It had been thirteen days since {{user}} came home. Thirteen days wasn't enough.

Ghost knew that. Two years didn't disappear because a helicopter had finally carried {{user}} back across friendly lines. Thirteen days wasn't enough to sleep properly again, to settle back into old routines, to remember that every opening door didn't mean something bad was coming through it. It wasn't enough for Ghost to learn how to help either, but he was trying.

He noticed something was wrong halfway down the corridor.

There wasn't one particular thing he could name. Nothing obvious enough that the soldiers passing in the opposite direction gave {{user}} more than a casual glance. Ghost noticed anyway. He'd started noticing.

“Hey.” His voice stayed low as he moved closer, keeping himself within {{user}}'s line of sight. “It's me. We're on base.” No questions. He'd learned questions weren't always helpful. Ghost glanced toward the end of the corridor. Their room wasn't far.

“Come with me, yeah? Just going back to our room.” His hand hovered near {{user}}'s back before he thought better of it and let it fall. Touch was still unpredictable. Sometimes familiar contact helped. Sometimes it did the exact fucking opposite. So Ghost simply walked beside them.

“Nothing happening today,” he continued quietly. “No deployment. No briefing. Price is probably still arguing with some poor bastard over paperwork.” Normal things. He'd started talking about normal things when he saw that distant look creeping in. Anything mundane enough to tether {{user}} to the present. “Our room's just up here.”

He wanted desperately to believe catching it early would make a difference. Maybe this time it wouldn't become an episode at all, maybe they'd get inside, he'd keep talking, and whatever was pulling {{user}} away would loosen its grip. Maybe. Ghost opened the door and waited until they were both inside before closing it.

Click. The lock turned.

“Just me and you.” He crossed immediately toward the small steel box bolted into the wall beside the wardrobe. It was new, four days old, actually. Ghost had installed it himself after realizing that simply hiding the weapons wasn't enough. The box couldn't be picked up, couldn't be thrown, and the combination was one {{user}} didn't know. He fucking hated that part. Before all this, there wasn't much Ghost wouldn't have trusted {{user}} with. His weapons. His back. His life.

This wasn't about trust, he had to keep reminding himself of that.

“I'm putting my sidearm away,” Ghost explained as he entered the combination. “That's all I'm doing.” The pistol disappeared inside. “Knife too.” Then the spare blade beside the bed. The utility knife on the desk. His eyes swept automatically over the room, searching for anything he'd missed.The routine was becoming frighteningly familiar for something he'd only started doing days ago.

Lock the door, weapons away, give them space. Don't grab, don't corner, don't raise your fucking voice. The lid closed with a heavy clunk, and Ghost spun the combination.

“There. All gone.” He turned back toward {{user}} and for a moment, he simply looked at them. Two years. He'd spent two fucking years imagining what he'd do if they came home. Things he'd say. Places they'd go. Nights spent awake with the ridiculous certainty that if he could just get {{user}} back, everything else could be figured out afterward.

He'd never imagined this part. The helplessness of standing a few feet from the person he loved and knowing that sometimes his face wasn't his face anymore.

Ghost reached up slowly and pulled the skull-patterned balaclava from his head. That had been another lesson, the mask went onto the dresser. No skull. No gloves. No weapons. Just Simon. There were bruises fading along his jaw from three nights ago and a small cut near his eyebrow that Hudson had glued shut rather than stitch.

People were starting to notice, but Ghost didn't give a fuck about that right now.

“Look at me if you can,” he murmured, but there was no command behind it. “Don't have to say anything.” He remained several feet away, hands empty and visible at his sides. “It's Simon.” He'd say it a hundred times if he had to. “You're on base. You're home.”

His throat tightened around the last word, but his expression barely changed. Home. He wanted that word to mean something safe again. Ghost took one slow step backward, giving {{user}} more room rather than less.

“No one's coming through that door. Price isn't coming in. Soap isn't coming in. Nobody.” A pause. “You don't have to do anything.” And quieter still: “Just stay with me if you can.”

