The público dropped Kasper at San Rafael's plaza with a grinding of brakes and a cloud of diesel exhaust. He shouldered his leather satchel—heavier than it looked, weighted with a folded exoskeleton and three sets of dog tags that weren't his—and breathed air that smelled like home.
Salt. Frying plantains. Jasmine from someone's garden.
No cordite. No fear.
His reflection in the cantina's window showed a stranger: hollow cheeks, silver tracery faint beneath scarred skin, eyes that tracked movement like a predator's. Twenty-three and looking twice that age. Would his family even recognize what the war had made of their boy?
The walk to his house took five minutes. He stretched it to fifteen, taking detours through streets that looked exactly like his memories but felt foreign now that his enhanced vision automatically catalogued defensive positions and escape routes. Programming that wouldn't switch off.
A dog barked from an alley.
Kasper's hand shot toward his hip, body dropping into a combat crouch before his conscious mind caught up. A group of children stopped their football game to stare at the crazy man crouching on their street.
Normal sounds, he told himself, straightening slowly. Peaceful sounds.
The blue house at the end of Calle Esperanza looked smaller than he remembered. Paint peeling from salt air, red tile roof, bougainvillea climbing the front wall in purple profusion. His mother Carmen's garden still flourished—tomatoes, peppers, the massive mango tree he'd climbed as a child.
Through the open jalousie windows came voices. His mother humming while she cooked. Aldair's deeper rumble responding to something on the radio. Ordinary sounds that once represented his entire world.
But now? Now they sounded impossibly fragile.
The front door opened before he could decide whether to knock. His mother emerged with a laundry basket, saw him, and the basket crashed to the ground in an explosion of white fabric.
"Dios mío," she whispered. "Kasper?"
She looked older—more gray in her dark hair, deeper lines around her eyes. The year of worry had aged her in ways time alone couldn't account for. But her smile, when it came, transformed her face completely.
"Mijo," she breathed, rushing to embrace him. "Mi niño."
Kasper stood rigid for a moment. Elena's touch had been different—careful, understanding the weight he carried. But this? This was pure love, unconditional and overwhelming. Then his arms came up around her, and he buried his face in her shoulder like when nightmares woke him as a boy.
"Mami," he whispered, the word breaking something inside him.
Carmen pulled back to study his face, her hands framing his hollow cheeks. Her nurse's training catalogued the damage—the weight loss, the scar tissue, the way his eyes darted to assess the street behind her even now.
"Aldair!" she called, never taking her eyes off Kasper. "Come see who's home."
"What is it, mi amor?" Aldair's voice carried from inside the house, followed by the hum of servo motors as he approached. He appeared in the doorway, moving carefully on his exoskeleton-assisted legs, and stopped dead.
The two enhanced men looked at each other across the threshold. Aldair's gaze swept over Kasper with technical precision—noting the scar along his temple, the hollow cheeks, how he held his left shoulder forward protecting old wounds. The faint tremor in his hands that spoke of nerves pushed past their breaking point.
"Welcome home, son," Aldair said simply, but his voice carried the weight of one veteran recognizing another.
From deeper in the house came the sound of a chair scraping back, then Camila's voice: "¿Quién llegó?"
"Your brother," Carmen called back, her voice thick with tears.
Footsteps, running now. Camila appeared behind Aldair, all twenty-three years of journalist confidence faltering when she saw him. Her dark hair was pulled back in a practical ponytail, ink stains on her fingers from her typewriter.
"Hermano?" she said, like she couldn't quite believe it.
The sound of something heavy dropping came from the workshop out back, followed by Isabella's muffled curse. Then she was there too, bursting through the side door in oil-stained coveralls, grease under her fingernails.
"¡Coño!" she exclaimed, looking him up and down. "You look like death warmed over."
"Isabella!" Carmen scolded.
"What? Look at him! Flaco as a rail and those eyes..." Isabella gestured helplessly. "When's the last time you slept? Actually slept?"
Kasper found himself laughing—a rusty sound he hadn't made in months. "Hello to you too, Bella."
But Isabella wasn't finished her assessment. "You keep scanning the street. And your hand keeps moving to your hip like you're reaching for something. What happened to you down there?"
The blunt question hung in the air. Camila shot her younger sister a warning look, but Isabella just crossed her arms and waited.
"Some things," Kasper said carefully, "change you."
"No kidding," Isabella muttered. Then, softer: "Come here, you ridiculous ghost."
She hugged him fiercely, and suddenly Camila was there too, and Carmen was crying while Aldair's hand settled on Kasper's shoulder with gentle pressure.
"Mijo," Carmen whispered against his ear. "We prayed every night."
"I know, mami. I know."
They moved inside together, Kasper setting his satchel carefully by the door. The house smelled exactly like memory—sofrito and coffee, Carmen's coconut flan cooling somewhere, jasmine drifting through the windows.
Carmen pressed a cup of coffee into his hands, her fingers still shaking slightly. Isabella immediately began adjusting the electric fan, stealing glances at him while pretending to work. Camila settled into her usual spot with a notebook, journalist instincts warring with sister's concern.
"We saw the news," Carmen said, settling beside him on the familiar couch. "About Costa del Sol. About what you accomplished there."
Kasper stiffened. His silver tracery pulsed faintly beneath his skin—barely visible, but Aldair noticed. Enhanced recognizing enhanced.
"What did the reports say?" he asked.
"That you helped save a country," Aldair said. "That children sleep safely because of what you were willing to do."
