Chapter Text
Ghost gets antsy when he hasn’t been deployed in a while. It digs under his skin. He isn’t made to live a life like this, sitting behind desks and attending meetings. Ghost lives for the thrill, for the adrenaline rush of the mission, for the genuine peace of mind that comes from having his hands wrapped around a gun. The pride when he manages to get the knife in at just right the angle so it goes all the way in and slides right back out.
Ghost is good at his job. Brilliant at his job even. A job that requires level-headedness, a complete steadiness and the sort of razor-sharp focus that most would die for. He can sit on the good side of a sniper rifle for hours without moving, waiting for his target to come into his scope.
Sat at his desk, that feels like a distant memory. He clicks through emails by rote, his mind drifting away slowly. He doesn’t belong here. Ghost doesn’t belong here. Maybe Simon did, a long time ago. But Simon’s been dead for more than half a decade now. Ghost is just what’s left.
He daydreams of desert sand and blood trails. Of a hazy mansion on the horizon, a point of safety he can never quite reach.
Someone knocks on the door.
“Come in.”
Soap stands in the doorway, a stack of files in hand. “Delivery from Price,” he says with a well-worn smile. Ghost doesn’t know what to do with those sorts of smiles. Doesn’t know how to admit that it thaws a heart he thought long since dead.
He can’t pinpoint the moment Soap became like this. Can’t understand what would make a man like Soap befriend a man like him. It’s not like they’re together that often, especially off the field. But Soap smiles at him like he’s the sun, sits next to him in the mess whenever he gets the chance, and drops off files that could have been emailed because he wants to drop by. Ghost can’t find it within himself to question it beyond the cursory. Not if it means having this.
Soap doesn’t even have to ask whether he can stay, just dumps the files on the edge of Ghost’s desk and takes a seat. Soap likes to natter, but Ghost just as guiltily likes to listen, absently scrolling through his email as Soap talks about his latest call with his mum.
“She can’t stop talking about Jamie,” Soap laughs. “Did I tell you about him? Sister’s newborn. Cute wee fucker. Amy likes to send me pictures. Looks like a demon but in that cute baby way, you know. Guess you would.”
“Hm?” Ghost asks absently.
“You’ve got a brother, right? That has a kid?” Soap’s smile is disarmingly wide. He doesn’t understand the bomb he’s just dropped. Ghost doesn’t know what to do. Words are stuck deep in his throat, lodged there like he’s choking.
“Ghost?” Soap asks, his smile falling.
Sweat pools under his mask as he white-knuckles the mouse.
“Who told you about my brother?” Ghost won’t even touch on Soap knowing about his nephew. He can’t. The thought of even bringing Joseph up is…
God, Ghost feels sick.
“What do you mean?” Soap asks, confusion written as plain as day.
“I mean, who fucking told you,” Ghost growls.
“Ghost, you did.”
His stomach drops. Maybe the whole world drops. In that second, reality shifts and Ghost is faced with the impossible. “I fucking didn’t.”
“I don’t know what to fucking tell you then because you did.” Soap is getting stubborn now, setting his feet in like always. But Ghost is too, locked like bulls. Neither of them are going to let up any time soon.
And yet, the anxiety still gets under Ghost’s skin. He can feel it burrowing deeper until he wants to rip his skin off. His skin itches as he pushes down the urge to chuck up his breakfast. Maybe he’ll make it land on Soap as punishment.
He should dismiss Soap, get him the hell out of his office whilst he still can. Should get his head on straight and figure this out. Should try and look back and think of a single time he might have mentioned any of this.
“When did I tell you then?” Ghost challenges. It feels like the easiest option, like the only thing that may get him off the back foot here.
“A few weeks ago. At the Rose and Crown. You were a few drinks in, sure, but you werenae drunk, I’ll tell you that.”
“The fucking- where?”
“The Rose and Crown?” Soap says, like it should be obvious. Like that couldn’t mean one of a million pubs in England alone. “You know, the shitty old-fashioned pub that likes ta think it has better pints than it does. Over by the train station.”
