au! where simon has to leave the military because of some debilitating injury. his legs don't work the way they used to anymore, a lot of muscle wasted away during the months in the hospital when he wouldn't wake up.
he almost didn't want to, after soap's death. he couldn't live with himself at the funeral, and then he'd met you, holding a bouncing baby with bright blue eyes that reminded him terribly painfully of blue eyes he'd seen before.
you visit him almost every day in the hospital, two years after his sergeant died. your daughter's grown up a little bit more, she can walk on her own now, and her big blue eyes peer down at simon on the bed, a little precociously. it's a useless effort at first, the lieutenant's prognosis doesn't look good.
it looks bad. really bad. but your husband died two years ago, and the only man that cared to keep showing up at your doorstep with groceries when you couldn't bring yourself to leave your daughter out of sight was lieutenant riley. he's the one who handed you your husbands dogtags, the one who sat with you through the awful nights, you'd spent sick with fear and grief.
simon's two other comrades from the now disbanded 141 don't come to visit. you haven't seen kyle garrick with his bright eyes, nor john price and his heavy mustache. it's been nada.
you feel a bit sick thinking about it.
and simon had been oh so nice with penelope too, soothing her when you weren't enough, when she just wanted someone has big and strong as her da, who wouldn't be here anymore.
she'd taken to calling him riley, except she could barely make out the words, your heart had dropped when she'd started calling him dada, but he'd just stared at you and pretended not to hear.
which is why you think it's almost poetic when you wake up, after dozing in the hospital chair, to see your daughter's sea blue eyes peering into a pair of shocked, glazed brown ones. that your daughter is the one that wakes you up with excited bats to your chest where she's curled up on your lap, “mama, look, mr riley's awake!”
he almost wishes she called him da again….
MIND YOU I WAS WRITING THIS ON VISUAL STUDIO CODE SOBBING