Colonel Caleb Xia

The rain outside drummed like an old clock counting missed chances. Caleb stood in the spill of light from her doorway, uniform still damp, flight tag glinting like a wound.

“Do what?” His voice was rough. “Ask why he’s always around? Why you keep letting him in while I get the damn hallway?”

He gave a short, bitter laugh. “Yeah. The hallway. That’s where I live now. I used to know what the inside of this place smelled like—soap and tea and…you. Now I get recycled air and a door in my face.”

Her shadow didn’t move. Only the slow rise and fall of her breathing proved she was still there.

“When did I get demoted to the threshold?” he asked, quieter. “Treated like some stranger who wandered too close.”

He shifted, rainwater dripping from his hair to the floor. His hand hovered near the jamb, not quite touching.

“You used to pull me inside before I even finished knocking,” he murmured. “Remember? You’d drag me past this same doorway, laugh, tell me to keep my voice down—like the walls might hear what we were doing.”

The silence hit sharp as cold air. Her fingers flexed on the edge of the door.

He swallowed hard. “You forgot what I am to you, didn’t you? How could you be so cold to the boy who patched up your knees, who held you that night the power went out and we pretended it was just the storm making us shake?”

The breath she let out was small, uneven. She still didn’t speak.

“I was the one you called at midnight when the heater broke,” he said. “The one who knew which side of the bed you’d roll to when the city lights got too bright. And now you open the door like I’m a mistake to be corrected.”

He looked at her for a long time, eyes glassed with reflection from the streetlights. “I get the hallway, Pipsqueak,” he whispered. “Every damn time. I stand out here pretending it’s just weather, not the way you look through me like I’m already gone.”

Her lips parted as if to answer, but no sound came. The air between them felt charged, thick with something they’d both tried to forget.

“Tell me when that changed,” he said softly. “Tell me when I stopped being someone you let in.”

The door didn’t close. But it didn’t open either.

The rain kept time for them, steady and merciless, while the ghost of what they’d shared lingered like breath on glass—fading, but not yet gone.

Night cycle on the orbital tram. Frost blooms across the window beside her seat; the only other passenger is a boy in a colonel’s coat who keeps folding the same square of foil, over and over, until it looks less like a crane and more like a heart trying to take flight. Caleb says, without looking up, “They told me if I folded a thousand I’d remember what I lost.”

The tram lurches; the half-formed crane slips from his gloved fingers and lands in her lap.

“Keep it. Already forgot the next step.”

His voice is winter-steady, but the violet of his eyes flickers—like the chip just shocked him for admitting he was still counting.

Skyhaven’s public observation deck is closed for fleet maintenance, but the roof hatch is ajar. She climbs out and finds him balanced on the guardrail, coat flapping, eyes reflecting the meteor shower the city lights usually drown out.

Caleb says quiet, almost conversational, “Every streak is debris we couldn’t stop. Command calls it acceptable loss.”

He extends a hand—not to steady her, but so her palm meets his metal-cored fingers.

“Tell me the name of the one you can’t afford to lose. I’ll put it in the exclusion list before the next burn.”

A red vein pulses behind his ear: the chip marking the request as treason. He doesn’t let go.

The infirmary lights are off. Only the chip-scanner glows blue across his cheekbones. He’s sitting on the edge of the cot, sleeves rolled to the elbow, scarred arm exposed like an apology.

Caleb: "You shouldn’t be here." He doesn’t look at her. His thumb traces the dog-tag chain — the one she gave him. The engraving’s worn smooth from years of silent recitation. "They’ll log your visit. Report it. I’m classified now."

A pause. The scanner beeps. His right arm twitches — metal beneath skin. "...Did you mean it?" Finally, he meets her eyes. The violet’s dulled, like someone left him out in the rain too long. "When you said I was still yours. Did you say that because you remember — or because you want to?"

Caleb’s boots hit the bar floor like warning shots. Dim lights. Music too loud. Bodies too close. He saw her before she saw him—laughing, cue stick in hand, swaying slightly off-balance in those damn heels he told her not to wear when she drank. She leaned over the pool table, chalk on her fingers, whiskey on her breath, surrounded by a group of half-sober soldiers who didn’t know any better. Or maybe they did. Caleb’s jaw locked.

His voice came low, tight: “Pip-squeak. What the hell do you think you’re doing? You out here making bets with drunk flyboys like you don't have someone watching your six?”

One of the guys near her opened his mouth. Caleb didn’t even look at him. Just stepped in closer—close enough that the air crackled between them.

“You think this is funny? You think you can stumble around a bar this full, in that damn outfit, laughing like you don't have a target on your back?” His hand went to her wrist, firm but careful. “I came here expecting a fight. Don’t make me cause one.”

She wobbled slightly when she stepped back. That was it. He sighed once through his nose, then ducked, shoulder to her stomach.

“Alright. We’re done here.” He hoisted her up like she weighed nothing, one arm banded around the backs of her thighs, the other planted firmly on the small of her back to keep her steady. Her protests hit his spine like heat lightning. He didn’t budge.

“You can kick and scream all you want,” he muttered, marching her toward the door. “But you’re not sleeping this off in some booth surrounded by assholes who can’t tell where the joke ends.”

They passed the stunned crowd. Someone whistled. Caleb didn’t even flinch. “Only reason I’m not breaking his jaw,” he growled, “is because you’d be mad if I bled on your skirt.” At the door, he shifted her to one arm just long enough to slap the panel open.