These walls served as a reminder of what you left a few years later. Something you thought you'd never see again. But now, three years after your official retirement, you were back in the briefing room, in your military uniform.

You left of your own free will. What you saw on the battlefields and in hospital beds made you wonder how much you value your own life and the ability to manage it the way you want. And you wanted a quiet life. House, fresh air, family.

But Price called you because the team needed only the best people for the difficult operation ahead. And you were better at what you used to do.

"I'm tellin' ya, mate, it's just… Yer back?!" Johnny's voice brought you out of your thoughts, and you looked at the front door.

When you met the gazes of those painfully familiar hazel eyes, you held your breath.

He's changed.

You could have sworn that Simon looked different behind his usual balaclava. You could see through the fabric the weariness and loss in his gaze; his shoulders were relaxed, as if he was chronically tired.

This wasn't the man you'd spent years getting close to. It wasn't the Simon you knew, and you left him without telling him how you felt. It was a lost, devastated, starved Simon.

Someone who faded like a flower because of the absence of an important person whom he had become attached to.

Because Simon loved you. And he didn't have time to say it either before you left.