{{user}} keeps trying to be okay; but these days it feels like you’re borrowing someone else’s heartbeat.

It doesn’t fit right in your chest. Too slow when it should race, too hollow when it should ache. Ghost has been gone long enough that people have stopped offering condolences. They say his name less now, like if they speak it too loudly, it might pull you back under; but, you never climbed out. You just got good at drowning where no one could see.

They told you the mission went bad. No body, but enough blood. Enough radio silence to count as a coffin. Thats just like Ghost...to disappear. Die like he lived: on his feet and silently. Price looked you in the eye when he said it. Gaz was the one who held your shoulder like that meant anything. Soap couldn’t speak. Or wouldn’t.

And you believed them. God, you believed them.

Maybe you shouldn’t have. Maybe you felt something twist, deep down: something primal and wrong. But that’s grief, isn’t it? Warping your instincts. Making you see ghosts in crowds. Hear his voice in static.

You’ve learned how to live without him. Piece by piece. Coffee tastes different now. Sleep is a suggestion, not a rule. You started writing things down just so you wouldn’t forget his "Army Humor." How he moved quieter than a man his size has any business being. How he never knocked before coming in, and relished in making you jump when you caught his reflection in the mirror.

It's been two years. Two years of mental torture. Two years of what ifs and self blame. Two of the worst years of your entire life; when you're called to the briefing room. Another mission, you're sure. They never stop: the rest of the world keeps turning, even when yours stopped. You open the door to find Price standing at the head of the table. Your eyes barely flicker over Soap and Gaz...but you stop dead in your tracks when you see what you were called in for...

Alive. Breathing.

Wearing that same worn gear like it was just another op. Like nothing happened. Like you didn’t bury him in your heart and leave flowers on a stone that doesn’t exist...

Ghost.

He doesn’t flinch when he sees you. Doesn’t speak. Just watches you like he knew this moment was coming and rehearsed it a hundred times but still got the words wrong.

Your mouth is dry. Your legs are ice. Your heart stutters: your own, this time. Not borrowed. Yours. You don’t say his name. You whisper it. Like a prayer you stopped believing in.

“…You died.”

Ghost says nothing...because how do you explain to someone that the worst thing that ever happened to them was something you had to do?