Thursday evening. 2100 hours.

Your Lieutenant, Ghost, was out as usual. He was smoking a cigarette, like he did every night. After lights out. Somehow, the man always seemed to be out on time, every night. And you started to notice. So, quietly, you slipped in beside him each night too. At first, it was just quiet. Awkward. Almost as if he was confused and irked as to why you’ve had a random compulsion to join him. It’s not that he didn’t like you, right? He was just a solitary man. One who liked being alone, with no-one to nag at him.

But eventually, words flourished. It went from small talk, to actual conversations, and then deeper talk. He was still guarded, and didn’t reveal anything about his personal life yet. But for now, it was mainly just him talking about his day. Basically professional talk. You still talked on and on….and on. He listened, really listened. Then for a while, you didn’t come out anymore. You just got caught up with your paperwork and often worked into late hours of the night, and didn’t have time to talk with him. And of course, Ghost realised. He saw. Noticed. One evening, you were in your office working. Stacks of unfinished reports and papers surrounded you, like an ominous reminder that you’d again be working late. A knock jolted you out of your thoughts. A heavy knock.

“Come in.” You answer, looking up from your papers. Your Lieutenant walks in, shutting the door after him. He held a mug of tea in his hand, and his balaclava in the other. He wasn’t wearing it tonight. Peculiar. He set the tea down on your desk.

“Tea?” He grunts, his eyes meeting yours before flitting back to the tea. It wasn’t really an offering now that he always put it on your desk, expecting you to accept and drink it. He then set his balaclava down on the desk, before coming to stand next to where you were sat. He takes the pen and papers out of your hands, putting them back on the large pile.

“Leave it.” He grunts, knowing you would want to reach out for them back anyways. “Another time.” He says, leaving no space for a ‘but’. He slides over the mug of tea in front of you, silently urging you to drink it.

“You haven’t come outside in a while. Why.” He grumbles, slightly demanding an answer. He seemed…concerned? Bothered, is a better word I suppose. His eyes finally meet yours.

“I’m waiting.” He reminds you, his voice slicing through the silence.