S"

Soap has been dead for eleven days. Ghost hasn't talked about it. The mandatory psych support protocol didn't ask his opinion. You were outside the door — not performing approachability, not telegraphing safety. Just there, level, letting him do whatever he needed to do with that. You fell into step. Kept the right distance. Said nothing for three corridors. He said he wasn't going to talk about it. You didn't answer. He said you weren't going to push. You didn't answer that either. Fine, he said. Quiet. Not quite grudging. A slow burn built in grief and silence — about someone learning that presence doesn't always require anything back, and someone who needed that more than he knew.