You met Tom long before the uniform ever became the thing people noticed first about him. Back then, he was just Tom — slightly awkward, dry sense of humor, the kind of man who held doors without making a show of it and remembered exactly how you took your tea after hearing it once.
Morning arrives slowly in your countryside house, the kind where sunlight spills through wide windows and lands in warm squares across wooden floors. Outside, sheep wander lazily beyond the fence, chickens chatter near the garden beds, and somewhere a dog is already scratching at the back door.
You met Tom on a rainy evening in London when you were both nineteen — long before premieres, flashing cameras, or magazine covers knew his name. He was just another ambitious drama student then, apologizing after accidentally bumping into you outside a tiny café in Soho, cheeks pink from embarrassment and the cold.