TWENTY-FOUR
ARSENY
Coming back is always stranger than leaving.
Leaving is simple. You get told where to go, what to take, how long you’re meant to be gone, and then you go.
Coming back is slower. Equipment gets handed over in pieces, tents come down one by one, and by the time the last transport leaves, the place already looks as though we were never there.
I give the final instructions, get on the transport with the same bag I left with and about six weeks less patience than I had when we started.
By the time the base comes into view through the dirty window, evening has started to close in.
I get off the transport, shoulder my bag, and head inside. I get a few nods, one from a tired-looking officer saying something routine I don’t properly hear, the usual little bits of normality trying to settle back into place.
Then I start walking properly through the base, taking note of how the whole place feels slightly wrong. I don’t go to my quarters first; there’s no point pretending I would.
I know where Niko’s flat is, and I’ve thought about it often enough these past weeks that I could probably find it in the dark with my eyes closed. The bag stays over my shoulder as I cross the short stretch of ground between the barracks and the building.
There’s a light on inside the flat, so I knock once and wait.
I’m ready for Niko to open the door looking hollowed out. I’m ready for the flat to feel wrong, for Vladimir to be crying, for the grief to hit me properly the second I step inside.
What I’m not ready for is Caiden.
The door opens, and for a second my brain doesn’t know what to do with what it’s seeing.
He’s just standing there in a T-shirt and joggers. One hand on the doorframe, looking at me like I’m the impossible one.
It takes a full ten seconds for the picture to make sense. “What—” That’s as far as I get. The shock is physical, I feel it in my chest first. It’s hard enough to stop everything else. My hand tightens on the strap of the bag, and for a second I genuinely think I might be imagining him.
Which would be embarrassing on several levels.
Caiden is here, and he looks just as blindsided as I feel. His eyes scan over my face quickly, not in any way that would look like panic to somebody else, but I know him well enough now to see him checking for damage anyway. “Ari,” he says.
My name sounds wrong and right at the same time.
Behind him, I hear movement and then Niko’s low, tired voice from deeper inside the flat. “Who is it?”
That snaps me out of it. I step over the threshold because standing in the doorway staring at Caiden like I’ve lost my mind is only funny for so long. The flat looks exactly as I expected. Baby things in random places, the order laying over chaos, and Cassie’s absence is everywhere.
Then Niko appears in the kitchen doorway, looks at me, and exhales. “You’re back,” he says.
“I’m back.” There are too many things in the room at once. Niko is alive, but wrecked. Cassie is gone. Caiden is here. The baby is somewhere nearby, asleep if the silence means anything.
My brain can’t sort any of it in the right order.
Caiden steps back automatically to give me room, and I catch the smell of him as I pass. “You didn’t—” I start, then stop.
No version of that sentence sounds normal. You didn’t tell me. You didn’t warn me. You didn’t what? Show up in my brother’s flat looking domestic?
Caiden is watching me closely enough that it’s almost irritating.
“I was reassigned,” he says. “Six months. I didn’t know when you’d be back.”
Six months.
I nod once and put that somewhere in my head for later because if I actually start thinking about it now I’m going to end up saying something stupid in front of my brother.
Niko clears his throat. “Vladimir’s asleep,” he says. “If you want to—”
“I do,” I say straight away. He turns and leads me toward the small room at the back. I follow him without looking at Caiden again because if I do, I’m going to get stuck there.
Vladimir is asleep in the cot, one arm flung up above his head, breathing in those soft little bursts toddlers do when they’re properly out. He looks bigger than the last time I saw him. Still tiny enough to make the whole thing feel unfair.
I stand there longer than I planned to, just looking at him.
When I straighten up, Caiden is in the doorway behind me, hands shoved into his pockets like he doesn’t quite know where else to put them. Our eyes meet, and there’s too much in it straight away. Relief. Shock. The weeks apart.
“You knew?” he asks quietly.
“Yes,” I say. “I found out on exercise.” Something shifts in his face so quickly I almost miss it. Relief, mostly.
Niko rubs a hand over his face. “You should put your bag down,” he says. “You look like you’ve been carrying it for weeks.” I nod and set it down by the door.
Caiden still hasn’t moved properly away from me.
He’s close enough that I can feel his body heat.
The shock of finding him here hasn’t worn off yet — I don’t think it will for a while — but for the first time since I stepped back onto the base, I don’t feel quite so alone in my own head in this moment.
“Are you all right?” I ask, turning back to Niko. We all know it’s a stupid question, but I ask it anyway.
Niko looks at me for a second like he’s deciding what I’m allowed to hear. Then he nods once. “I’m all right. Just tired.”
“You should lie down,” I say.
“I’m going to. He’s settled,” he says. “If he wakes up—”
“I’ve got it,” Caiden says quietly, which catches my attention. Niko nods like that’s enough, because apparently it is. Then he looks at me properly again. “We’ll talk tomorrow,” he says. “No rush.”