Ghost has never been to a pub by the train station. He can’t even remember the last time he left base for something that wasn’t a mission. Soap clocks on to Ghost’s confusion quickly.
“We were there last Friday. Do you really not remember?”
“Don’t,” Ghost blurts, desperate. “You are not to mention my brother again, understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Soap stammers, falling from casual into military perfection in a heartbeat.
“Good. Dismissed, soldier.”
Soap doesn’t stand up to leave. He doesn’t even move. For a long minute, it’s like they’re locked in a trance, neither one of them willing to look away. “Are you okay?” Soap eventually asks, quieter than Ghost has ever heard him.
Ghost doesn’t have an answer to that.
The panic rises like the tide, nausea rolling into dizziness. For a moment, he’s worried that the infamous Ghost will faint in front of his subordinate. He doesn’t. The world just goes sticky. Distant. Until Soap’s face is nothing but a blur, his silhouette a wavering body of colour across the room.
“Ghost.” Suddenly, Soap is right there, reaching out like he’s going to-
Ghost grabs his wrist and tugs his hand away before it can land. “No.” He doesn’t mean for it to sound desperate, merely an order. But his voice is shaking. Hell, his hands are shaking, holding Soap’s wrist in a white-knuckled grip. Soap steps back anyway, mouth open like he wants to say something but nothing comes out.
“Ghost, you’re scaring me.”
The world rushes back in suddenly, like a camera finally finding the focus. Soap is standing by Ghost’s chair, wrist still in Ghost’s hand but now awkwardly stretched so Soap can still give him room. Ghost drops the hand and swallows down the acidic bite of bile.
“Dismissed, Sergeant.”
“But-”
“Go.”
“Okay, sir.” Soap takes another step back, rubbing at his bruised wrist. “But you know you can-”
“I said go, Johnny!”
It doesn’t take another time. Soap flees, sending worried glances over his shoulder.
Ghost is left in the aftermath. He’s not even sure he’s breathing. Soap’s words ring in his head like church bells, overriding any bit of rational thought he has left. It’s lies, it has to be. But Soap wouldn’t lie, that’s the thing. Ghost trusts him, on the field and off. He trusts him to be honest, as much as trusts him to have his back.
Ghost doesn’t know what’s real anymore.
Work eludes him until it’s late enough that he can escape back to his room, holing up in the corner like it somehow might protect him from the onslaught of his own thoughts. It doesn’t work, because of course it doesn’t. Sleep just becomes as evasive as work, coming close before flittering away like it’s taking joy in Ghost’s suffering.
By the time, the morning comes around, Ghost is convinced he’s no longer even real. That this is some prolonged nightmare he can’t wake up from. It’s the only thing that makes sense. That explains the absolute shit show going on around him.
The moment the reveille alarm rings, Ghost goes to Price’s office. If there’s one person who Ghost can trust to tell him the truth, it’s Price.
His hands are still fucking shaking when he knocks, two sharp raps that don’t belie the total anxiety invading him. “Come in!”
Ghost steps inside with military authority, back straight and chest out. “Sir.”
“Ghost. Did you need something?”
Ghost stares. For too long, it seems. Enough to make Price worried, anyway. He learnt a long time ago that it’s almost impossible to discomfit Price. He just isn’t that sort of man. He knows the game by now, and he doesn’t let Ghost play it. As much as Ghost can glare down at the recruits until they’re shaking at the knee, on Price it’s just a ploy or an accident. Just trying is enough to raise Price’s suspicions.
“Did you have something to tell me?”
“Did I go to the pub last Friday?” Ghost asks, brasher than is appropriate with a superior. But Price has never much cared for decorum, only the respect that his rank brings.
Ghost can see the question on the tip of Price’s tongue, but it never comes. Instead, he shakes his head, like he’s dismissing the thought, and motions to the chair in front of his desk. “Take a seat.”
