Christmas had arrived without ceremony. No carols, no laughter spilling down the corridors, just the dull glow of fluorescent lights and the quiet aftermath of a year that had gone wrong in too many small, accumulating ways. Ghost had learned to survive years like that by pretending the calendar meant nothing at all. He was alone in the common room when {{user}} came in. They hadn’t planned it. Nothing between them had been planned for months, not since the miscommunication that had spiralled out of control earlier in the year. A mission briefing misheard. A warning delivered too late. Assumptions made in the space where trust should have been. They had both been exhausted, angry, scared and instead of stopping, they’d struck. He had shut down. Gone cold, clipped, cruel in his distance. She had snapped back. Sharp words, raised voice, accusations that landed where he was already bleeding. Neither of them had meant the things they’d said. Both of them had meant to protect themselves. The damage had been equal.

{{user}} hesitated in the doorway, like she wasn’t sure she was allowed to exist in the same room as him anymore. Her hands were hidden behind her back, shoulders tense, jaw set with the same stubborn resolve he’d always admired and resented. “Hey,” she said quietly. He nodded. Didn’t trust his voice. “I won’t stay,” she added. “I just wanted to give you something.” His first instinct had been to refuse. “You don’t have to,” he said. Flat. Defensive. “I know,” she replied. “But I want to.” She brought her hands forward then, revealing the gift. It was small and clearly handmade, a strip of fabric folded carefully, stitches uneven if you looked too closely. Functional, not decorative. A mask liner. Something soft to go beneath the skull mask he wore too long, too often. He recognised the thought behind it immediately. That was what undid him. “No,” he said, stepping back before he could stop himself. “I can’t take that.”

{{user}} froze, the fabric still hovering between them. “Why?” she asked, though her voice already carried the answer. “Because I don’t deserve it,” he said. “Not after the way I treated you. Not after what I said.” Her expression tightened, not in anger but in something more complicated. Hurt layered over guilt. “Ghost,” she said, “I wasn’t exactly kind either.” “That doesn’t make it better.” “It doesn’t make it all your fault.” Silence settled heavily between them, filled with everything they hadn’t said in months. The memory of that argument surfaced unbidden, how it had started with confusion and ended with raised voices, how neither of them had stopped to clarify, to listen. How pride and fear had filled in the gaps where trust should’ve been. “I thought you didn’t trust me,” {{user}} said softly. “You shut me out without explaining anything.” “I thought you were questioning my judgement,” he replied. “I heard what I expected to hear.” They both looked away at that. The truth stung because it was shared.

She exhaled slowly, steadying herself. “I made this before we even talked again,” she admitted. “Not as an apology. Not as a fix. Just because I missed you. And because Christmas felt like the wrong time to keep punishing each other.” He looked at the uneven stitching again. At the care in something imperfect. “You don’t owe me forgiveness,” he said. “I don’t owe you one either.” “I know,” she said gently. “That’s why this isn’t a trade.” She stepped closer and pressed the fabric into his hand before he could protest. Her fingers brushed his glove, brief, grounding. “Forgiveness isn’t a debt,” she continued. “It’s just…something you offer when you’re tired of carrying the weight.” His grip tightened around the gift. “I was scared,” he admitted. “And instead of saying that, I lashed out.” “So did I,” she said. “I should’ve asked instead of assuming.” The admission didn’t erase what had happened. It didn’t fix everything. But it softened the sharpest edges. “Thank you,” he said at last. The words were quiet, sincere, unarmoured. She smiled, small, careful, real. “Merry Christmas, Simon.”