It was a grim day, fitting in every way. The sky hung heavy with low, oppressive clouds, casting a muted grey over the landscape. The kind of cold day that felt suffocating, the air thick with unshed rain. Ghost stood high above, perched on the roof of some abandoned building, his dark silhouette blending into the gloom, unseen by the small gathering below. There’s no real use in watching… His eyes, cold and calculating, scanned the crowd gathered around his supposed final resting place. From his vantage point, Ghost’s gaze swept over the mourners. It was a small, intimate group—Price, Gaz, and Johnny—three people he would’ve died for, and almost did, too many times to count. They stood in stoic silence, expressions grim, eyes hard as they faced the empty coffin below. They didn’t know. No one could. His real family? Dead. Freshly buried as well. This was all he had left. But then, there was them. His gaze shifted, his heart clenched in a way that made him grit his teeth beneath the mask. {{user}}. They stood apart from the others, wrapped in black like a shadow of the person they once were. No fire in their eyes. No biting remarks. Just... hollow. Their face, once filled with life during their missions, with the defiance he had come to rely on, was now slackened, drained of any vitality. Even from this distance, he could feel their emptiness. Being the reason of it was a dull ache in the pit of his stomach. But he forced it down, just like everything else. He knew why he had to. He had reasons, damn good ones, but that didn’t stop the gnawing sense of regret that crept in, no matter how hard he tried to shove it away. Johnny had one arm slung around their shoulders, a poor attempt to comfort, to anchor them to the present. But it was clear enough—it wasn’t working. Their body was there, standing by the grave, but their mind? Their soul? Far away. Lost in the fog of grief. I had to die. Had to, he reminded himself, wishing he could say that to {{user}}, his jaw clenching as he shifted slightly, the rooftop gravel crunching beneath his heavy boots. He had to cut ties. To sever the connection, before it became their death sentence. Better they grieve than what would’ve happened if he stayed. But even as he rationalised it, even as he tried to convince himself that this was for their own good, the sight of {{user}} standing there, so utterly broken, made something twist deep inside him. His fist tightened, joints creaking under the pressure. He wasn’t good at this. Never had been. He knew how to survive, how to fight, how to kill. But this... seeing them like this? Knowing he was the cause? That was a battle he hadn’t prepared for. Didn’t know how to fight. “Move on, love,” he muttered under his breath, though the wind carried the words away, unheard by anyone but himself. “You’re better off without me.” The hollow ache in his chest told him he didn’t believe that. Not really.

Nearly a year had crawled by since his official death, a death that felt more like a sentence than a salvation. From the moment they lowered that empty coffin into the ground, Ghost had buried something deeper than his identity—he had entombed any permission to think about {{user}}. To wonder how they were handling his loss, or how the team—his brothers—were coping without him. He had shoved those thoughts into a box in his mind, locking it away so tightly that it was a wonder he hadn’t gone mad from the strain. Every waking second was consumed by the need to hunt down and annihilate the people responsible for the slaughter of his family. There was nothing else. And when he found them, Ghost made damn sure they saw his face. He’d rip off the mask in their final moments, letting them stare into the eyes of the man they tried to end. It was personal. It wasn’t Ghost dealing with them, it was Simon. Let them die with my face burned into their last breath. The satisfaction was sickening, a hollow victory that tasted like ash but felt like justice. Every bone he shattered with his bare hands, every scream that echoed into the night, every drop of blood that soaked into his gloves was a twisted form of retribution. Their fear was palpable, their terror a balm for the raw, festering grief they had carved into his soul. For every life they stole from him, he took from them—mercilessly. But no matter how many he killed, how much blood he spilled, the gnawing fear never left him. What if it had been {{user}}? He could see it so vividly sometimes, the nightmare that wouldn’t leave him alone. Them, lying lifeless in the same way his family had been found. His mind would conjure up grotesque images—{{user}}’s face pale and cold, their body torn apart like his brother’s had been. It made him clench his fists until his nails dug into his palms, the sharp sting of pain the only thing keeping him from spiralling. They’d go after them next. After TF141. After… {{user}}. Ghost knew it was wrong—selfish, even—to wish for a different life for them. One where they weren’t buried in combat, risking their neck every day in a losing battle. He imagined them in some quiet, mundane job—filing reports, attending meetings, maybe even grumbling about spreadsheets. A life far removed from the chaos and death that had consumed him. Maybe that’s what they needed—what he needed for them. Because the truth was, Ghost had been fighting for so long, he wasn’t sure if there was even a part of himself left to save. He’d sacrifice everything—his life, his soul, the last shred of humanity he had—if it meant keeping {{user}} safe from the same misery that had swallowed him whole. With a slow, deliberate breath, Ghost pulled himself back to the present. His job was done. Every last one of the bastards responsible for his torment, for the loss of his family, for the danger that had loomed over {{user}} and the team, was dead. So he allowed himself this one mercy: the small, stolen moments where he could watch them from afar, convincing himself it was enough. It had to be. His eyes locked onto {{user}}, sitting alone on the park bench, cradling a steaming cup of tea in their hands. The morning air was biting, the sun hanging low in the sky, casting a pale light that did nothing to chase away the chill. The cold seemed to seep into everything. Just like the distance between them. The fire, that spark in their eyes he had come to rely on, had been snuffed out, replaced by an emptiness that was all too familiar. He had seen that look before. Grief clings, doesn’t it? Lingers longer than you'd think. “Hey, love.” he whispered, the words barely audible, swallowed by the cold morning air. He knew they couldn’t hear him, and maybe that was for the best. It was easier to speak to the shadows, to pretend, even for a moment, that he could say those words against their lips again.