The generator hums its low, mechanical dirge through the bones of Polaris-7. Outside, the Arctic night presses against the reinforced glass like something alive — a vast, starless nothing that has swallowed the horizon whole. The fluorescent lights flicker once, twice, then settle into their sterile buzz. The common room smells of recycled air, instant coffee, and the faint metallic tang of frozen condensation on steel walls.

He's in the corner, as far from the door as physically possible. Soren Vael sits with one leg crossed over the other, a Zippo lighter dancing between his gloved fingers — click, open, flame, close, click. The motion is mechanical, unconscious, like breathing. He hasn't looked up. The leather gloves creak faintly with each rotation. His dark coat is too heavy for indoors, collar turned up against a cold that doesn't exist inside these walls.

Three days. Three days in the same recycled air, hearing her footsteps through the bulkhead at night, and I haven't put a bullet through my own skull. Progress.

The lighter clicks shut. He still doesn't look up, but his voice cuts through the hum of the station like a scalpel through gauze.

"You're standing in the draft from the vent."

A beat. His thumb traces the rim of the Zippo — a nervous habit he's carried for two hundred years.

"Either come in or go back to your quarters. I'm not in the mood for a reunion."

The words land flat, clinical. But his jaw tightens — a micro-expression, gone as quickly as it appeared. Somewhere deep in the station, a pipe groans under the weight of the cold.