“Price-”
“Just sit down, Simon.” Ghost doesn’t know how to explain how that name makes his skin crawl. It’s his name, he knows it is, but he hates it. It reminds him of a dead man.
Ghost obeys, though he’s starting to regret his decision to come at all.
“What’s this about?” Price asks.
“It’s nothing, sir.”
“It’s clearly something if you’re here. Spit it out.”
They lock eyes and Ghost feels weak under them. Ghost always gets pinned down as the terrifying bastard, but the people who say that have clearly never dealt with John Price. “I talked to Soap.” Price nods. “He mentioned my brother.”
Price’s eyebrows rise with genuine surprise. “How’d he know?”
“He said I told him.”
“And did you?”
Ghost frowns, mind spinning. “I’m honestly not sure anymore.”
“Explain.”
Ghost shuffles in his seat. Nothing feels comfortable. It feels like bugs are crawling under his skin. He wishes he were somewhere else entirely. Anywhere else, just to get away. To be living the life he always dreamed about with the large mansion on the hill, with all the luxuries a kid could dream of. Or just the safe white walls of his room on base; the only place that has ever felt like home. Maybe best of all, a mission, where the only thing he has to worry about is getting out alive, not the creeping fear of his own mind.
Why did he come here again?
Because you trust him.
“He said I told him at the pub a few weeks back. Thought I might have been drunk and that’s why I don’t remember.”
“But?”
Ghost swallows thickly and gathers more courage than it takes to run into an AO. “I’ve never gone to the pub with Soap.”
Price’s eyebrows climb. “So you can’t remember?”
“Are you saying I have?”
“We’ve all gone before. You saying you don’t remember? I need you to be really clear about this.” Price gives him a single look and Ghost knows it's over. This isn’t about someone he trusts anymore, this is about being capable and ready for a combat situation. Fuck, if someone came up to Ghost and said they’d been forgetting shit, he’d be worried too.
“I- no, it’s not that,” Ghost tries desperately, attempting to pick up the pieces from around him. He can’t believe this. He’d expected- he isn’t sure. For Price to say that Soap is playing some practical joke? That Simon had got so plastered that of course he didn’t remember going. Not for Ghost to be en route to a psych eval because he apparently has memory issues he doesn’t know about. To be about to lose his job.
“Then what is it?”
“It’s nothing. No, I just.” Ghost shuts up before he can dig himself into a bigger hole than he already has. He wants nothing more than to run out the doors, but he can’t suffer the infraction Price could put on his name for running away. He doubts he would, but he can’t take the risk, especially if Price thinks he needs to see psych.
“If you can’t remember then we need to look into this.”
“I’m fine. I promise.”
“Memory problems could compromise you severely.”
“Please don’t.” Ghost doesn’t mean to put it like that. The moment it’s out, he wants to clamp his hand over his mouth like a child. God, he sounds like a whiny child. A whiny bloody child who’s got caught with their hand in the biscuit tin.
“Simon, this isn’t about whether you want to be on the field or not. This is about you and the rest of the team’s safety. If you can’t remember something that happened barely a few weeks ago-”
“I’m fine.”
“You are clearly not fine. How long has this been happening?”
“It’s nothing.” Ghost is purely desperate now, like somehow the denial will get a genuine interrogator off his back. But Price is his Captain, it's his duty to make sure Ghost is in fighting shape. He’s not going to let this go.
“You cannot just-”
“It’s nothing, Price, I promise.”
“Do not bloody talk over me again!” Ghost feels like a child all over again, terrified and tiny. All he can see is Price’s face, flushed with anger, a fist slammed on the desk. He doesn’t even know what Price is saying but it’s loud and it’s hurting him and it’s just like it always was.
“Are you listening?”
“Yes, sir.” It’s automatic. Ghost is never allowed to call his father anything but sir. Sometimes, he tries, but it only makes everything worse. Tommy always remembers to say it, a sickly little smile on his face.
