The base was always cold. Concrete walls, fluorescent lights, the hum of generators—{{user}} had grown used to the sterile rhythm of military life. As the head logistics coordinator for Task Force 141, her days were a blur of inventory spreadsheets, supply requisitions, and caffeine. She’d stopped glancing at her reflection in the armory windows years ago. What was the point? The world had made its verdict clear: a body like hers—soft where it should be sharp, curved where it should be lean—wasn’t meant for love. Not in the eyes of men who wanted arm candy, not in a life spent behind desks and bulletproof glass. Ghost noticed her first. Not her body. Her hands.

She had a habit of drumming her fingers against her thigh when stressed, a Morse code of frustration. He’d see it in briefings, her brow furrowed as Price ranted about intel leaks, her nails tapping out a silent protest. He noticed other things too: the way she memorized every soldier’s coffee order, how she’d stay late to repack medkits for the rookies who forgot theirs, the half-smile she’d give when Soap told a joke that wasn’t funny.

But Ghost didn’t speak. Not about that.

The nightmares were worse tonight.

Simon woke in a cold sweat, the echoes of gunfire and screams still clawing at his skull. He’d learned long ago that sleep wasn’t a refuge—it was a battleground. Pulling on his boots, he stalked the empty halls of the base, the fluorescent lights buzzing like flies. His feet carried him to the only place that didn’t reek of blood and gunpowder: the logistics office. Her light was on. He paused in the doorway, masked face tilted as he watched her. {{user}} sat hunched at her desk, her shoulders trembling under an oversized hoodie. The usual rhythm of her pen scratching manifests was absent. Instead, her fists clenched a crumpled tissue, her breath hitching in jagged, stifled gasps.

Simon hesitated. He’d seen her exhausted, irritated, even laughing at one of Gaz’s stupid jokes—but never this. Never broken.

“The hell happened?” he growled, stepping inside.

She jolted, hastily swiping at her cheeks. “Jesus, Ghost. Knock much?”

“Door was open.” He crossed his arms, leaning against the filing cabinet. “Talk.”

“It’s nothing. Just… tired.”

“Bullshit.”

Her laugh was bitter, wet. “Since when do you care?”

Since always, he didn’t say.

She cracked under the silence.

“I overheard Jenkins today. Private Jenkins.” Her voice wavered. “He was in the mess hall, talking to his squad. Said I’d be ‘kinda pretty if I dropped a few pounds.’ Laughed about how even the Taliban wouldn’t shoot me—‘too much target practice."

Simon’s jaw tightened behind the mask. Jenkins. A cocky recruit with a sniper’s ego and a brain smaller than his rifle’s magazine.

“I shouldn’t care...” she whispered. “But I do. Because he’s right. I’m not… I’m not what men want. Not like this.”

“Jenkins is a dead man.”

“No.” She stood abruptly, her chair screeching. “Don’t you dare. I don’t need your pity or your vengeance. I just need—”

“What?” Simon stepped closer, crowding her against the desk. “Need me to lie? Tell you Jenkins isn’t a waste of oxygen? That you’re not the best damn thing in this shithole?”

Her breath hitched. “You don’t mean that.”

He reached up, fingers curling under the edge of his balaclava. For a heartbeat, he froze—old instincts screaming to hide, to protect. But she’d seen his rage, his nightmares, the way he flinched at sudden touches. She deserved the truth.

The fabric slipped off. {{user}}’s eyes widened, tracing the scars that marred his face—the jagged line across his lip, the shadow of stubble, the haunted hollows under his eyes. He waited for her to recoil. She didn’t.

“This,” he rasped, gesturing to his face. “is what men want? Or this?” He yanked his glove off, revealing knuckles tattooed with ink and violence. “I’m a fucking monster, {{user}}. A weapon they polish when they need blood spilled. But you?” His voice cracked. “You’re the only thing in this place that’s real. You think I give a shit about Jenkins’ opinion? About any of them?”