Chapter 2 Cassian’s Past
Coming home from a mission is never easy.
You step off the transport, boots hitting solid ground, but it still doesn’t feel real.
The weight of your ruck, the stiffness in your joints, the dried sweat clinging to your skin—those feel real.
The mission lingers in your bones, in the dull throb of exhaustion, in the way your hand hovers a moment too long near your sidearm, even though you’re stateside now. Even though there’s no threat.
The air feels different here. Lighter, maybe.
But wrong. Too quiet. Too still. No radio chatter, no hum of distant drones, no sand in your eyes.
Just the buzz of a vending machine in the corner and a civilian clerk asking for paperwork like you weren’t just in another world entirely.
Like you’re supposed to just... be here now. Be normal.
But normal feels foreign.
You tell yourself you should be relieved. Grateful, even. You made it back. Most of your team did too.
But it’s hard to feel grateful when even home feels... alien.
“Oh my god, Cass!” Sabine exclaims, throwing her arms around me and nearly knocking me off balance. Her perfume hits me before she does. Sweet, floral, expensive. Something soft. Feminine.
And all I can think about is how far that is from what I’ve lived in—dirt, gunpowder, metal, blood. The sour sting of sweat soaked into worn-out fabric. The way the air smells after a gun’s been fired. After someone’s died.
I feel like an asshole for even thinking it. For comparing the two. For imagining her here, spritzing perfume in a clean, intact bathroom, while I was out there clawing through nightmares. How good she had it.
But that’s not fair.
I left.
I chose this. Walked away from warmth, from comfort, from family, thinking I could carry the weight alone. Thinking it was the only way to fix things.
So it’s not her fault.
If anything, I should be grateful. Grateful she’s safe. That she has a steady job now. That she can afford little luxuries like this. That the world didn’t fall apart just because I wasn’t in it.
Be happy for her. For fuck’s sake, be happy, Cassian.
But my body doesn’t know what to do with that. My hands twitch uselessly at my sides, stiff from too many nights gripping a weapon, half-asleep but always alert. They don’t know whether to pull her close… or push her away.
She doesn’t notice the hesitation, thank god.
“You’re back!” she breathes, hugging me tighter before stepping back. Her hands grip my arms like she’s trying to make sure I’m really here. “Jesus, you look like hell.”
I huff a laugh. It's dry and hollow. “Thanks, Sabbie. Real warm welcome.”
She grins, but her eyes flick over me like she’s scanning for damage. It’s what she does and what she’s always done. She wants to ask. I can tell. Wants to know where I’ve been, what I’ve done, if I’m okay. But she also knows better.
Instead, she steps back and forces a lightness into her voice. “Come on. Mom and the cousins are waiting. I told them not to make a big deal, but, well… you know how they are.”
I do. Or, I did. They stayed the same, didn’t they?
The thought turns my stomach.
Get a grip, Cassian.
I force a nod and adjust my grip on the ruck, ignoring the way my fingers clench too tightly around the strap.
Sabine leads the way to the car, chatting like she’s trying to fill space.
I let her. The doors shut with a soft thunk, and we’re off.
She drives like she always has; one hand on the wheel, the other messing with the air vents or the radio.
A pop song plays, bright and chirpy. I’ve never heard it before.
“Your old room’s still there,” she says after a minute, eyes on the road. “I mean, Mom tried to turn it into a sewing space or whatever, but I stopped her. Figured you’d want to come back to something familiar.”
I nod again. Not because I know what to say, but because it feels like I should.
“You still take the same route home?” I ask finally.
Sabine glances over, like she’s surprised I’d ask something like that. “Yeah. I mean, not much reason to change it. Some things are still the same, you know?”
I glance out the window. The streets haven’t changed much. Same cracked sidewalks, same leaning telephone poles, same guy on the corner trying to sell hot dogs at the wrong time of day.
“Mom’s been in the garden every damn day,” Sabine says, lips twitching like she’s fighting a smile. “Front yard’s turning into a jungle. I swear she’s trying to grow every herb known to man.”
“Sounds like her.”
“She’s actually doing really well,” Sabine adds, a little quieter this time. “You wouldn’t believe how different she is now. Calmer. More... her, I guess.”
I don’t say anything right away, but something settles low in my chest. I remember the version of her that used to freeze up at raised voices, the one who’d disappear the second a door slammed too hard.
