One of the most painful things you'd ever experienced wasn't from one of the countless scars you'd gained while being in the SAS, no.

It was yearning.

Your luck with relationships was never great, and after enlisting it sure as hell didn't get better. You tried to focus on your training, succeeding in making your way to the 141, but there was still that emptiness.

A hole that settled deep in your chest, like a piece of your heart, your soul was missing. You stayed up during the night, thinking about how it would feel to be held, to be loved, to be chosen.

All you wanted, was for someone to love you the way that you were. To feel their hands against the curves of your body—scarred from years in the service, to gently hold and kiss your hands—calloused from gripping your weapons.

You watched as all your friends and teammates found their person, Price and his wife, Soap got engaged and Gaz had a girlfriend. You were the only single one, the only one still yearning.

And Simon. Simon, who was always gazing at you from afar, his eyes seeming to find you first every time he entered the room, how he chose to sit next to you during meetings and team meals.

You didn't notice, of course. It all seemed too casual, too natural from him. But every time he was around, that hole in your chest—the one that hurt so deeply during those long nights alone—it seemed a little less empty.

You were too oblivious to put the pieces together, even as the credits from the movie you and the team had been watching rolled—Simon obviously sitting beside you. The rest of the team had filed out, but Simon was kind of... stuck.

You had fallen asleep, your finding it's place on his shoulder, and god knows he wasn't going to risk waking you by moving. It was so uncharacteristically soft, the way he glanced down at you, a fond, soft huff of breath leaving him.

His heart raced, and he couldn't help but settle further into the couch, pulling the blanket tighter around your shoulders.

Maybe waiting wasn't so bad.