"All right," he said. "Party is back on. Staff Sergeant Romano is buying nobody anything, because he owes me a coffee."
A few people laughed, quieter than before. Chairs scraped. Someone turned the music down.
Nico walked in beside me, not ahead of me, and I noticed more than the stares.
"Ma'am," a young lance corporal said, straightening as I passed. "Can I get you a chair, ma'am?"
"No, thank you," I said. "I am fine standing."
"Yes, ma'am."
He said it like he meant it, and it startled me the way Barrett's salute had.
"You keep flinching," Nico murmured.
"I do not flinch."
"You do a polite version of flinching," he said. "It is very officer."
"Careful," I said. "I accepted one apology tonight. Do not spend it."
He smiled, and for a second he was just my brother again, tired and pleased.
Mercer came up with two sodas and handed me one without asking.
"Thank you, Corporal," I said.
"Thank you, ma'am," he said, and his voice caught. "For earlier. For all of it."
"You already said it," I told him gently. "Go enjoy the party. That is an order, if it helps."
"It helps, ma'am," he said, grinning, and backed away.
At the table, the cake I had brought sat next to Nico's framed chevrons, frosting soft at the edges. The bakery had written his name in blue script and gotten it right on the second try.
"Speech, speech," someone called, and Nico shook his head.
"No speech," he said. "I promoted. I did not get eloquent."
"Cut the cake, Staff Sergeant," Barrett said. "That is the whole ceremony. Do not overthink it."
Nico picked up the knife. He looked at the cake, then at the room, then at me.
"You brought it," he said. "You want to do the honors?"
"No," I said. "It is your night. Cut your cake."
He nodded and pressed the knife in, careful, the way our father cut bread, one hand flat to steady it. He worked the first slice free without breaking it, and the room went quiet.
He did not hand it to me. He did not hand it to himself, or to the nearest friend, or to whoever had shouted loudest.
He carried it across the room to Barrett.
"Gunny," he said. "First slice."
Barrett looked at the plate like it weighed more than cake.
"Staff Sergeant," he said, "that is not how this usually goes."
"I know how it usually goes," Nico said. "Take the plate, please."
Barrett took it with both hands. His fingers tightened on the plate the way they had gone white around that dropped coffee cup.
"You were there," Nico said quietly. "You knew, before any of us did. So you eat first."
Barrett cleared his throat. "That is the finest order you have given, and you are not in my chain."
"Then it is a request," Nico said.
"Then I accept," Barrett said. He took a bite and nodded once. "Good cake, ma'am. Your brother has excellent taste in sisters."
"She brought the cake too, Gunny," Nico said.
"Then her taste is better than his," Barrett said, and the room laughed, and I could breathe again.
Later, when the plates were stacked and the music had thinned, I stood by the window with my soda gone warm. The street outside was dark and empty.
Nico came and stood beside me. He said nothing at first, and I let the silence sit. Silence was not the same as hiding, not anymore.
"Jules," he said at last. "Tomorrow. Will you talk with me? Somewhere quiet. Not here, not with an audience."
"Of course," I said. "What about?"
He watched the street instead of me. "I have something to ask you. About Sangin."
My hand tightened on the glass before I could stop it.
"All right," I said.
"Not tonight," he said quickly. "Tonight was enough. Tomorrow."
"Tomorrow," I promised.
He nodded like I had signed something and went back to his Marines. I stayed by the window, looking at my reflection, a major still learning how to stand in a room that knew her name.
I drove to the hotel through the quiet town, both hands on the wheel, radio off. Streetlights slid past in a slow line. At every red light I turned the night over again: Barrett's salute, Aaron Mitchell alive somewhere because of a voice on a net, my brother handing the first slice to the man who had known.
Sleep was not waiting for me at the hotel. I knew that before I parked. I sat in the car, engine cooling, and let tomorrow sit with me, unanswered, in the dark.
Chapter 17: The Diner on Route 24
"You beat me here," I said, sliding into the booth.