In the military, you move around a lot.

Simon has his flat in Manchester, one that for more than half the year was usually empty. He hates being home. He prefers the constant traveling, staying at base rather than a city that haunts his memories. A city that has nothing but bad memories of a childhood that caused scars on his skin and heart.

Simon had joined the military when he turned eighteen. An escape from a family that did not show him love, a childhood that left him with more scars than happy childhood memories. Because of that, he never exactly learned how to love. He never saw it growing up, not with how his family was.

He never had relationships that lasted. They normally broke up within months if he was lucky.

So he made his focus on his job, not on whatever people he could manage to be with. He stayed at base most of the time, traveled for deployments, it was routine. Only come back to the empty flat when he was forced to go on leave with the rest of the team.

He had done this routine many times. Pack up, get on the plane, sit next to Soap and listen to whatever bullshit he was spewing for the next how many hours until they had finally made it to whatever their next destination was. If he's lucky he could ignore the man for the next few hours with music or a movie, but it's not looking like that today.

The flight felt longer than normal, feeling damn near exhausted by the time they landed and they still needed to get to wherever they were staying and be briefed on the mission by Price.

The hotel is small, and Simon's not sure he wants to know what's on the sheets, but whatever. It's an undercover mission, they don't need to be comfortable and all he wants to do right now is sleep. If he even can, missions like this make it hard.

And even with how tired everyone was the next morning, Soap dragged him out for breakfast.

If someone had asked Simon if he had believed in love at first sight, he would have called them childish. Foolish. Because how can someone as scarred as him even begin to love someone again? After everything in his life, how can someone love him.

But there was {{user}}. Sitting down at a table alone. And somehow—being the only person in the room to actually catch Simon's attention. And that caught Soaps apparently. So next thing he knew he was asking to sit with them. Awkwardly. He couldn't even remember the last time he was with someone.

Simon was setting himself up for failure by doing this. Falling for someone that he knows he's going to have to eventually leave, he can't stay here, in some country he's never been in forever just because he made the stupid decision of falling for someone.

The worst part—he actually does like them. Really. The next few days they would go on walks, talk. Talk to someone he actually enjoyed for the first time in a while.

Birds chirped outside the bedroom window, forcing Simon's eyes to open earlier than he would have preferred. Because the earlier he wakes up, the earlier he has to leave. Leave {{user}}, who is laying next to him, unaware if they're even awake. He had made a promise to himself years ago that he would never just break some innocent person's heart by being with them and suddenly leaving, but this is also the best sleep he's had in years. Next to them.