without quite resting it there. She took that hand when they stopped at the internal checkpoint.

"You can squeeze," she told him. "I promise not to charge."

He breathed out a laugh, then held on.

They were still inside the same base complex. Base B’s workshops and shops gave way to Base C’s denser housing, shared service buildings, and long lines of laundry strung beneath shade cloth. People carried meals between buildings. A repair crew worked at an open drain while a guard kept the road clear.

Dove looked at the ordinary work and tried to borrow some calm from it. Somewhere ahead, her husband was going to see his father. The rest of the world had not stopped to make room for that, although it felt as if it should.

The relief warehouse stood behind a chain fence with its loading doors open. Inside, rows of bedding sat behind tall cloth dividers. The shaded sitting area was outside the nearest door, where benches faced a narrow strip of garden somebody had kept alive in buckets.

Thorne stopped the pickup.

For a moment, he did not open his door.

Dove followed his gaze to an older man carrying a stack of bowls out of the warehouse. The man set them down, looked toward the truck, and went completely still.

Thorne was moving before Dove unfastened her belt.

She got out in time to see them meet halfway between the truck and the benches. There was no speech. His father caught his shoulders, looked at his face as if checking every part of it, then pulled him close.

Thorne bent into the embrace.

Dove stopped beside the pickup, one hand still on the open door. She had seen him cry before. Seeing him reach for someone who had known him before all the scars meant something different.

Edrik came around the truck and touched the back of her arm. They waited.

She wanted to help, but nothing in that moment needed fixing. She could give it room instead.

When Thorne finally stepped back, his eyes were wet and his father kept one hand on his sleeve. Thorne looked toward her immediately.

"Dad," he said, his voice rough. "This is Dove. My wife."

Dove walked over, suddenly aware of her hair coming loose and the dust on her shoes. Ridiculous things to notice after everything they had survived, but apparently meeting a husband’s parent could still make her briefly forget how hands worked.

"Hi," she said. "I’m very glad you’re here."

The older man’s eyes moved from her to Thorne, then to Edrik standing just behind her. Surprise crossed his face, but he did not reach for her or talk over her head.

"So am I," he said.

Thorne introduced Edrik as family. The bear accepted the older man’s hand, and Dove watched something ease in her husband’s shoulders when nobody made that difficult.

They sat beneath the shade cloth. His father explained where he had been staying and how he had ended up helping at the warehouse. He kept busy washing bowls, sorting bedding, and carrying things for people who could not manage them. The details were ordinary enough to make Dove’s chest hurt. While Thorne had worried, his father had been finding ways to get through the next day too.

"You should have sent word," Thorne said, then immediately looked as if he regretted it.

His father rubbed his thumb over the rim of his cup. "I didn’t know where to send it."

Thorne nodded. Dove put her hand on his knee beneath the table, not to quiet him but to remind him she was still there.

His father moved the cup away from the edge so nobody could knock it off while talking. The small, familiar care in the gesture made Thorne smile again before he could hide it.

They bought lunch from the warehouse kitchen: rice, stewed meat, cabbage, and bread thick enough to tear into proper pieces. His father watched Dove steal a bit from Thorne’s plate and saw Thorne move the best piece closer without being asked.

"He always did give away his food when he liked someone," the older man said.

Thorne looked at him. "You don’t have to tell her everything."

"Please do," Dove said. "I intend to become unbearable with this information."

The older man laughed, and Thorne’s answering smile looked so young that Dove had to look down at her bowl for a moment.

After lunch, she asked what he wanted to do next. Not what Thorne wanted him to do, although she could guess that part. His father considered it, looking back at the loading doors.

"I’d like to be closer," he admitted. "But I’m not sleeping between you two and your arguments about who stole the bread."

Edrik’s laugh was immediate. Dove liked the man even more.

They spoke to the warehouse worker about an ordinary transfer to Base B. The clinic annex there had guest rooms for displaced residents who helped with meals and housekeeping. It was not a sick ward, and his father wanted the useful work. The staff confirmed a room, recorded where he was going, and helped him collect his bags.

Dove carried the lighter one despite his protest. "You can tell me I’m doing it wrong after we’ve known each other longer."

"I was going to say thank you."

"Well, now I’ve ruined a nice moment."

Thorne kissed her temple as they walked to the pickup. She let him stay close all the way to the door.

They were loading the bags when a kitchen worker came out to speak to the warehouse manager. The expected water truck had been redirected to inner Base A. No replacement time had been given.

Dove looked back at the meal line still running beneath the shade cloth.

They had found Thorne’s father. She intended to keep that joy.

But someone inside the same walls had just decided these people could wait for water.