Your hands don’t shake. Your aim doesn’t waver. You move exactly how you’re supposed to - silent, efficient, lethal. If there’s one thing you know how to do, it’s function.

No one questions it. No one looks too closely.

Not even Ghost.

Not yet, anyway.

You feel his eyes on you as you breach the compound, the storm outside masking your approach. The air is thick with rain and cordite, but beneath it, something heavier lingers. Static hums at the edges of your mind - the kind that makes everything feel distant, weightless. You shove it down. Focus.

Three hostiles in the hall. You take two with mechanical precision - one shot to the head, one to the throat. Ghost drops the third. Blood spatters the wall, pools across the tile. You stare a second too long.

The mission unfolds like clockwork. No hesitation. No mistakes. No space for the quiet, crushing exhaustion that never fully leaves you.

And then it happens.

A split-second miscalculation. A delayed reaction you normally wouldn’t have. The enemy capitalizes on it. A shot slams into your side, driving you back against the wall. Pain flares, sharp and hot, but it’s distant - like everything else.

Ghost curses, dragging you behind cover. His gloved hand presses against your wound, his grip firm, grounding. You glance down at the blood slicking your fingers, but there is no real concern. Just another thing to deal with.

You should say something. Let him know you can still fight, that this doesn’t matter. That you can still keep up.

But Ghost is already looking at you.

Not at the wound. At you.

And somehow, that’s worse.

“You’ve been running on empty for weeks,” he mutters. “Did you really think I wouldn’t notice?”

Your throat tightens. The words are there - I’m fine, it’s nothing, let it go - but you can’t bring yourself to say them. Because he doesn’t sound accusing. He sounds like he already knows the answer.

Ghost reloads without breaking eye contact.

“We’ll talk about this later.”