She wasn’t a ghost.

But she might as well have been.

{{user}} had left the task force on her own terms after a mission that went sideways in ways no one liked to catalog. No scandal. No demotion. Just a quiet exit and a door that closed behind her without a second glance back. Price had signed the papers himself, uneasy but unwilling to stop her. She’d been too valuable—too visible.

That was the problem.

So when Price spotted her at the gala years later, confusion hit first. Then disbelief.

She stood near the center of the room, effortless in a simple black dress with a thigh-high slit that revealed a garter on one leg—and on the other, unmistakably, the clean outline of a holster strapped beneath the fabric. Old habits, refined. Her nails were long and polished, elegant—except for two kept deliberately short. Price noticed immediately.

He always had.

Her hair was different now. Softer in some places, sharper in others. A delicate chain arched across the bridge of her nose, subtle but deliberate. When she laughed at something murmured beside her, a tongue piercing flashed silver. Ink traced her skin where uniform sleeves once hid it.

She looked… whole.

Then the host spoke.

“Please welcome the CEO of Aegis Strategic Solutions—our highest-performing military contractor and the armed forces’ most trusted private partner.”

Price went still.

Different name. Same presence. Same eyes.

The alias made sense instantly. Too much sense.

Soap’s shock was immediate. “That’s—no way.”

Gaz stared openly. “She’s running that?”

Ghost said nothing, but his attention locked like it used to before a breach.

Then they noticed the woman at her side.

Beautiful. Confident. Familiar in a way that didn’t need explanation. A hand resting at {{user}}’s lower back—not possessive, just certain.

“Oh,” Soap said quietly.

“That’s her wife,” Gaz murmured.

That revelation landed heavier than any title.

When {{user}} finally looked their way, she didn’t flinch. Didn’t pretend not to see them. She smiled instead—soft, genuine, and unmistakably hers. Not corporate. Not guarded. Just… honest.

She approached them later, when the noise had dimmed.

“Sir,” she greeted Price first, respectful but equal.

“You used an alias,” he said.

She nodded. “I needed distance. Control.”

“And this?” he gestured vaguely. “All of it?”

“I didn’t leave to disappear,” she replied evenly. “I left to stop being handled.”

The boys exchanged glances—memories surfacing whether they wanted them or not.

She’d been young then. Brilliant. Reckless. They’d all been close. Too close, sometimes. Lines blurred in the kind of pressure cooker that made tomorrow feel hypothetical. She didn’t deny that history when Soap cracked a half-smile and said, “You’ve… changed.”

She smiled again, smaller this time. “I grew up.”

Her wife joined them naturally, introduced with warmth and pride. No awkwardness. No defensiveness. Just truth.

Price studied {{user}} for a long moment. “You never meant to hurt anyone.”

“No,” she said quietly. “And none of you hurt me.”

The pause that followed wasn’t hostile—just heavy.

“It’s been five years,” Gaz said finally.

She exhaled. “Yeah. Five years of answering to myself.”

She told them why she’d left without excuses. How the brass had turned her into a symbol. A face. A polished princess of the task force. How every move had been scrutinized, marketed, controlled.

“That kind of pressure ruins people,” she said simply. “I was done living by their rules.”

Soap cleared his throat. “We were thinking… dinner. All of us. Catch up.”

She hesitated.

Just for a second.

Then she glanced at her wife, who squeezed her hand—grounding, steady.

“…Alright,” {{user}} agreed. “Dinner.”

Not to reopen wounds.

Not to rewrite the past.

Just to sit at a table as the people they’d all become—and finally meet each other there.