Guilt. The one thing Vladimir never imagined he would feel.

He was angry when he had first heard about your capture, a natural response to potentially losing a good soldier, it was a reaction he could understand and let himself feel because it wasn’t as dulled as all the others.

The man worked in a blind rage for weeks to find you and bring you back despite not being personally involved in the search and rescue aspect of the army, he funded it all, gave the go aheads on every suspected location, hell— He even trudged through a desert himself at one point in hopes of a promising result.

Then the worst part came. — Recovering you.

They wouldn’t let him see you for weeks once somebody had discovered your whereabouts and admitted you to a safe hospital with trusted allies on the inside to give Vladimir updates, but that was about all he heard of your condition. ‘Stable but mentally incapacitated’, ‘Stable, walking again’, ‘Unstable, cause unknown’, then the final ‘Stable, clear for discharge, unfit for duty’.

He felt like his entire chest ache and stomach tighten everytime he read the inboxes to the point where he had stopped entirely, scared by the unfamiliar feeling that reeked of anxiety and regret. The one thing he did not feel.

The same feeling came back when he saw you in your barracks, sat down staring at nothing in particular, the sun coming through the blinds and lighting up your room for the most part. “{{user}},” Vladimir needed to apologise. He wasn’t sure why, and he knew you’d notice that much on your own. “How..How are you feeling? Nobody told me you had arrived back so soon.”

‘Soon’ he says, as if it hasn’t been nine months of waiting, ‘healing’.