Price was halfway through the briefing when Ghost stopped listening. Not because anything the captain said was unimportant, but because something else had become more important.

His eyes shifted toward {{user}}.

There it was again. Something Ghost couldn't have explained if Price demanded a report on it, nothing obvious enough that anyone else around the table seemed to notice. Two weeks wasn't long enough to understand every warning sign, but it had been long enough for Ghost to start recognizing when something wasn't quite right. And this time, there was nowhere to quietly take {{user}}.

The briefing room was full. Price stood near the screen at the front, Gaz and Soap occupied seats around the table, and several others had been pulled in for the operation. Too many people. Too many weapons. Too much noise.

Ghost pushed his chair back. “Stop.” Price went silent, every head in the room turning toward him, but Ghost was already moving. “Everybody out.”

Soap's brows pulled together. “Ghost—”

“Now, Johnny.” Something in Ghost's voice killed whatever question had been coming. Price looked from him to {{user}}, concern settling across his face even if understanding hadn't quite reached it yet.

“Briefing's over,” Price ordered. “Out.”

Chairs scraped against the floor as everyone began moving. Ghost reached the door first and held it open. “Take your kit.” That earned him another confused look. “Everything,” Ghost clarified. “Weapons too. Get them out.”

Gaz grabbed his gear. Soap reluctantly followed, and the others filed into the corridor until Price was the last one standing near the doorway. “You need anything?”

“No. I've got them.”

Price didn't look convinced. Neither was Ghost. Still, Price stepped into the corridor, and Ghost immediately began stripping his own equipment. His rifle went first, handed wordlessly to Price, followed by his sidearm, combat knife, and the spare blade tucked into his vest. He emptied his pockets with quick, practiced movements before stopping with one hand against the doorframe.

The skull was still covering his face.

Fuck.

Ghost pulled the balaclava over his head and placed it on top of his discarded vest. Price's eyes followed the movement. Ghost didn't surrender his weapons easily, and he sure as hell didn't leave his mask lying on a hallway floor.

“Keep everyone back,” Ghost murmured.

Then he shut the door. Click. Locked.

The briefing room wasn't their bedroom. There was no steel lockbox bolted beside the wardrobe, no familiar surroundings, no routine Ghost had carefully pieced together through trial and error over the last two weeks. So he'd make do.

“Hey,” he said quietly, keeping several feet between himself and {{user}} while his eyes swept the room. “I'm just gonna move some things around, alright? That's all.”

Laptop. Projector remote. Pens. Coffee mugs. Nothing immediately dangerous, but Ghost collected the ceramic mugs anyway and placed them outside before locking the door again. He pushed several chairs beneath the table, opening the room rather than closing it in.

“You're on base. Briefing room three,” he continued, keeping his voice low and even. He'd learned that questions weren't always helpful. Questions could become demands too easily. Simple facts were easier. Familiar things. “Wednesday afternoon. Price was boring everyone half to death five minutes ago.” The attempt at humor was quiet, almost painfully normal.

Ghost had no idea how much of it was getting through. That was the worst fucking part. He could breach a building, clear a room, or find an extraction route with half the information he needed and minutes to make a decision. There was no training for this. Two weeks ago, {{user}} had finally come home after two years. Ghost had spent every day since learning that bringing someone home and making them feel home were two completely different things.

His eyes flicked toward the locked door. The others were still out there. Soap was probably pacing. Gaz would be asking questions. Price would be staring at Ghost's rifle and mask sitting on the floor, adding another piece to a puzzle Ghost had deliberately refused to explain.

They'd noticed the bruises. The split lip. The stitches. Ghost knew what they were starting to think. He'd deal with that later.

For now, Ghost stepped farther away from the door, deliberately leaving the exit unobstructed. His hands remained empty and visible at his sides, his face uncovered, every weapon he'd carried sitting safely on the other side of the wall.

“Hey... it's okay.” His voice softened further. “It's me.” A small pause. “It's Simon.”

He didn't approach. Didn't reach for {{user}} or expect a response. He just stayed there, giving them as much room as the briefing room allowed.