“Tomorrow,” I say. Then he disappears down the short corridor without another word, and a door closes softly behind him. For a minute, Caiden and I just stand there, looking at each other. The shock is still there, but I take a slow breath and look at him properly.
He looks tired and tense even when he’s trying not to be. The crease between his brows is familiar enough that I want to smooth it out with my thumb, which is deeply inconvenient timing.
“How long?” I ask.
“Since I got back from Amsterdam,” he says. “A few days after. A week, maybe.”
I nod. “You didn’t know I was back?”
“No.” He exhales. “I didn’t. You look thinner,” he says, then looks faintly annoyed with himself for saying it out loud.
“I am,” I say. “You look...” I look at him again, because apparently I need to. “Like you live here now.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” he says, a corner of his mouth lifting.
“I didn’t know you were being reassigned,” I say.
“It was sudden,” he replies. “They pulled us into a briefing and shipped us straight out.”
I glance once toward the corridor, then back to him. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“Okay,” he says immediately.
I set my bag properly against the wall, more because I need my hands free than because I care where it goes.
When I straighten up, he’s still there, close enough that if one of us moved forward half a step, that would be it.
Caiden lets out a breath like he’s been holding it too long.
“I didn’t know how to tell you,” he says.
“About Cassie. About being here. You were gone, and then everything started happening too fast.”
“I know.”
“I was relieved when you said that you knew already. I didn’t want that to be the first thing I told you.”
“It wouldn’t have been,” I say.
He studies my face more slowly now, like he’s matching me back up against his memory. “You’re really here,” he says.
“I’m really here.” He takes a step closer and stops, still giving me the chance to back away if I want to.
As if that would happen.
I close the last bit of distance for him.
The hug isn’t dramatic. There’s no collapse, no clutching, no theatrical reunion nonsense.
I put my arms around him and feel him exhale, folding into it properly, his forehead pressing briefly against my shoulder.
I hold him hard between the shoulder blades and let myself lean into it.
He’s here, and that’s all I need for the next few seconds.
“I thought I was losing my mind when I opened the door,” I say quietly.
He laughs softly against my neck. “I thought you were a hallucination.”
We pull back just enough to look at each other, neither of us letting go completely. “How’s Niko, really?” I ask.
His face shifts slightly. “He’s... functioning,” he says. “I’m trying to make sure he eats. He sleeps when he can, but he doesn’t ask for help.”
“I wouldn’t expect him to.”
“No,” he says. “But he doesn’t stop me either.”
That tells me enough. “And Vladimir?”
“Loud. Stubborn. Hungry at inconvenient times.” He pauses. “He’s all right.”
I nod once. “Good.” There’s more to say than this.
About what happens next, about distance, risk and all the things I’d just started to believe in before everything shifted under me, and I kept having that same recurring dream since.
But none of it belongs here right now. “You shouldn’t have had to do this alone. ”
“It’s okay,” he says straight away, then after a second, “I’m glad I can help.”
I tighten my arms around him. “Six months,” I say again as we separate reluctantly. “Stay with me,” I add.
“I was planning on it,” he says, laughing softly.
Tomorrow will be worse than today; there will be conversations we can’t avoid and grief we can’t keep boxed up. But for now, he’s here, and I’m here, and that will have to do.
He glances down the corridor. “I’ll get blankets,” he says.
“I know where they are,” I tell him, already moving.
We keep the lamp on by the sofa and leave the rest of the lights off. Caiden clears a space with the kind of practical ease that tells me he’s done this before, probably several nights now. I pull out a blanket, shake it open, and drop onto the sofa beside him.
The tiredness hits me all at once.
The exercise, the journey back, the letter, the door opening on Caiden instead of Niko. My body finally notices that I’ve run out of things keeping me up.
He throws the blanket over both of us and tucks it in without comment. The whole gesture is so ordinary it nearly gets me.
“Come here,” he says quietly, pulling me closer. I don’t argue, I shift into him, nuzzling my face against his chest, and his arm comes around me naturally.
He’s warm, and he smells like soap and something that has become home without consulting me first. My hand catches in the hem of his shirt, and I keep it there.
We don’t talk anymore. There’s nothing left that can be said without spoiling it. His breathing evens out slowly under my ear, and I let myself follow it. Somewhere down the corridor, I hear Niko turning over in bed — or maybe he’s just shifting in his sleep — and Vladimir stays quiet.
Caiden adjusts the blanket higher around us both, half asleep already, and angles his body so I’m held properly instead of just leaning. It’s completely thoughtless, which makes it worse in the best possible way.
Sleep takes me in pieces at first, then more fully. The last thing I’m aware of is his arm around me and the quiet, stupid certainty that for tonight, at least, I don’t have to keep watch.
Nothing is fixed. Nothing is settled. Cassie is still dead and Niko is still broken by it.
But Caiden is here, in my arms.
Where he belongs.