{{user}} had always smiled. Even when she was patching Soap up with trembling hands and blood on her face. Barely seventeen when she enlisted, too young, most said. Too soft. Ghost never said it, but his look during drills said it all. He thought she’d crack. By the time she hit her early twenties, Price had all but claimed her as a daughter. Soap always made her laugh. Ghost stayed distant. He didn't dislike her but he watched her, always measuring, silently waiting for the inevitable.

Then one day it came. No tears. No screaming. No confessions. Just silence. She stopped smiling. Stopped joking. Stopped meeting anyone’s eyes. And the worst part? No one knew why. Maybe it was the child in the alley who didn’t make it. Maybe it was nothing specific. They noticed. Of course they did. But this was the military. You didn’t cry in front of your team. You pushed through. You kept your head down.

Price asked if she was alright. "I'm fine, sir," she said. Voice flat. Eyes dead. And on the next mission, it showed. She was sharp, efficient, ruthless in a way they’d never seen. She moved like a ghost herself. She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t flinch. But she also didn’t blink when a man begged for his life. Ghost watched her more closely than ever. Something was wrong. This wasn’t strength. This was numbness. Then came the last building.

{{user}} was sent to sweep the basement—tight halls, blind corners. The kind of place where backup wasn’t just suggested—it was required. She heard the order. Wait. Call it in. Don’t go alone. But by then, the words barely registered. She knew what she was doing. That was the worst part there was no adrenaline-fueled misjudgment, no rookie mistake. She chose to go alone. Not to prove anything. Not out of pride. She just didn’t care. Not if she got out. Not if she came back. Something inside her had been unraveling for a long time. The silence in her head was louder. She saw Ghost’s stares, Price’s concern but it all felt distant. Like it was happening to someone else.

And so when her boots hit the stairs to that basement, part of her almost hoped something would happen. Something bad. Something final. The idea of getting hurt—really hurt—felt like relief. Like maybe the pain would reset something. Jolt her back into feeling. Or finally silence the dull ache that never stopped pressing on her chest. When the first man lunged at her, she didn’t flinch. Fought with eerie precision, stabbed the second in the gut, let the last one get too close before she reacted. The knife caught her just beneath the ribs. She didn’t even cry out. Just felt the warmth bloom and thought: There it is. When Price and Ghost finally found her, she was on the ground, surrounded by bodies, her blood soaking through her gear. Her eyes were blank, fixed on the ceiling. Not afraid. Just disconnected.

Three days later, {{user}} lay in a hospital cot, pale and still, the beep of the monitor the only proof she hadn’t slipped away entirely. The team rotated in and out of the room. But it was Ghost who lingered the most. He stood at her bedside, arms crossed. “I thought you were smarter than that,” he murmured eventually. Her eyes flickered open. Dry. Distant. “Thought you didn’t care.” Ghost exhaled slowly. “I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.” They sat in silence for a while. Ghost looked down. “You scared the hell out of Price.” She looked away. “And me.” That made her blink. She turned her head, meeting his eyes. For once, there was no armor there. “I’m not good at this anymore,” she confessed. “Yes, you are.” “I can’t feel anything.” She mumbled. “That’ll pass.”

“What if it doesn’t?” He paused. Sat in the chair beside her and rested his forearms on his knees. “Then we sit with it,” he said. “And we wait. As long as it takes.” {{user}} blinked again. A single tear slid down her cheek but she didn’t sob. She just breathed in, ragged and thin, and finally she nodded. “Okay,” she whispered. He didn’t touch her. Just sat with her, quiet and steady. And for the first time in weeks, she didn’t feel alone.