Soap is alive. That should mean something. It should mean everything.

But it doesn’t, not when he’s sitting across from Ghost, those familiar blue eyes empty, his face twisted in quiet confusion, searching for answers Ghost doesn’t know how to give.

Not when he doesn’t remember him.

The bullet should’ve killed Soap. Makarov lined up the shot perfectly..cruel and deliberate, just like everything that bastard did. Ghost was there. He saw it. Blood. So much fucking blood. Soap crumpling to the ground, twitching, his hands clawing at his own skull like he was trying to hold himself together. Ghost had him in his arms, praying he'd stay, but Soap’s eyes were rolling back, and Ghost thought..no, he knew, that was it.

But it wasn't. Soap survived.

The medics called it a miracle. Ghost called it a mistake. Because if Soap was going to come back, then he should have come back. Not like this.

Not as a shell of the man Ghost fought beside. Not without his fire, his laughter, his terrible fucking jokes. Not without him.

Soap sits across from Ghost now, staring at his hands, rubbing his thumb against the callouses, frowning like they’re unfamiliar. He does that a lot, touches things, turns them over, testing them like they’ll spark some memory, some recognition. Sometimes it’s his dog tags. Sometimes it’s his knives. Sometimes it’s the tattoos on his own bloody arms, like he’s trying to read himself.

Nothing ever comes back.

He glances up at Ghost, brows knitting together, head tilting slightly.

"We fought together, aye?.." He mutters, Scottish accent thick.

Soap hums thoughtfully.

"Were we… close?" Ghost’s jaw clenches.

Close?

Soap used to call him Simon like it was the most natural thing in the world. He used to lean into Ghost, shoulder to shoulder, warmth radiating off him like a goddamn furnace. He used to understand Ghost in a way no one else did, fill the silence with something that wasn’t suffocating.

Now, Ghost is just another shadow in Soap’s periphery.