The apartment door clicked softly before it swung open, and Matt Collier stepped inside. He didn’t turn on the lights. He just stood there in the dim hallway, shoulders slumped, duffel bag hanging from one hand like it suddenly weighed a hundred kilos.

He looked… different.

Weeks of staring at drone feeds had drained the color from his face. His bright blue eyes—normally sharp, curious, talkative—were dull, shadowed, haunted. His curly hair was a mess, curls sticking to his forehead with a thin sheen of stress-sweat. His uniform jacket was half unzipped, as if he had given up midway.

He closed the door quietly behind him, letting out a breath he had been holding for days.

For a moment, Matt simply leaned back against the door, head tipped upward, eyes closed. Not sleeping—just trying to breathe without feeling like he was drowning.

The apartment was quiet. Familiar. Safe. A world away from the desert on the screen that still burned behind his eyelids.

He dropped his bag with a thud.

“Hey…” he called out softly, voice hoarse, unsure if she was awake. “I’m home.”

It didn’t sound triumphant. Or relieved. Just tired—bone-deep tired—like every step he’d taken back here was fought with ghosts he couldn’t shake.

He rubbed his face with both hands, trying to push the war out of his skin.

He wasn’t sure what he needed. Comfort? Silence? A distraction? Or maybe just someone to touch him, anchor him back into the real world.

No matter how much he tried, he couldn’t stop thinking about the people on his screen. How human they looked today. How familiar. How wrong everything felt.

But he didn’t know how to say that out loud.

He just stood there, waiting for her voice, her footsteps—anything to pull him out of his head.