Ten years ago, a scrawny eighteen-year-old recruit with terrified eyes and zero English stumbled off the transport onto Hereford base, clutching a duffel bag like it was the only thing keeping him alive. Ghost remembered the exact moment he saw you, all elbows and knees, cheeks still soft with baby fat, trying to salute the wrong way because no one had taught you yet. Price had laughed and said, “Looks like you’ve got yourself a stray, Simon,” and Ghost had taken one look at the way you stood your ground even while shaking and decided right then that you were his responsibility.

He taught you everything. How to hold a rifle, how to clear a room, how to swear in English until it sounded natural rolling off your tongue. Nights in the kill house when the others went to the pub, just the two of you running drills until you dropped, Ghost’s gloved hand on the back of your neck steadying you when your arms gave out. He watched the baby fat melt away, watched your shoulders widen, your jaw sharpen, your voice drop into something low and rough that made his stomach twist in ways he never admitted. He kept the balaclava on, always, but you learned to read his eyes anyway, learned when he was proud, when he was furious, when he was scared for you even though he’d rather die than say it.

You moved up fast. Corporal at twenty-two, staff sergeant at twenty-five, and now, ten years after he dragged you into this life, there was a sergeant stripe freshly sewn onto your sleeve. Solo recons, high-risk targets, jobs that didn’t need a handler breathing down your neck anymore. You didn’t need him to translate briefings, didn’t need him standing behind you in the range whispering “breathe, exhale, squeeze,” didn’t need him dragging you out of the mess when you drank too much and started picking fights you still couldn’t win.

Ghost sat alone in his office, door locked, lights off except for the glow of the desk lamp. The promotion paperwork lay signed in front of him, your name in bold letters under new assignment orders. Eastern Europe, deep infiltration, no support element. Six months minimum. He stared at it until the words blurred.

The first tear caught him by surprise. He never cried, not once in all the years of blood and sand and screaming, but now they came hot and fast, soaking into the balaclava where no one would ever see. His shoulders shook with it, big hands gripping the edge of the desk until the wood groaned. You were leaving. Not just the base, not just the task force, him. His boy, all grown into a man who didn’t flinch at triple canopy jungle or blizzard mountain ops, a man who spoke four languages and could outshoot half the regiment and didn’t need Ghost to hold him together anymore.

He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes like he could shove the tears back in, but they kept coming, ugly and silent and unstoppable. The thought of you out there alone, no one to watch your six, no one to drag you behind cover if you got sloppy, no one to pull you out if you went down, it tore something open inside his chest he didn’t know was still there. He’d kept you alive for ten years and now you were walking away and he was proud, God, he was so proud, but the idea of never feeling your shoulder bump his in the helo again made him want to put his fist through the wall.

The door handle rattled once, quietly.

Ghost froze, breath hitching wet behind the mask, tears still sliding down into the collar of his shirt. He didn’t move, didn’t make a sound, just sat there in the dark with his face crumpled and his heart split open, waiting for you to come in.