Ghost feels dizzy and sick again, though it’s joined by a pulsing headache that resonates through his whole body. Time passes stickily, marked by the pain in his head and his father’s continued shouting.
“Simon? Simon! Shit.” There are hands on him, and they’re going to hurt. Ghost doesn’t want to hurt anymore.
Ghost feels lost to time.
He doesn’t try to stop it. It’s easier to just let it happen. Maybe the bruises will be yellow this time instead of black. Maybe he’ll just be kind enough to avoid his face. The kids at school never shut up when he has a black eye. His teachers all think he’s getting into fights on the estate and give him the detentions to match.
Time moves on.
When he comes to, he feels the salty stickiness on his cheeks. He cracks his jaw and blinks rapidly when he realises just how close Price is standing. “What the fuck?”
“Simon?”
“I- uh. Fuck.” He shoves his gloves under his mask and tries to rub away the sensation, but the rough material only hurts his skin. He doesn’t remember crying. He never cries. Frankly, he thought he’d lost the ability to a long time ago.
“You back with me, son?”
“I-” never left, he wants to say, but he can’t. He was here and somewhere else all at once, a layered delusion that Price is now witness to. His career is over. Just one charge set and the whole thing is coming down around him, burying him under the rubble.
“Are you back?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where are you?”
“Your office.”
“When?”
“I- it’s, fuck. Wednesday? It’s…it’s Wednesday.”
“What year?”
“2023.”
“Good.” Price steps back, though the tension doesn’t leave. His fists are clenched like he wants to lash out, and Ghost cannot help the quick intake of breath at the thought. “I’m sending you for a psych eval. Regardless of the outcome, you’re on leave until I say you’re not. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Jesus fuck,” Price mutters, wiping his hands down his face. “I don’t have a clue what’s happening right now, but I need you unbroken alright? I can’t have you fight like this.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Fucking hell, Ghost. Say anything else.”
“Okay.”
Price grunts out what might be a laugh, or just plain annoyance, and collapses back into his chair. “I’ll make some calls. You’re dismissed, Lieutenant. I’ll send someone tomorrow to tell you what happens from here.”
Ghost floats back to his room in a haze. He doesn’t dare look at his own mind, scared of what he’ll find, so he checks out and lets his body take over. Sleep comes restlessly but it does come eventually, though he wakes up at just past five with his heart thundering in his chest. It only makes the waiting worse.
At 0800, a private knocks on his door and escorts him to Price’s office. Ghost doesn’t speak, and the private doesn’t attempt to either.
“Good morning,” Price says as Ghost opens the door, feeling like he’s just walked into his own funeral.
“Morning, sir.”
Price nods with a curled lip, looking awkwardly out of place as he rounds his desk and motions for Ghost to take a seat. “As you know, you’ll be going for a psych evaluation. But I, look- I don’t know how to put this. As of right now, you’re on medical leave. We’ll re-approach the issue once we know what’s going on. There won’t be an issue with pay, and given your circumstance, you’re allowed to stay on site after the psych evaluation is complete.”
“What-” Ghost breathes (tries so hard to just fucking breathe), “what if the psych eval comes back clear?”
Price gives him a look that says he knows better than to allow such an obvious lie to pass, but instead he just says, “If the psych eval comes back clear, you’re still on medical leave until you get yourself sorted. Am I clear?”
“Crystal, sir.”
“Good, then I’ll get things sorted on my end and find a psychiatrist. God knows we all probably need one anyway.”
— [redacted] —
It takes Price just over a week to find someone who will come onto base immediately. Dr Grace Jones, 27 years old, therapist for an old friend of Price’s. Kind, sweet, with a slightly cherubic face and blonde waves. Ghost should be comforted. He’s not.
Her introduction is long, but Ghost doesn’t pay attention to most of it. He stares out the window and watches the rain splutter down. It’s been pissing it down for the last week. Seems fitting, really.
Eventually, Grace focuses on him. Ghost wishes she wouldn’t. “So, Simon, could you give me a rundown of what’s been happening?”
