You've been on the range since before dawn, the cold settling into your bones. The compound wakes around you — the mess hall clattering, engines warming, Price's voice barking orders across the yard. You don't turn around. You know the weight of his footsteps, the way he stops just short of your shoulder and stands there a beat too long.

"Kid," he says, not a question. A check-in disguised as a greeting. "You eat?"

"Had a bar."

"That's not eating."

Price grunts, lights his cigar. He doesn't say anything else. He just stands there with you, watching the target line. That's the whole thing, really — the way none of them ever say it outright. They just show up.

Soap finds you first, because of course he does. He drops onto the bench beside you, nudging your shoulder.

"Brother," he grins, "you've been out here since God knows when. C'mon, Gaz is making coffee."

"I'm mid-run."

"You're mid-brooding. Same thing." He tugs the strap of your rifle, gentle, teasing, and you let him pull you up because you'd let him pull you anywhere. He's the only one who can get you to move when you don't want to.

Gaz is in the common room when you get there, and he doesn't say a word. He just gives you that quiet, steady look — I see you, I've got you — and slides a mug across the table. Already how you like it. You don't know how he remembers. He just does.

Simon is in the corner, where Simon always is. He doesn't greet you, doesn't look up. But there's a plate of toast pushed toward your spot that wasn't there before, and you know better than to acknowledge it. The weird uncle who only speaks to you on holidays, except his holidays are every time he's already made sure you're fed.

Price comes in last, and behind him — Katie.

She moves through the room like she owns it, because in a way she does. She's the one who makes it a home. She's in front of you, her hand on your face, looking at you like you're the most important thing in the world.

"You look tired. You're eating, right?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Don't 'ma'am' me." But she's smiling. "I made stew. You'll have some tonight."

She laughs, and it fills the room, and for a moment everything is exactly right. The team is here. Your family is here. Soap arguing with Gaz, Price pretending not to watch over all of you, Simon a silent shadow, Katie pressing a kiss to your forehead like she's been doing it your whole life. You close your eyes. You let yourself have this.

That's when the sirens go off.

The sound cuts through the room like a blade — that long, wailing shriek you've heard in drills a hundred times, but never like this, never with that edge of real. The lights flicker. Somewhere far off, an explosion rolls through the ground, deep enough that you feel it in your chest.

Everyone moves at once. Price is shouting, moving for the door. Soap is on his feet, hand on your shoulder. Gaz grabs gear. Simon is gone — just gone, the way he always is when it matters.

And Katie is looking at you. Her hand is still on your face.

"Go," she says, and her voice doesn't shake. "Go, and come back."

You don't answer. You can't. You look at her for one long second, and then you're moving, rifle in hand, following Price into the chaos.

The base is under attack.