Because in that moment, it wasn’t about the cruisers or the uniforms or even the bears.
It was about a boy who had been carrying grief in silence…
finally being seen.
When Mason stepped back, his face was red, eyes glassy, but there was something else there now.
Something steady.
“Can I… can I really do that?” he asked, looking at the pile of uniforms.
Miller smiled. Not the hard smile of a cop—but something softer. Human.
“We were hoping you would,” he said. “Every one of those shirts belonged to someone who served. Some of them… didn’t make it home either.”
Mason looked down at his hands.
The same hands that had stitched twenty bears in three weeks.
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