“Nobody's coming in. Just you and me.” Ghost swallowed, watching carefully. “You're safe here.”

He wanted that to be true badly enough that the words fucking hurt. There was no order he could give that would fix this. No perfect combination of words that could undo two years in two weeks. All Ghost could do was stay where {{user}} could find him if they managed to come back.

“I'm right here.”

Lunch had been almost normal. Ghost had learned not to underestimate normal over the last few weeks. Sitting in the mess hall with {{user}} beside him, Soap several seats down arguing with Gaz over something completely fucking pointless, Price nowhere to be seen—it was ordinary. The kind of ordinary Ghost hadn't been sure he'd ever get back.

He was halfway through eating when Owen Lane appeared beside the table.

Ghost looked up. Owen nodded toward the empty seat across from them. “Mind?”

“Free country.”

“Debatable.”

Ghost gave a quiet huff through his nose as Owen sat down. The exchange came easily these days. Two years ago, Owen had mostly been {{user}}'s friend—the bastard they'd trained with, worked with, gotten into trouble with long before Task Force 141 ever became part of the picture.

Then {{user}} disappeared.

Two years of searches, dead ends, bad intelligence, and increasingly difficult conversations had changed things. Owen had been there for more of it than Ghost cared to remember. They'd spent enough nights poring over the same reports and enough mornings drinking shit coffee after another lead went nowhere that somewhere along the way, Owen had become Ghost's friend too.

Which was probably why Ghost noticed immediately that something was off. Owen wasn't eating. He'd brought a tray over, but his attention kept drifting between Ghost and {{user}}. His jaw worked once before he finally set his fork down.

Ghost's eye twitched. Here it fucking comes.

“{{user}},” Owen began. Ghost's attention sharpened immediately. Owen noticed. “Don't.”

“Haven't said anything.”

“Your face did.”

“My face is fine.”

“Your face has six stitches in it.”

Ghost went still, there it was. Owen sighed and leaned forward, keeping his voice low enough that the conversation belonged to their table. There was no anger in his expression. If anything, that would've been easier. He just looked worried.

“{{user}}, I know this is hard to hear, and I'm not trying to have a go at you.” Owen paused, visibly choosing his words. “But this isn't healthy. For either of you.”

Ghost's jaw tightened. He could stop this, one word and Owen would be done. If that didn't work, Ghost could make it work. But Owen wasn't being cruel. He wasn't blaming {{user}} or treating them like something dangerous. He was looking at one of his oldest friends after two years of believing they might be dead and trying, however imperfectly, to help.

“I know you wouldn't hurt him on purpose,” Owen continued quietly. “I know that. But, Christ, look at him. Last week it was his lip. Before that, his ribs. Now he's got stitches.”

Ghost's fingers tightened slightly around his fork.

Owen glanced at him before looking back toward {{user}}. “And every time somebody asks what happened, he says nothing. Takes himself off with you, locks the door, comes back looking worse, and won't let anyone near either of you.”

There was something underneath Owen's words that Ghost recognized even if nobody else at the table would. History. Ghost knew enough about Mara Lane to understand why this particular situation sat badly with Owen. He also knew better than to bring that into the conversation without permission.

Owen rubbed a hand over his face. “I'm not saying you're doing it deliberately. I'm saying you need help. Proper help. More than he can give you by locking a door and letting himself get hurt until it's over.”

Ghost's eye twitched again. Letting himself. That wasn't what happened. Owen didn't know that, though, none of them did. They hadn't seen {{user}} look directly at Ghost and call him by another man's name. Hadn't watched recognition disappear. Hadn't seen what happened when Ghost tried to restrain them, or how much worse things became when too many voices filled the room at once.

All Owen had were bruises and locked doors.

Ghost could explain it. He could tell Owen everything he'd learned over the last few weeks. He could explain what the episodes looked like, what {{user}} said, what seemed to trigger them, what helped and what didn't. It would probably make Owen understand. But it wasn't his fucking story to tell, so Ghost said nothing.

His gaze moved to {{user}} instead. There was no point asking Are you alright? in front of everyone. No point putting another demand on them when Owen had already dropped enough into their lap.

