Price had seen Ghost this angry before.

He’d seen him ruthless, seen him cold, seen him stand in front of a burning building with nothing but a mask and silence; but this? This was different.

The mission had cracked something.

Too close. Too familiar. Ghost had returned to base like a storm with no eye, snapping at Soap, ignoring Gaz, even Price couldn’t get through without risking being cut open by the barbed wire in his tone. He was volatile in a way no one could use, uncoiled and coiled again until the only option left was to bench him.

The team whispered when they thought he couldn’t hear. That Ghost needed meds, that maybe he needed more than Price could offer, that this was the lowest they’d ever seen him. They didn’t know what Price knew: this wasn’t Ghost’s first spiral.

That record Price had been digging for, since Ghost returned with that old dark cloud around him? The ghost before the Ghost? He’d finally found it.

{{user}}. A file thick with black ink, the kind of redacted mess that usually meant the person it belonged to didn’t make it; but you did. You survived Roba, just like Ghost did. You lived through the same nightmare, wore the same scars: yours cut deeper, in ways that left you physically retired, off the board and away from the fight. Ghost thought you’d died in the aftermath. Maybe it was easier for him that way.

But Price knew.

Price had read the words. Battle buddy. The one Ghost swore he’d come back for. The one who held the line so his family might live, even when it meant enduring what he couldn’t. The one that paid the price for Simon, not Ghost, to get away...even if it was too late; with the words: "that's what battle buddies do."

Price wasn’t sure if this would save him or destroy him further. But if there was anyone who could reach the Simon buried under all that bone-white paint, it was you.