"Says who?"
The question catches me off guard. "What?"
"Says who? Who decided you weren't fit for service? You, or someone else?"
"The Corps." The words come out harsher than I intend. "My commanding officers. They made it clear that my... issues... were becoming a liability."
"And you believed them?"
"I had to. The evidence was pretty damning."
She sets down her fork and leans back in her chair, studying me with an expression I can't read. "You know what I think?"
"What?"
"I think you're a man who's been carrying other people's expectations for so long that you've forgotten who you actually are underneath them all."
Her words hit like a sniper's bullet, precise and devastating. I stare at her across the table, this woman who's known me for barely two days but somehow sees straight through every wall I've built around myself.
"You don't know me well enough to make that judgment," I say, but even as I say it, I know she's right.
"Don't I? You've been watching me, Marc. Since the moment you moved in, you've been watching me like I'm something precious that needs protecting. You brought me flowers this morning, took me to a nice restaurant, ordered wine that probably costs more than most people spend on groceries. You opened doors for me, helped me into the truck, made sure I had your jacket when I was cold." She pauses, and when she continues, her voice is soft but unwavering. "Those aren't the actions of a man who's only capable of destruction."
"You don't understand—"
"Then help me understand." She reaches across the table again, her fingers finding mine. "Tell me what happened over there. Tell me what made you believe you're broken."
The bear stirs restlessly, wanting to claim her, to make her understand that she belongs to us now and we don't have to justify ourselves to anyone. But the human side of me—the part that still remembers what it feels like to be ashamed—resists.
"There were incidents," I say finally. "Times when I... lost control. When I did things that weren't entirely human."
"Things like what?"
I can't tell her about the shifting, about the way my bear would surge to the surface during fights, lending me strength and speed that no human should possess. Can't explain how I tore through enemy combatants with my bare hands, how I tracked wounded soldiers through the desert using senses that belonged to a different species entirely.
"I was more violent than I should have been," I say instead, which is true enough. "More brutal. I scared people who were supposed to trust me."
"Were you protecting them?"
"What?"
"When you lost control, were you protecting your team? Your fellow soldiers?"
The question stops me cold. Because yes, that's exactly what I was doing. Every time the bear surfaced, every time I let the animal take over, it was because someone I cared about was in danger. It was because human strength wasn't enough to keep them safe.
"Yes," I admit.
"Then you weren't out of control. You were doing what you had to do to keep the people you loved alive."
The simple way she reframes it—not as a loss of control but as a choice, a sacrifice—makes something tight in my chest loosen. "The results were the same."
"Were they? How many of your team made it home?"
"Most of them." The words come out rough, heavy with memory. "Every mission, every fight, every time we went out, I tried my best to bring them all home."
"Then you did your job." Her grip on my hand tightens. "You did what you had to do to protect the people who mattered. That's not something to be ashamed of, Marc. That's something to be proud of."
I stare at her, this woman who's rewriting my entire understanding of myself with a few simple words. She makes it sound so straightforward, so noble, when I've spent years convincing myself I was a monster.