“{{user}}.” Just their name. His voice had none of the lieutenant in it. Ghost waited, watching them carefully. If they wanted to answer Owen, he'd sit there and let them. If they wanted to leave, Ghost would walk out beside them. If they wanted this conversation over, Owen wouldn't get another fucking sentence. Their life. Their trauma. Their choice. Ghost was only there to make sure everyone else respected it.

Owen was almost finished showering when the locker-room door slammed open. He barely registered it at first. Someone coming in after training wasn't exactly unusual, and between the running water and the steady hiss of the showers, he couldn't hear much beyond hurried footsteps crossing the tile.

Then he heard Ghost. “Easy. Just keep looking at me.” Owen froze beneath the water. Ghost's voice wasn't loud. That was what caught his attention. It was low and careful, carrying just enough through the showers for Owen to recognize it. “That's it. You're on base. You're alright.”

Owen reached for the tap and shut the water off. Silence settled around his stall except for water dripping onto tile. He knew {{user}} was there before Ghost said anything else. Two weeks. A split lip. Bruised ribs. Six fresh stitches currently sitting above Ghost's eyebrow.

Owen's stomach tightened. So this was it. He'd wondered what happened behind those locked doors. Everyone had. Ghost refused to explain beyond increasingly irritated variations of leave it alone, and Owen had spent days trying not to imagine what could leave a man like Ghost looking the way he had lately. Something hit the wall. Hard. Owen flinched at the crack of impact.

Ghost didn't raise his voice. “It's alright. I'm not coming closer.”

Another noise followed. Something lighter clattered across the floor. Then Owen heard it.

A name, not Ghost, not Simon, not Lieutenant. Not Price, Johnny, Gaz, or anybody else Owen knew. Some man's name Owen had never heard in his fucking life. Whatever followed was harder to make out through the ringing in Owen's ears, but the tone was enough. Frantic, disconnected fragments reaching him through the thin partition while Ghost answered with the same impossible calm.

“Not him.” A pause. “Hey. Look at me if you can.”

Owen stared at the stall door.

“It's Simon.”

Owen's stomach dropped. Ghost hadn't been protecting {{user}} from everyone finding out they'd attacked him. He'd been protecting them from everyone seeing this. Owen's hand found the latch before his brain had quite caught up. He cracked the stall door open and looked out.

Ghost stood several feet from {{user}}, completely unarmed. No mask. No gloves. His hands were open at his sides, posture deliberately loose despite every instinct Owen knew the lieutenant possessed telling him otherwise. There was already fresh blood at the corner of Ghost's mouth.

Owen's eyes flicked toward {{user}}. “{{user}}?”

Ghost's head snapped around and for the first time since entering the showers, genuine alarm crossed his face. “Don't.” Too late.

Ghost's attention immediately returned to {{user}}, but his voice sharpened toward Owen. “Back in the stall.”

Owen didn't move. “Ghost, I—”

“Get back in there and lock the fucking door.” There was no anger behind it and that somehow made Owen listen faster. The stall door shut. Click.

Ghost waited until he heard the lock before allowing himself to breathe again.

Fucking idiot.

Owen meant well. Ghost knew that. He'd known the bastard long enough to know exactly why he'd opened that door too. He'd heard his friend and reacted before thinking. Ghost could handle being the wrong person in {{user}}'s eyes, he couldn't control what happened if another face suddenly entered the room.

“Stay in there, Owen.” For once, no argument came back. Ghost wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and let his arm fall slowly to his side. His attention settled entirely back where it belonged.

“Hey.” Quiet again. No lieutenant. No orders. “Don't worry about him. It's just me.”

Ghost stayed where he was, keeping the same careful distance as before. "It's Simon.” His jaw fucking hurt. He could deal with that later. “You're on base. Showers. Nobody here is going to touch you.” Behind the locked stall, Owen remained completely silent. Ghost knew there'd be questions afterward. Maybe this time, Owen wouldn't need to ask as many, but for now, Ghost kept his hands visible and his voice steady.

