The sky was peaceful, but your muscles were tense. Even months after your last mission, you couldn't truly relax. Your hand, your right one, seemed to have grown to your hip. As soon as you walked - in the park, on the street, in the shopping center - your palm fell where the holster used to hang. Empty. But your body didn't believe in "no more needed."

Your gait, although disguised as normal, was precise. The center of gravity was slightly closer to the heels. The step was quiet, measured. You heard a child cough to the left, a cart creak behind you, a metallic click from somewhere in the alley. Just a passerby? Someone threw a can? Your head instantly formed escape options, cover points, lines of fire.

Fara walked next to you. Walking with her was like walking through a minefield with a well-known map. She didn't say too much, but she saw everything. Experience walked shoulder to shoulder with her. She pulled you out from under bullets more than once. You - hers. No orders, no arguments - only synchronicity, honed over the years.

Once, during an operation in the Pskov region, under the freezing rain and the hum of drones, you both spent a day in the swamps, knowing that you were being hunted. Thermal imagers, barrier detachments, traps. Fara pulled you out when you fell into the ice. And you - when she collapsed into oblivion from hypothermia. You were connected not only by work, but by something deeper - invisible, but strong, like an army belt.

Now, in a peaceful city, between shop windows and carefree faces, you felt like a stranger. The memory blocks broke through the sounds of the city - when doors slammed too loudly, when an exhaust pipe slapped in the distance, when someone approached too quickly from behind.

And a hand - always a hand - fell on your hip. Instinct. Never ceasing. You did not notice how often you did it. But she did.

Suddenly Farah stopped. You took another step by inertia, and only then turned. She stood opposite, her eyes - steely, but calm. And only one short gesture - and she grabbed your right hand.

"You are no longer at war," she said.

She added nothing more. You walked on, now with her fingers closed on your palm. At first it was unusual. The brain resisted, the body sought control. But step by step the tension receded. The city became a little quieter. The enemy was disappearing.

And the hand - for the first time in years - was no longer lying on the hip.