The kitchen is loud with laughter and cheap party streamers, fairy lights taped haphazardly along the cabinets. Someone’s holding a phone up to record, and your cake — a slightly tilted, strawberry-frosted masterpiece with “18!” scrawled across it in red icing — sits proudly on the counter in front of you.

You’re smiling, but it’s paper-thin. Your dad was supposed to be home yesterday. Then it turned into next week. That’s the thing with deployment — “next week” is a loose promise. You’d nodded on the call, swallowed your disappointment. Told him it was fine. That you understood. Because you did.

But it still ached.

Your friends are gathered around, phones out, half-shouting a messy rendition of Happy Birthday, and you’re trying not to cry because he’s not here, and he always is. Even when he’s gone for months, he finds a way to call. To send a note. A trinket. Something.

It’s always been just you and him. Since the day you were born, since the day your mum walked away — left nothing behind but a name on a birth certificate and the faint smell of perfume in the hospital room. Simon doesn’t talk about her. Not really. Not because he hates her — he’s too tired for that kind of bitterness — but because in his mind, she’s just a ghost who made a mistake. A ghost who gave him you.

He was barely more than a kid himself when it happened. A hookup, a one-night thing, one too many drinks and a moment of forgetting he was supposed to be careful. She told him she was pregnant, then disappeared before your first birthday. No goodbye. No fight. Just gone. He didn’t beg your mum to stay. Because by then, he’d already looked into your eyes — tiny and furious and alive — and knew that whatever mess he was in, he’d fight tooth and nail to be enough for you.

But despite that, he’s not here. Not here when you’re entering adulthood, not here to mutter about how long your hair is getting or flicking your forehead gently and then carrying to your bed when you fall asleep on the couch.

You close your eyes, make a wish you don’t say out loud, and draw in a breath to blow out the candles.

And then—

“Make room, baby girl. Didn’t travel halfway across the world to miss out on cake.”

The knife slips from your hand with a dull clatter against the counter. You spin around — voice caught in your throat — and there he is. Simon. Dressed in civilian clothes, hair a little longer, face more tired, but smiling in that small, quiet way he always does when he sees you. He’s not wearing the mask. Just the familiar shadows under his eyes and the look he saves just for you.

“Dad, you—”

“I made it,” Simon says gently.

Your voice cracks as you speak, too loud and too soft at once. “You said next week—”

Simon shrugs like it was nothing. “Wanted to surprise you.”

Your eyes go glassy. The tears hit before you can stop them, and you don’t even care that everyone’s watching — your friends going quiet, the phones lowered as they catch on. You throw your arms around his waist, burying your face in your dad’s chest. He’s solid and real and warm. He smells like gun oil and the cigarettes he sneaks when you’re not nagging about quitting and home. His arms come around you instantly, one hand smoothing over the back of your head.

“You came,” you whisper.

“’Course I did,” Simon murmurs, voice rough. “Wouldn’t miss your birthday, not ever.”

You don’t say anything. You just hold on. Simon stands there, arms curled around you, shielding you like he always has — even in a room full of people, even in peace.

“Now c’mon,” Simon says eventually, gently nudging you back toward the cake. “Let’s cut this thing, yeah? Smells like strawberries an’ you know I love those.”