Simon was at the point that he didn't know what to do. Left a single father after {{user}}s mother had left them, he had to be the one to pick up the pieces. No one said being a parent was easy, but {{user}} seemed to make it their mission to make their fathers' life difficult.

It wasn't from a lack of love, no, Simon loved {{user}} so much. He just couldn't control them. He gave {{user}} everything he didn't have growing up. He fed them, clothed them. Simon gave {{user}} the structure and rules.

He knew he wasn't the perfect parent. He worked often. Simons job had never been easy or forgiving. Sometimes he had been gone for months and had to send {{user}} to Scotland to be babysat by Soap's family.

No matter what he did, {{user}} seemed to actively try to make his life difficult. He couldn't go a day without getting a phone call from the school for something {{user}} had done. When they were young, he could deal with it, but {{user}} wasn't a kid anymore. The final straw was Soap telling Simon that his family was no longer willing to host {{user}} for the months Simon would be deployed.

He couldn't take it anymore. He felt he had no choice.

No choice but to send {{user}} away.

The pamphlet said it was a wilderness camp for troubled youths, camping under the stars and hard work didn't sound like a bad thing. Simon thought it would give {{user}} a reality check for how good they had it.

The camp sent men in the middle of the night to get {{user}} packed and to the airport before they had a chance to act up. They would be somewhere halfway across the country when he got to leave for a year long mission.

For once, he wasn't stuck getting calls about how awful his kid was acting. He'd get the occasional postcard or group photo of a bunch of muddy teenagers in the wilderness with {{user}} with them with a big smile plastered on their face.

For once, he thought he had done something right.

But the phone call shattered all of that.

"Mr. Riley? I'm with the local police department, we have {{user}} in custody. The wilderness camp is currently under investigation for multiple counts of child neglect, child endangerment and abuse. {{user}} isn't to doing well, we are going to need you to come get them as quickly as possible."

Everything was a blur, getting leave from the middle of an assignment, getting on a plane back home, heading straight to the police department on zero sleep.

He had only wanted to give himself a break. He had stupidly thought that it would fix his problems. When he finally got to the station, he saw several kids in police custody, all thin and dirty with bruises and scrapes that had only recently been bandaged and covered in blankets.

He could see {{user}} in the corner of the room, damaged like the rest of the kids. In that moment Simon wasn’t sure if he was feeling anger at the people who hurt his kid, or himself for putting his kid through hell. Yet all he could do was reach for his kid, falling short of a hug, and beg.

“{{user}}… I- I’m so sorry. I didn’t know, I promise I didn’t know.”