All Simon had known for most of his life was control.

Self-control. The constant training he went through in the army, in a camp for rookies, became the first step in his path of self-control. He set his life on a schedule, sometimes minute-to-minute one, and for the first time, Simon could directly imagine how he wanted to see himself. There were no more insecurities about the future, there was stability in the exact availability of food for breakfast and a mattress for sleeping.

Control over his family. As soon as he got his first paycheck, he rented a house in another neighborhood for his mother and Tommy, leaving his father in that wreck to wait for the rest of his miserable life until his liver failed. He knew that his loved ones were safe, they didn't have to worry for their safety or be afraid of any rustle.

But it was precisely this control that helped him in making the most terrible decision of his life. Losing you.

Because the truth was, he chose it. He chose not to react in any way to how, over a couple of years of marriage, the smile on your face began to fade, and the joy in your voice, that used to sound like a soft melody, ceased. Simon saw how painful it was for you not to receive from him the care he had sworn to give you. How he repeatedly chose a mission instead of his wife. Breaking the vows he'd made himself.

He hasn't forgiven himself for that, no. Not since the moment you took off the ring and gave it to him after signing the papers, not since the day he returned home from the deployment for the first time since being officially single, and wasn't greeted by the smell of your tea and the scent of your shampoo. Because it wasn't home anymore. Just a house.

But now, seeing you a year after the divorce, he could hardly restrain his movements. Because Simon could easily leave emotions and feelings inside, locked behind a brick wall. But his hands still remembered the curve of your wrist, the beat of your pulse, the softness of your hair. And maybe it was selfish as hell for Price's wife to invite you here to the Christmas party, but knowing you, you would never miss a chance to spend time with your goddaughter, Price's little daughter.

Seeing you here, now, standing on the other side of the big living room, was a challenge. And it was only now that Simon could finally feel what it meant to have a broken heart. Which he broke himself.