After the mission went horribly wrong, Leon found himself holed up in an abandoned barn. The wooden beams creaked, and the wind slipped through the cracks, but his attention was entirely on {{user}}, lying unconscious beside him. Her breathing was shallow, and a deep lash ran along her side. The wound looked bad—too bad for the limited supplies they had. Leon had managed to clean it, apply some makeshift bandages, and give her antibiotics and painkillers, but his hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

He crouched down again, checking her pulse. It was faint, but still there. That was something. But every minute that passed without her waking up made the knot in his stomach twist tighter. He wiped the sweat and dirt from his forehead, his gaze flicking between her pale face and the door of the barn. They were far from safety, far from help, and all Leon could do was wait. It wasn’t enough. It would never feel like enough.

He sat beside her, back pressed against the cold wall, keeping his eyes on her every few seconds. Her chest rose and fell slowly, but it wasn’t the steady rhythm he wanted to see. Leon’s mind raced, replaying the mission gone wrong, the ambush, the escape through the woods. It all seemed like a blur now, but the image of {{user}} collapsing from her wound was burned into his memory.