Chapter Text
The mission was nothing special.
A bag’n tag. Something they had done dozens of times, practised for a hundred runs just counting the runs with their team. It was almost routine.
One moment to the next it was everything but. Price bent over the table, as if being closer to the screen could get him closer to his team. His hands balled around the edge of the table in a white knuckled grip.
When they pulled out, a mad dash to the heli, they were escaping by the very damn skin of their teeth. The pilot brought two of them away instead of three. Gaz and Ghost leaned against the metal of the door for a long time- not moving, still staring outside of the window, not comprehending yet that the space between them was to remain empty.
In the FOB Price threw himself backwards, away from the table. He took in the artificially even-toned call from Ghost, signed off and hurled the headset against the wall. Laswell watched as the thing splintered into its parts. A loud, hoarse, guttural yell echoed in the room.
They went over the mission with a comb fine enough it would have removed dust, split the atoms. The debrief lasted until Ghost wavered on the seat, Price only staid up with the support of the wall and Gaz nearly folded over on the table.
In the coming days Ghost stayed up late. Sleep evaded him.
When he did fall asleep nightmares shook him up. They were of the same old indignities, old wet earth choking him down, soft tissue parting beneath his fingers. It was just that nowadays there were new aspects. A Scottish accent in the cell next to him, familiar mohawk in Roba’s chambers. A different corpse under him in the casket, a helmet, gator-
Ghost woke up, threw up acid and bile and stayed under the ice-cold shower until his nervous system had re-calibrated.
He stayed in bed to at least give his body rest even if his mind did not let him sleep.
He focused himself on routine and on his work. Ghost let one job drag him to the next step. Some days it was just hand over hand, feet dangling above the abyss.
Gaz clung to him like a shadow and Ghost; he let him. He showed the Sargeant the way routine could be a handhold.
He showed up in the messhall, if only for a cup of flavourless teas. Because if he was there Gaz might come too and choke down some rubbery mess-hall eggs. They went to the gym together, because if they did not the younger man would most likely curl up in his bed and Ghost knew the movement was good for both of them. Even if sometimes he would have rather pulled his own teeth than move at the end of his shift, but Gaz needed to train, and so Ghost showed up and he did not think about the fact that it was not so pitch dark after Gaz arrived.
If Gaz did not cling to Ghosts boots, he was stalking Price.
Their captain certainly noticed the compulsive way the younger man bounced between him and Ghost. He knew what it was, the overwhelming need to check in and double check. And he indulged Gaz’s kneed to know every step of his remaining team.
Ghost suspected that their captain needed it himself.
More than once, he heard steps coming along the corridor at on holy times in the night. They slowed in front of his door, paused, then carried on after an indeterminate time. Sometimes Ghost could hear how Price stopped a little down the hall, repeat his vigil in front of Gaz’s door.
And when Ghost laid awake at night, consciously relaxing muscle by muscle he thought of the mission, what had gone wrong, what they had done, every what if, what if, what if…
At the nights when he could not sleep, when lying in bed burned more strength than being awake Ghost got up, got dressed and moved to Price’s office. More often than not the light was still on, Price pouring over two files. Sometimes Laswell would pass through, or call- “Is there a lead on them?”
“Not yet, still on it.” Ghost would see Price’s shoulders sink a bit more under the weight at every negative. But the two files were never closed, never left the desk of their captain.
Still they clawed their way back to mission ready. The replacement was installed into the gears of the 141 but never taken into their fold. They graciously accepted the facts.
A test run, then a serious mission.
Laswell called, Price and the 141 answered.
More followed. Price hovered, Gaz swung between calmly detached and attached to their boots.
Ghost- he held on. Onto what? Fuck if he knew. None of them knew. It was just one step after the other.