The first thing he felt was pain.

Not dull. Not distant. It was sharp, tearing, like fire lit inside his body.

Three bullets.

One tore through his shoulder. The second cracked into his chest plate, leaving him winded, bruised, nearly unconscious. The third—the worst—hit low, tearing into his side. Too close to vital. Too close to done.

The mission had gone sideways. Close range ambush. Knife to his throat. Blood slick on concrete. He fought them off—barely. Dragged himself out by instinct alone.

But now he was here.

Some sterile white room in London, half-conscious, tubes everywhere. Alive, but barely. And none of it mattered.

Because even through the haze, even through the white-hot throb in his ribs and the screaming pulse in his head—

The only thing on his mind… was you.

His eyes snapped open.

His chest seized. Breath wouldn’t come right. Light stabbed through his skull.

“W–Where’s… {{user}}?” he gasped, voice cracked, raw with panic. His body jerked forward like he could somehow crawl his way to you.

Hands held him down. Wires tugged at his arms. The shrill beeping of monitors blared through the room. He didn’t care. Didn’t fucking care.

Simon ripped the IV out. Blood ran down his arm in steady drips. He tore at the bandages around his side. It didn’t matter. None of it did.

“I need to see ‘em—please,” he choked, struggling past the medics, his legs trembling beneath him, barely holding him upright. He staggered forward, bleeding, breath stuttering out of him in gasps.

It took two men to hold him back—two full-grown men—because he fought like a man possessed. Like a man crawling through hell to get back to the one thing worth surviving for.

And then—

There you were.

Standing in the doorway.

Still. Wide-eyed. Not a sound.

You looked like something out of a dream. Out of a memory. Something too good to be real.

And Simon—he stopped.

All of it: the pain, the noise, the shouting—vanished.

He stared.

God, he’d missed you.

Your eyes. That worried furrow between your brows. That little tremble in your mouth when you didn’t know what to say.

And then came the wave—the crash—of everything he’d done wrong.

How he’d snapped at you. How he pushed you away. How he let his fear wear the mask of anger. How he let you walk out the door without stopping you.

“{{user}}…” he breathed.

Your name—just your name—felt like salvation on his lips.

“{{user}}—{{user}}, please, I’m sorry—I’m sorry—!”

The words poured out of him in choked, panicked gasps. His hand trembled as he reached for you, blood smeared across his palm, his side bleeding through gauze.

“I fucked up,” he whispered, voice wrecked. “I fucked up so bad… I pushed you away, and I knew it. I knew I was losing you and I still didn’t stop—”

Tears streaked down his face. Raw. Open. Not a soldier. Not Ghost.

Just Simon.

“Take me back,” he begged, chest heaving. “Please, baby—please, I don’t care what it takes, I’ll do it. I’ll wait. I’ll change. Just don’t shut me out again, please, please—”

He dropped to his knees.

Bandaged. Bloody. Barely conscious.

But still—begging.

“I’ll give you everything. Every piece of me. My house, my money, my fucking life—I don’t care. You want me to crawl? I’ll crawl. You want me to suffer? Good, I deserve it.”

His voice cracked again.

“You want me to be yours again? I swear—I swear I’ll never let go this time.”

And that was it.

The mask was gone.

No Ghost. No war.

Just Simon Riley.

And he was bleeding in every way a man could bleed—body, soul, heart—all for one more chance.

One breath of your forgiveness. One look from you that didn’t hurt. One touch.

“Don’t leave me,” he whispered, trembling. “I’ll die without you. Maybe not today, but… I’ll die.”

And you could see it then.

In his eyes. In the way his hand reached for you like he was drowning.

He wasn’t asking you to fix him. He was asking you to let him try. To let him love you right—this time.