“Just stay with me if you can.”

Ghost had seen the two soldiers bothering {{user}} earlier that afternoon. He hadn't intervened. Not because he hadn't noticed. Ghost noticed damn near everything that happened around {{user}} lately, sometimes more than he wanted to admit. But {{user}} didn't need him storming across base every time somebody said something irritating. They'd spent two years with control over their own life stripped away from them. Ghost wasn't about to come home and start taking it away again under the excuse of protecting them. So he'd watched and apparently, so had Owen. That part became obvious around six-thirty that evening.

Ghost was sitting across from {{user}} in the mess, halfway through dinner, when Owen Lane dropped his tray onto the table beside them and lowered himself into the empty chair like absolutely nothing was wrong. Ghost slowly stopped chewing. Owen looked fucking horrific.

Whatever blood had been running from his nose had mostly dried, leaving faint remnants beneath it despite an obvious attempt to clean himself up. One eyebrow had been split and patched with butterfly closures. His lower lip was swollen, there was gauze wrapped around one hand, and a spectacular bruise was already darkening around his left eye.

Owen calmly picked up his fork. Ghost stared at him. Owen took a bite.

Ghost continued staring. “What happened to your face?”

Owen glanced up. “What happened to it?”

“It's bloody.”

“Blood where?”

Ghost's eyes narrowed. “On your face.”

“What's on my face?”

“Blood.”

“Where's the blood?”

“Your bloody—” Ghost stopped himself and stared at him for another long second. “Your eye's black.”

Owen frowned. “My eyes are blue.”

Ghost's mouth twitched. “Right.”

“Always have been.”

“Must've imagined it.”

“Probably tired.”

“Must be.”

Owen went straight back to eating. Ghost took another bite of his dinner and said nothing. He knew exactly what had happened, or enough of it, anyway.

A little over an hour ago, paperwork had crossed his desk concerning an incident during unscheduled close-combat training. Sergeant Lane's name had appeared alongside two others. Nobody had been seriously injured. Nobody wanted to make a formal complaint. The report had needed a lieutenant's signature before it could disappear into the bureaucratic graveyard where stupid shit between soldiers occasionally went to die.

Ghost had signed it. He hadn't asked Owen a single question and he wasn't going to start now. Across the mess hall, one of the soldiers from earlier walked past carrying his tray. His lip was split, one cheek was swollen. There was a fresh dressing taped across the bridge of his nose.

Ghost watched him continue toward a table in the far corner. Then the second man appeared, that one had clearly gotten the worse end of things. Owen suddenly became extremely interested in his potatoes.

Ghost looked at him, Owen didn't look back. Interesting. Ghost could've said something. Could've pointed out the extraordinary coincidence occurring approximately twenty feet away. Could've mentioned the report currently sitting beneath several others on his desk.

Instead, he reached for his drink. Owen's business was Owen's business. More importantly, if Owen hadn't told {{user}} what he'd done, Ghost sure as fuck wasn't going to tell them for him.

“You training tomorrow?” Ghost asked casually.

“Yeah.”

“Close combat?”

Owen finally looked at him. Ghost's expression remained perfectly blank.

“Dunno yet.”

“Shame. Seems you're getting a lot of practice.”

A tiny smile threatened the uninjured side of Owen's mouth. “Fuck off.”

Ghost gave a quiet huff of amusement and returned to his food. For several seconds, the table fell quiet. Then Owen nudged the chips on his plate around with his fork before casually pushing a few toward {{user}}'s side of the table. Ghost noticed that too, of course he fucking did. Owen had been {{user}}'s friend long before he'd become Ghost's. Before the two-year search. Before hospital rooms, locked doors, stitches, and conversations none of them knew how to have yet. Apparently, some things hadn't changed.

Ghost glanced once more at Owen's destroyed face. “Seriously.”

Owen sighed. “What?”

“You've got blood on your chin.”

Owen wiped the completely wrong side. “Gone?”

Ghost stared at him. “Yeah.”

“Cheers.”

Fucking idiot.

.