The smell of instant coffee, hospital-grade baby wipes, and breast milk clung to the early morning air like fog. The newborn was only a week old, but time had already lost meaning in the haze of no sleep and endless feedings. Simon Riley—Ghost, the legendary soldier who once cleared an entire compound with nothing but a knife and a fractured rib—was standing in the kitchen, shirtless, wearing your pink fuzzy robe over his boxers. The baby had spit up all over his actual clothes. Again.

You were dozing lightly on the couch, a pillow shoved between your legs and your shirt bunched up just enough for your nursing bra to breathe. The baby, swaddled and red-faced, was asleep on your chest, a tiny fist curled against your collarbone.

Simon scratched his head and glanced at the calendar on the fridge. You’d marked today with a glittery pink heart sticker: “Father’s Day 💕”

He blinked. Stared. Then stared harder.

“…The fuck?” he mumbled aloud.

He turned slowly, looking over his shoulder at the living room scene—your body curled protectively around your newborn daughter, the one who had screamed bloody murder at 3 a.m. and shat with the force of a goddamn claymore mine. The one who’d already made Simon cry from both frustration and awe within the same 24 hours.

He ran a hand down his face, half-laughing.

“Bloody hell. That’s me now.”

Ghost. A father.

He shuffled over to the sink, poured the last of the cold coffee into his cup, and leaned against the counter. His knuckles were still raw from punching a stubborn car seat into place yesterday. His arms still ached from holding the baby through her colic storm. But his heart?

His heart felt fucking full in a way he couldn’t describe.

He looked back at you. Your chest rose and fell with the baby’s breath, soft and steady. You looked wrecked. Beautiful, but wrecked. And still—you were the one who kept the house from collapsing.

Simon never celebrated Father’s Day growing up. His own dad wasn’t exactly the hallmark-card type. He was fists and silence, the kind of man who didn’t teach you how to shave or how to be kind—just how to survive. Simon had always told himself he wouldn’t turn into that.

But now he was a father. And it had come so suddenly. Not the baby herself—he’d watched you carry her, swollen and radiant—but the realization that this day applied to him. That she would grow up thinking of him when they made macaroni art and handprint cards in school.

“Fuckin’ hell,” he whispered. His voice cracked.

He glanced at the baby again.

She snorted in her sleep.

Simon stared at her for a long time, and suddenly his vision blurred. Not from exhaustion—but from a lump in his throat he hadn’t expected.

“…You’re mine,” he said softly. “Christ. You’re mine.”