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“Come with me,” you said, one of your hands on the front as Simon looked at you with inquisitive eyes.
“Why?” he asked while his gaze roamed from your enthusiastic face to your extended fingers, asking him to take your hand. He didn’t seem that eager to leave the common room. Maybe his strained muscles betrayed the discomfort creeping upon his body and the disability to turn off his own mind, something that would never happen—at least as often.
“Let me show you something.”
Simon’s jaw clenched for a second—something you wouldn’t be able to tell. Under his balaclava, his expression changed multiple times. At the end, he was left with nothing but the sight of your palm starting to shake under the multi-colored lights decorating the room.
His glove embraced your skin. The rough texture scratched a few scars, but you didn’t notice as your strength and his own pulled him out of his sitting position, and he stretched his back that was once curled up against the edge of the cold wall and the hard floor.
During those seconds of silence, the music seemed to sound louder. Bells adorned its sweet melody as choir voices impregnated the space. Your own hands smelled of the food you helped to cook right before your eyes caught Simon sitting by the corner, not even using his phone.
He let you guide him across the room and out of it, stepping outside to the corridor, which lacked decorations—at least more than the tacky looks the common room acquired within a week. The music still reverberated through the walls, slowly fading into festive whispers as you walked down the various passages inside the base.
“Where are you taking me?” Simon inquired with prying eyes locked on the side of your face as your hand pulled him urgently, as if trying to drag him away from drowning inside the ample space that seemed to reduce each time those soldiers walked around with ornament boxes and ingredients for the meal.
“Be patient, big boy!" you laughed. Sounding louder than the music and the voices for a second. Simon took in the way your eyes would become thin lines as your teeth shined under the moonlight seeping through the windows, matching the light color of your sweater.
Simon didn’t realize how fast he was following you across corridors and stairs all over the base until he took a deep breath of cool air and noticed his chest heaving and his muscles loosening. It would take a lot more than a little run to exhaust a trained soldier, and you knew that. He knew you did, too. His mind wandered from thought to thought, as if trying to decipher whether you just wanted to tire him or take him to this spot as soon as possible.
It wasn’t anything new. Sometimes he would drag his feet to the same place after a long mission and sit down by the edge while letting the smoke spiral into the clouds. There wasn’t anything to show or anything to see.
The rooftop looked a little different than other times. White snow coated the stone surface; its neatness was only interrupted by both of your footprints as you slowly reached the edge, and you leaned your elbows over the snow, also covering the low wall.
“What is it that you wanted to show me?” Simon asked once again, and though he tried to lower his tone and sound impatient, he followed with his own elbows over the surface.
“Nothing,” you replied.
Snowflakes started to coat your bodies as well—your sweater and his jacket—your hair and his hood.
“I just took you from there.”
Simon’s eyebrow arched. He inspected you more intently, as if studying the way your eyes flickered while contemplating the base. The training yard, the barracks—the different buildings scattered across its territory, all covered beneath a cold white blanket. He swore he could hear your breath, more clearly than ever, in the absence of festive music. If not, Simon could definitely see it tracing its dance in the frigid air.
In the contrasting silence, Simon closed his eyes.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
And you smiled, knowingly, at his hatred for the anniversary of his tragedy.
There were no lights, no carols, no food, and not even the warmth of a fire cackling its welcome home. But Simon was given a ribbonless gift. Your smile reminded him of a place he never stepped on again.
“You’re a little Grinch, you know that?” you teased.
“Now, don’t make me throw you off here,” Simon laughed.