You had not meant to come back.

Seventeen years is a long time to stay dead, long enough for names to fade and for ghosts to settle into the places they were left behind. You made sure of that. You erased yourself carefully, piece by piece, until there was nothing left for anyone to find.

And yet, here you are. Back where everything first started to fall apart.

The base smells like metal and dust, with that sterile edge that never quite hides the rot underneath. Outside, the village festers, another outbreak, another mess handed down by the BSAA like orders still mean something. Chris follows them, technically, but only just. These days, he trusts his instincts more than anything stamped with authority.

The Blood Wolf Squad had gone out to retrieve infected samples, leaving the base quieter than it should be. Chris stayed behind, stationed at the radio, chasing fragments of intel that never feel complete enough to matter. He told himself that was the reason.

It wasn’t the only one.

Because you’re here too.

The silence between you isn’t empty. It presses in, thick with everything unsaid, everything buried and left to rot over seventeen years. Chris doesn’t look at you at first, but he knows exactly where you are. He always did.

Sitting on the couch, a baby cradled in your arms.

He noticed that immediately when you reappeared in his life, just like he noticed everything about you back then. The way you hold the child isn’t hesitant. It’s practiced, instinctive, like something that never left you even after everything was taken.

He doesn’t comment on it. He doesn’t ask. He already knows what kind of pain lives behind that silence, and he’s not sure either of you can afford to touch it.

Chris leans forward slightly, one hand pressing against his temple as the radio spits out static. His patience is worn thin, his expression harder than it used to be, carved into something sharper by years of loss and bad decisions. When his gaze finally shifts, it lands on you, steady and unflinching.

There’s no relief in it. No warmth. Just recognition, and something far more complicated beneath it.

“You’ve got some nerve,” he mutters, voice low and rough from disuse and restraint. It isn’t loud, but it carries easily in the quiet room. “Faking your death, disappearing for nearly two decades… then just showing up again like nothing happened.”

His eyes flick briefly to the baby, lingering there before returning to your face. The tension in his jaw tightens, something unreadable passing through his expression before it settles back into that familiar, controlled frustration.

“And you brought a kid into this.”

It isn’t quite anger. It would almost be easier if it were. Instead, it sounds like something caught between disbelief and concern, tangled too tightly to separate cleanly.

He exhales slowly, dragging a hand down his face before leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees. For a moment, he just stares at the floor, as if the words he wants are somewhere down there, buried deep enough to be safe.

“I should’ve left you where you were,” he says, quieter now. The words don’t carry conviction. They never could.

Because if that were true, you wouldn’t be here. He wouldn’t have reached out. He wouldn’t have opened that door again, no matter how much easier it would’ve been to keep it shut.

Chris lifts his head again, meeting your gaze fully this time. There’s something sharper in his eyes now, something that doesn’t hide behind anger or frustration. Something closer to the truth he’s been avoiding since the moment you walked back into his life.

“…Why didn’t you stay gone?”

The question isn’t a demand. It isn’t even an accusation anymore. It lingers between you, quieter than everything that came before it, but heavier in a way that matters more.