Ghost had stopped counting the days after the first hundred. He told himself numbers didn’t matter, that keeping track of time would only hollow him out faster. But every now and then, usually in the quiet after gunfire when the ringing in his ears faded, he would hear her laugh. That low, rich laugh that cut through the static of his mind. It would float up from the corner of the room, soft as smoke. He’d snap his head toward the sound, heart hammering, half expecting to see her sitting cross legged on the floor with that crooked grin that always undid him. But the corner would be empty. Always empty. Other nights it was her voice. A whisper just at the edge of hearing. “Simon.” Sometimes gentle, sometimes sharp, like when she used to scold him for working too late. It was never more than a syllable or two, but it was enough to strip him raw. He would lie there rigid in the dark, listening until the sound dissolved back into the silence, pulse pounding in his throat.

It crept into missions, too. The worst was in the stillness between firefights, when the gunfire stopped and the world seemed to hold its breath. That was when he’d hear her most clearly. A laugh over the radio, threaded through static. A whisper urging him to move. Once, in a crumbling village, he swore he saw her dart across an alley. His chest seized so violently he nearly fumbled his rifle. He told himself it was stress, exhaustion, grief bleeding through the cracks. But the voices didn’t fade. The laugh didn’t dull.

She’d been gone 374 days. KIA, they told him. Body recovered, unrecognisable, but enough to confirm. He never saw her, never held her one last time. Just a folded flag, a file, and the weight of silence pressing down on him. He had tried to bury her ghost, but she never left.

Today was just another op, or so he told himself. Intel said a black site prison was holding one of their persons of interest, and Task Force 141 had been tasked to confirm it. The corridors reeked of mildew and iron. The halls echoed with their boots, every step muffled under the low thrum of generators and the distant clang of chains. Ghost’s job was to sweep the cells. Most were empty, some filled with half dead figures too broken to speak. As he opened the next cell, the hinges shrieked. The smell hit him first, sweat, blood, damp concrete. He almost closed it again, ready to move on, until his eyes adjusted to the gloom. A figure was curled into the corner, knees pulled to chest, hair hanging in tangled strands. Thin. Shoulders trembling with each shallow breath. He froze. No. It couldn’t be.

His throat tightened under the mask as he stepped forward, boots scraping softly on the floor. He told himself not to move, not to hope. Not again. The figure stirred. A pair of glassy eyes lifted from the shadows. Pale, bruised, but…he knew them. He knew them better than his own reflection. The world stopped. “{{user}}…?” His voice was a rasp, raw and disbelieving. She blinked, lips parting as if forming a word she’d forgotten how to say. Her eyes widened, recognition sparking like a flare in the dark. For a moment, they just stared at each other, caught between life and death, between a year of grief and the impossible reality in front of them. “Simon?” Her voice cracked, barely a whisper, but it carved straight through his chest. Ghost staggered forward, every wall he’d built over 374 days crashing down in a heartbeat.

His gloved hands hovered, trembling, afraid to touch her in case she vanished like every other ghost. But she didn’t. She was real. Flesh and blood. “{{user}},” he breathed again, softer this time, like saying her name too loud might break her. Her face crumpled, tears streaking through the dirt and blood. She reached for him with shaking fingers, and when they touched his wrist, warm and trembling, he felt it, real, alive. Behind him, he barely heard Soap calling his name, barely noticed Price’s voice over comms. None of it mattered. Because after 374 days of ghosts, Simon finally had {{user}} back.