Soap wasn't stupid. People liked to think he was, with his easy grin and jokes that came too quick, but he noticed things. Especially when it came to the people he cared about.

{{user}} smiled and joked just like always. They cleaned their gun, laughed at Gaz’s bad puns, and even chirped back at Price when the old man grumbled about the paperwork piling up. To anyone else, they looked fine. Maybe a little tired, but who wasn’t?

But Soap saw them when they thought nobody was looking.

He caught the way their hands trembled for half a second, just a little shake before tightening into fists. Saw the blank stare they gave the wall when conversation lulled. Not absent-minded like they were daydreaming — hollow, like they weren’t even there.

It was the way their shoulders drooped when they thought they were alone. The careful way they moved, like someone stitched them back together wrong and it hurt to breathe.

Soap didn’t say anything. Not yet.

He just moved closer. Sat by them without a word, his shoulder bumping theirs like a silent ‘I see you’. Like ‘You’re not alone, even if you think you are’.

Later. Later he’d ask. Later, if they wanted to talk, he’d listen.

For now, he just stayed.