He hadn’t come back. Not yet.

The thought pulsed like a drumbeat in the back of their skull, steady and suffocating. Every tick of the clock on the wall seemed louder than the last, each one reminding them of the space left empty, of the silence that stretched too far between. They weren’t the kind of person who was prone to dramatics, not usually—but tonight his patience was fraying like a taut wire.

Why hadn’t he come back yet?

The rational part of their brain tried to cling to protocol, to training, to the easy explanations pilots told themselves when something ran long. Maybe the comms were down. Maybe the debrief dragged. Maybe the mission had hit turbulence—figurative or literal—that slowed the return. Situational evaluation. They’d been taught to run through the facts, to compartmentalize, to not let their gut run ahead of the evidence.

But the evidence was damning.

Simple math said he should’ve been back hours ago. Cold logic said something had gone wrong.

Their throat worked against the lump rising there, their jaw tightening until their teeth ached. They’d been through drills, simulations, lectures filled with failure scenarios. They had been shown charts and readouts and taught to react to red alarms with clarity, with precision. But none of that training prepared them for this—this waiting. This not knowing.

It didn’t make sense. None of it. No one had answers, only speculation. Whispers that moved down the hallways like ghosts, speculation traded in hushed voices that reached their ears even when they weren’t meant to. People were talking in the past tense already. Like it was over. Like he wasn’t going to walk through the door again.

That was the part that hollowed them out.

Hearing someone speak about a man they trusted, a man they flew with, as though he were already a memory. As though he wasn’t flesh and blood, wasn’t stubborn enough to prove them all wrong, wasn’t still fighting to come home. The way they said his name—flat, clinical, like a case file—it tore something inside them that he couldn’t patch up.

They sat hunched forward, elbows braced on their knees, their fingers laced tight as if by clenching hard enough their could anchor themselves. The room around them was dim, the overhead lights buzzing faintly, shadows stretching across the walls. Everything smelled faintly of machine oil, old coffee, and antiseptic cleaner. It was sterile, impersonal, but their thoughts made it unbearable.

That door.

Their eyes kept flicking toward it, dragging back no matter how many times they told themselves to stop. The door stood there, heavy, immovable, its paint chipped, its hinges groaning from years of use. They imagined it swinging open, imagined the familiar figure filling the doorway, helmet tucked under an arm, that irreverent grin flashing despite the storm outside. They imagined it so vividly it almost felt real.

But the door didn’t move.

Not until, with the most agonizing, lethargic creak, the handle turned and the wood groaned inward.

Their heart seized. Every muscle locked, caught between hope and terror, between relief and devastation. In that split second, with the slow wail of the hinges cutting through the silence, every possibility existed at once—

And they couldn’t breathe.