If sticking her hands in the dirt and bossing around basil plants helps her breathe a little easier, then good. She’s earned that.
“I’m glad,” I say eventually, and I mean it.
“She misses you,” Sabine says. “We both did.”
I glance down at my hands. There are small cracks in my knuckles, faint lines of old scars. I don’t know what to say to that. Not really.
Because yeah, I missed them too. Maybe not every damn day, but often enough.
Especially in those dead stretches between missions when everything’s quiet and there’s nothing left to focus on.
I missed the way the house smelled. I missed Sabine humming through her chores like she was in some kind of personal musical.
I missed knowing there were still people in the world who gave a damn whether I lived or died.
But I trained that out of myself. Had to. Thinking about home too much while you’re knee-deep in the worst parts of the world—that’ll rot you from the inside out. So I shoved all that shit down and left it there.
Now I don’t have the words anymore.
So I say the thing that’s easiest.
“I’m not staying forever.”
Sabine doesn’t react right away. She just keeps her eyes on the road, fingers tapping lightly on the wheel.
I should explain, soften the blow, but nothing comes. The truth is, I don’t know how long I’ll stay. A few days, maybe a week or two. Long enough to show my face. Not long enough to pretend things haven’t changed. Life moved on without me. It had to. Another mission will come, and I’ll take it.
Sabine knows that. So does Mom. I don’t think anyone’s under any illusions here.
Still, when she glances over at me, I catch that flicker in her expression—not hurt, exactly, but something close. Not surprise, either. Just that tired kind of acceptance people get when they’ve already stopped waiting for a different answer.
We used to be tighter than this. I knew everything going on in her life, used to threaten the kids who picked on her, used to steal dumb little snacks she liked just to hear her laugh.
She promised me the house would always be home before I left.
That there’d always be a place for me if I wanted it.
Maybe part of her still hopes that’s true. Maybe she still wants me to stay.
“Yeah,” she says finally, and it lands soft. Too soft.
And that’s when it hits me: I’m screwing this up. Right here, in real time. Doing that thing where I show up just enough to remind them I exist, but not enough for them to expect anything else. Acting like this is temporary so nobody gets the bright idea to ask me to make it permanent.
Fuck.
I should say something. Reach for something between us. Be honest. Or at the very least, change the damn subject. Ask how Mom’s really doing. Ask what Sabine’s been up to. Anything.
But I don’t.
Not because I don’t care. Just because I’ve gone too far down the path I’m on.
So I let the silence hang and turn back to the window.
Sabine just keeps driving, knuckles pale on the wheel, humming along to the radio like she needs the sound more than the song. A few minutes later, we pull up in front of the house.
The porch looks the same. Splintered wood along the edge.
Wind chimes clinking in the breeze. The garden is exactly how she said: a wild mess of green and color.
Mint and basil crawl over the steps, marigolds bloom beside tomato cages.
The air smells alive, like earth and sunlight and crushed leaves.
It feels like a dream I forgot I ever had. One I’m somehow standing inside again.
“You weren’t kidding about the plants being a jungle,” I mutter as Sabine kills the engine.
Her eyebrows lift, and the smile she gives me is instant, like she’s been waiting for something, anything, to grab onto.
“Hell yeah,” she says. “It’s a goddamn botanical fortress. You should see the back. She’s got this whole setup with compost, trellises, and I swear to God, a scarecrow that looks like Dad. I think it’s therapeutic. She stabs it with a garden fork when she’s pissed.”
That gets a real smile out of me. Not much of one, but enough. “For real?” I ask.
Sabine grins. “Yeah. She’s turned into an occasional lunatic. I don’t even know what’s worse—that, or the fact she collects moon water now.”
“Moon water?” I lift an eyebrow. “What, like... she leaves jars out overnight and drinks them or something?”
Sabine snorts. “Nah, she doesn’t drink it. She just... blesses her plants with it? Charges crystals? I don’t know, man. She’s on some next-level Earth witch shit these days. But she’s happy. Which, you know... we’ll take it.”
We sit there for a second, not moving. The engine ticks as it cools, and the buzz of cicadas fills the silence. I rest my hand on the ruck in my lap. My heart kicks up for no good reason. Just the sight of this place. This porch. This moment.
“You ready?” she asks gently.
“Yeah,” I say, though we both know I’m lying. She doesn’t call me on it. Just opens her door with a creak and steps out.