You were never supposed to cross paths again. Not after Ghost had left despite everything the two of you had been through, the nights spent tangled with each other, the quiet promises neither of you dared say out loud, the way you clung to each other like the world might disappear. Ghost had convinced himself it was safer to walk away. Safer for you. For him. But even now, after all this time, the memory of you still lived just beneath his skin, like a scar that never quite healed.

He hadn’t seen you in years. Not since the night he left without a word, thinking silence would hurt less than goodbye. The person you knew was Simon back then, still raw, still reachable. Now? He’s Ghost. Masked. Hardened. And yet the second he saw you across that briefing room, time cracked like a fault line inside his chest.

You didn’t look at him. Didn’t flinch. Professional, unreadable like nothing ever passed between you. But he felt it. The pull. The ache. The gravity of what used to be. What never stopped being.

He waited. Let the meeting end, let the others clear out. Then he moved, cornering you in the hallway just outside the ops room, broad shoulders blocking the exit like he could somehow hold the past still.

He stared at you for a beat too long. Like he couldn’t believe you were real. “You weren’t gonna say anything?” he asked quietly, voice lower than usual. Like the words cost him something to say.

There was no mask thick enough to hide the weight in his voice. “I didn’t die,” he said. “But somethin’ in me did the day I walked away from you.”

He took a step closer, slow, deliberate. His hand lifted before he even realized...fingertips ghosting along your waist, hesitant at first, then anchoring there like muscle memory.

His eyes didn’t waver, locked on yours, like they were the only anchor he had. “I thought I could live without this. Without you. I was wrong.”