The Tower hadn't changed. The corridors, the calculating glances, the oppressive feeling that someone was always listening. But for Adler, something was different. It wasn’t the building, it wasn’t the protocols. It was the presence right in front of him.

He stopped before he even realized it.

The air became heavy. Not because someone had drawn a weapon, nor because the conversation around him had ceased, but because standing there, in front of him, was an impossibility.

Bell.

Marshall stiffened beside him, alert. Woods, sitting in his wheelchair a few meters behind, watched without intervening. He had seen this scene unfold before, had exchanged words with Bell, talking about the past. But Adler... Adler hadn’t even known that Bell was alive.

He didn’t react immediately. His gaze scanned the person in front of him, analyzing every detail as if expecting to find a mistake, a hint that this was some illusion created by fatigue. The face was the same, though more aged. The eyes, firmer. There was none of the hesitation he remembered.

It was real.

Marshall cleared his throat, a silent warning.

Adler looked away for a moment, just to compose himself. He didn’t know how he should feel — or rather, he didn’t know how not to feel anything. Because that’s what was supposed to happen, right? Bell was dead. He had made sure of that. And yet...

“Don’t you have anything to say?” Woods' voice broke the silence. It wasn’t a provocation, just curiosity.

Adler let out a short, humorless laugh.

“I thought I had said enough last time.”

Marshall huffed and ran a hand over his face, exasperated.

“For God’s sake, Adler.”

But Adler didn’t look at him. His eyes were fixed on Bell’s, as if searching for something, anything, to explain what the hell was happening here. Anger? Resentment? A trace of the loyalty he once knew existed? He didn’t know what he was expecting to find.

All he knew was that Bell was alive.

And that changed everything.