Melvin left the TOC and headed back toward the barracks.
The barracks were quieter now. Fans buzzed. Someone coughed. Metal clicked softly as a soldier cleaned his weapon. Monroe sat cross-legged on his bunk, a sketchpad balanced on one thigh. A dull pencil moved across paper, slow and deliberate. He had sharpened it twice already. The point was still sharp.
Melvin paused in the doorway and watched.
Monroe hadn’t drawn in days. Not since Ramadi. Not since Hall. Now he was trying again. Lines took shape. Hall’s jawline. The slope of his nose. That wide grin that always looked like it was about to turn into a joke. The line went wrong. Monroe erased it slowly and tried again. His breath hitched, but he didn’t stop.
Sergeant Diaz paused as he passed, eyes flicking to the sketchpad. He didn’t speak. Just nodded once and kept walking. That nod said enough.
Melvin stepped inside quietly.
“It’s not perfect,” Monroe said, blinking fast.
“It doesn’t have to be,” Melvin replied.
Monroe swallowed. “He never sat still long enough to draw. I’m going off a photo and what I remember.”
“You remember a lot,” Melvin said.
Monroe’s voice dropped. “I remember how he made people feel. That part’s harder to draw.”
Melvin crouched beside him. The sketch wasn’t perfect, but it was unmistakably Hall.
“You want me to hang it in the TOC?” Monroe asked.
Melvin shook his head. “Not yet. Let’s wait.”
Monroe nodded, staring down at the page. “I don’t want us to forget how he made this place bearable,” Monroe said. “Like it didn’t get to take everything.”
“We won’t,” Melvin said.
He left the barracks a few minutes later, the sounds of the base folding back in around him. Routine carried him toward the DFAC.
The room was half full, but Reynolds sat alone. He didn’t touch his food. Just stirred his mashed potatoes with the back of his fork like he was trying to flatten something that wouldn’t stay down. His gaze stayed locked on the far wall. Melvin approached slowly.
“You good?” Melvin asked, setting his tray down.
Reynolds shrugged. “Yeah. Just a little low on gas.”
Melvin let the silence stretch.
Reynolds finally spoke. “This was our table. Me and Hall. Every dinner. He used to bitch about the meatloaf like it insulted him personally.”
Melvin smiled faintly.
“He always saved the red Jell-O for last,” Reynolds said quietly. “Said it was the only thing the Army didn’t screw up.” His eyes flicked to Hall’s usual seat. Empty.
“I grabbed one,” Reynolds added, pushing a sealed red Jell-O cup across the tray. “Habit, I guess.”
Melvin touched the cup lightly. “Maybe it’s not habit,” he said. “Maybe it’s how we remember.”
Reynolds didn’t answer. But he didn’t move the Jell-O either. The war pressed on. For a little while, it moved around the silence instead of through it.
Eventually the trays emptied and the DFAC thinned out.
Later, with the sun high and the base settling into its midday drone, Melvin found a different kind of quiet in the laundry tent. Machines thumped. Fans pushed hot air in circles. Melvin folded uniforms the way he always did. Neat. Precise. Marcus Crawford ducked inside and blinked in the dim light.
“Still smells like gym socks and bad decisions.”
