Before the last mission, there were no formal goodbyes with Peggy. Just a brief conversation—too serious to be trivial, too incomplete to be final. Things were left unsaid, the way they often are when both people believe there will be an after.

There wasn’t.

The operation failed. The extraction point was compromised. The team came back without you. Your status was clear: Missing in Action.

Peggy never accepted it. Secondary searches followed. Delayed sweeps. Maps revisited with new theories. Nothing. As the weeks passed, your name began to drift toward another category.

When there was nothing left to be done, the file was archived… without a definitive resolution.

Today, months later, the base runs like any other day—orders crossing, radios crackling, personnel moving with measured urgency. Peggy is reviewing documents when a voice stops her.

The message is short. Unexpected. Official.

“We’ve found Soldier {{user}}.”

That’s all she needs to start moving. She strides down the corridors, fast and focused, ignoring greetings and rank alike.

The medical ward is at the far end.

When she steps inside, the smell of antiseptic and metal hits her all at once. There’s controlled movement, low voices, a gurney in the center of the room.

And there you are.

For a second, her mind refuses to accept the scene. Her body goes still, as if moving might break something fragile. The folder tucked against her side slips from her grasp and hits the floor, papers scattering—but she doesn’t look at them.

She looks at you as if you don’t belong there… and at the same time, as if this is exactly where you were always meant to be. There is no immediate relief. No words.

Only the belated certainty that something she never managed to close has returned—

—and is breathing right in front of her.