You have chronic pain. It’s not unexpected, you’re in the SAS for gods sake, everyone has it. Soap has a bad knee from an explosives incident… Gaz has back pain from his helicopter incident… Price has chest pain from breaking his ribs one too many times… and Ghost? No one knows about Ghost… he never seems to show any weakness, but it’s safe to assume that man deals with more than everyone else combined.

Today was particularly bad for you, though. Every method of pain relief you’ve tried has failed, and it’s showing in your performance during training. No one seems to notice, and if they do they don’t comment on it, other than Ghost who keeps casting looks over at you.

At first, you think he’s annoyed with your performance, so you push yourself as hard as possible, ignoring the pain. This results in where you are now, collapsed on the couch in the common room still in your sweaty clothes, a hot water bottle pressed against where it hurts as waves of pain flow through you.

Ghost walks into the common room, in a fresh change of clothes, his usual skull balaclava swapped out for a face mask and hood pulled over his head. He stops in his tracks when he sees you on the couch, slowly stepping towards you as if you were an injured animal.

“{{user}}? Everything alright?” His tone is gruff and nonchalant, but the look in his eyes betrays the hint of concern he feels for his teammate who’s obviously in pain.