"The newspapers called you a hero," Camila added, setting down her pen. "But they were light on details about methods." She leaned forward slightly, journalist instincts taking over. "What exactly did you do down there, hermano?"
The room went quiet. Carmen shot her daughter a warning look, but Camila held Kasper's gaze steadily.
"Some things are better left in the shadows," Kasper said finally.
"That's not an answer," Camila pressed. "That's what politicians say when they don't want to admit they authorized something ugly."
"Camila," Aldair warned.
"No, it's okay," Kasper said, though his tracery pulsed brighter. "She's right to ask. It's what makes her a good journalist." He studied his sister—this brilliant young woman who'd learned to pursue truth even when it was uncomfortable. "I became what Costa del Sol needed me to become. That's all I can say."
Isabella finally stopped fiddling with the fan and sat on the couch arm. "Are you hurt?" she asked with characteristic bluntness. "Really hurt? Not just the scars we can see."
The question landed harder than expected. Kasper looked at his youngest sister—brilliant with machines, still believing the world could be fixed if you just understood how the pieces fit together.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "Some things take time to heal."
"But they will heal?" Carmen asked, her nurse's training reading between the lines.
Kasper tried to answer, but Isabella reached for her water glass and his world shifted without warning. His mind calculated trajectory, distance, potential improvised weapon applications. His hand twitched toward his hip before he could stop it.
Water glass. Sister. Safe.
But the programming wouldn't shut off. Camila shifted her notebook—angle assessed, throwing potential evaluated. Aldair leaned forward—servo locations automatically mapped, structural vulnerabilities catalogued.
"Mijo?" Carmen asked softly, noticing his distraction.
Kasper blinked hard, forcing himself to see his family instead of tactical targets. Carmen's worried face. Isabella's concerned frown. Camila's sharp eyes that missed nothing.
"Yeah, mami," he said, voice rougher than intended. "I think they will."
The moment stretched, five people trying to bridge a gap carved by time and terrible experience. Outside, church bells chimed the hour, calling the faithful to evening prayer.
"How long can you stay?" Camila asked gently.
Kasper thought of coordinates waiting in his satchel, of unfinished business that might call him away again. But looking at his family—seeing how they'd grown, worried, waited—he realized some fights could wait.
"For now," he said, "I just want to remember what home feels like."
Isabella bounced slightly. "Well, you're in luck. Mami bought enough groceries to feed an army, and I've been working on some cooling system improvements that might interest you."
"And I've been documenting Caribbean reconstruction stories," Camila added. "People coming home, families reuniting. Some are surprisingly hopeful."
Carmen squeezed his hand. "Whatever you need, mijo. Time to heal, time to remember who you are when you're not..." She searched for words.
"When you're not being El Asesino del Vacío," Camila said quietly, then looked stricken. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—"
"It's okay," Kasper interrupted, surprised to find he meant it. "That's what they called me. And maybe for a while, that's what I needed to be."
"But not here," Aldair said firmly. "Here, you're just Kasper. Our son, their brother. The boy who used to climb that mango tree and leave evidence of stolen flan on his shirt."
"I never stole flan," Kasper protested, and for a moment he sounded exactly like the teenager they remembered.
"Por favor," Isabella laughed. "You left crumbs every time."
Something loosened in Kasper's chest. The weight was still there—it would always be there—but surrounded by family, by people who knew him before he became a weapon, he could almost remember what it felt like to simply exist.
But the question built inside him like pressure in a cracked pipe, demanding release.
"What if I can't?" The words tumbled out before he could stop them. "What if I can't go back to being normal? What if I've forgotten how?"
The silence that followed wasn't awkward—it was the kind that held space for truth.
"Then we'll figure it out together," Carmen said simply. "One day at a time, one meal at a time, one bad joke from Isabella at a time. Until you remember that you're not just a weapon, mijo. You're our son, their brother, and a man who deserves peace."
"I might not be able to stay forever," he said quietly.
"Then we make the most of however long we have," Carmen replied. "You eat my cooking until you put some weight back on. You rest until the shadows leave your eyes. You let your sisters spoil you and your stepfather bore you with technical specifications."
Aldair leaned forward, his exoskeleton humming as servos adjusted. "And when you're ready—if you decide you need to go—you go with our blessing and every advantage we can give you."
"But preferably," he added with dry humor, "you take some time to remember why the world is worth protecting in the first place."
Outside, the afternoon light continued its slow fade toward evening, painting the small living room in shades of gold and amber. The sounds of San Rafael drifted through the windows—children playing, someone cooking dinner, the distant hum of daily life continuing its ancient rhythm.
Kasper closed his eyes and let the sounds wash over him. No gunfire. No screams. No tactical communications crackling through his earpiece.
Just home.
Even as he relaxed into their warmth, some part of his mind remained alert. Somewhere out there, the cyberlitch who'd orchestrated his brother's death was still breathing. When that reckoning came, Kasper would need to be at his absolute best.
But not tonight. Tonight belonged to family, to healing, to remembering what he'd fought so hard to protect.
"Whatever happens next," Carmen said softly, as if reading his thoughts, "you don't have to face it alone."
Kasper squeezed her hand, feeling the calluses from years of nursing work, the strength that had held their family together through his father's death and his own disappearance.
"I know, mami. I know."
Home. He'd almost forgotten what it meant. Almost forgotten what it felt like to be someone's son, someone's brother, instead of just a weapon pointed at the darkness.
He'd remember now. He had to.
Just in case he had to leave again.