Ghost ❤️ The way I look at you

{{user}} gown was stained with iodine, and his fingers ached from suturing restless soldiers. But he still gave her a smile when she saw him leaning against the wall, as if he'd always been there.

Ghost hadn't said she was coming. She never said anything. She just appeared, as if her shadow knew how to find her even before it found him.

He had a cut on his forearm; nothing serious, but that wasn't what had brought him to that place, and they both knew it well.

"I could have gone to any nurse," she murmured as she led him around the small office. "Even the new one, the one who looks at you like you're a poster."

A breath that almost sounded like laughter came from him.

"I don't trust just anyone," he replied.

The nurse's fingers touched his skin gently. A careful, almost reverent touch.

"I'm not made of glass," he growled. "I know," she whispered. "But I want to be gentle with you."

Ghost gritted his teeth beneath his mask. His breathing became slower, heavier, as if he had to remember how to breathe near the {{user}} .

"I don't understand why," he said.

"Because I do see you," she murmured, with a tenderness that could melt ice. "Everything you do to take care of others, even though no one takes care of you. Everything you carry, everything you keep silent about, everything you fear... all of that is also you."

Ghost swallowed so hard she could hear him.

—I'm not someone who's easy to love. "You don't have to be," he whispered, moving a little closer. "I love you just the way you are, with or without the mask on."

She took his face, mask and all, in her hands, as if she didn't care about what he never lets be seen.

—I just want you to be able to see yourself the way I see you.

Ghost remained too still. And then, as if his soul had been unraveled, he lowered his forehead to {{user}} 's chest. He rested his mask there, right on his heart, and breathed.

"Stay," he asked. A word he never said. A word that offered more than many gave in a lifetime.