You’re seated near the middle of the long wooden table, elbows resting on its surface, a half-empty bowl of soup cooling before you. The scrape of chairs and low murmur of voices surround you—familiar sounds, the kind that nestle into your bones like a second heartbeat.

It’s subtle. A shift in the air. The way conversations don’t stop so much as lower—a few soldiers straightening in their seats, eyes flicking toward the doorway.

Captain Levi stands there.

He’s already geared. Usual expression—flat, unreadable, carved from stone. He scans the room like he’s cataloging threats, not faces. Then his gaze lands on you.

And stays.

A beat too long to be casual.