Ghost stares at the empty green fields that cover most of England. He wishes more than anything that he was anywhere but here. A city, a desert, a goddamn snowy tundra. “I’m fine.”
Grace sighs and clasps her hands over her lap. She’s pristine, too pristine to be here. Apparently, military cases are her speciality, or so she said, and yet she seems completely untouched by war. Smooth skin, warm smile, eyes that just haven’t seen the same shit as his. “Price informed me that you’re having memory issues?”
“I forgot one thing.” Or two, but she doesn’t need to know that.
Grace bites back a grimace and then pastes on another placid smile. “Look, I’m going to be honest with you. Given the behaviours shown yesterday, your Captain is unlikely to let you back on a mission without targeting the issue and overcoming it. If you aren’t honest here, it isn’t going to give you a clear sheet to go back to work with.”
“But nothing’s wrong.” Ghost feels desperate now, like he’d rip off his own skin to just make her believe him. All he wants to do is go back to work. That’s it. But Ghost never gets what he wants, that’s just how his life’s always been.
“I’d really like you to be honest with me.”
Ghost stares at her, and she stares right back. She doesn’t seem afraid of what she sees in him. Her calm demeanour irritates him as much as it feels like a blessing. Ghost has always taken some pride in discomfiting people, like another mask on top of the skull to push people away.
“Fine.” Ghost grits his teeth and ignores whatever this fucking feeling is. It might be terror, but he’s felt real terror and this isn’t it. But whatever it is, he hates it. He feels somewhat embarrassed that he hates it more than he hates the genuine fear of death. “What do you want me to say?”
“Whatever you want to say. I just want to hear a little about you, about what you’re struggling with.”
Ghost could start in so many places. His childhood, his young adulthood, joining the army, Roba, the post-Roba aftermath, the 141. Each felt like a new beginning, some forging him in fire, some just burning him to ashes. Each holds its importance, and each feels like poking at a hungry bear. “I don’t remember going to the pub last Friday,” he says instead. It feels easier, to stick to the recent, to hope this problem is some newfound enigma that can be treated in a single session.
“How did this come up?”
Ghost swallows and clicks his jaw behind his mask. “Soap. My Sergeant. He mentioned my brother.” Grace nods encouragingly. “I never told him about my brother. I’d remember it. He says I told him at the pub a few weeks ago. That we’d gone again last week.”
“And you don’t remember it at all?”
Ghost shakes his head. “Price said I went too.”
“Okay,” she says, jotting something down in a small moleskin notebook. “Why are you so certain about not telling Soap about your brother?”
Ghost’s lungs feel tight. He doesn’t give in to it, though. He clutches at the armrests of his chair and focuses on the meditation techniques an old superior had taught him as a way of getting to sleep. It doesn’t work very well. “I don’t tell anyone about my family.”
“And why’s that?”
“They’re dead.”
Grace frowns. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Ghost just nods. He never knows what to say to that. In the beginning, it was partially why he told no one about it. He didn’t want to cope with navigating grief. Instead, he just bulldozed his way through it, buried himself in the job and tried not to think those dark thoughts that made him want to put a bullet in his mouth.
“Is your brother’s death why you don’t like to talk about him?”
Ghost shrugs. Yes, is the short answer, but the long one is a lot more complicated, and Ghost isn’t keen on telling it. The words feel sticky in his mouth, and his throat tightens up at the thought of trying to get his jumbled mess of a brain in order.
“It’s helpful if you talk about these things, Simon.”
“Don’t call me Simon.” It bursts out of him. It’s embarrassing how much the name makes him cringe. It’s not his. Not anymore. It just isn’t.
“What would you prefer?”
“My name’s Ghost.”
“Okay, Ghost.” She doesn’t question the change, which is just enough leeway to have his shoulders drop in defeat. He’s still got his mask on, he reminds himself. He still has a way to hide.
He checks out a little then. There’s no obvious trigger, just that he doesn’t really want to be there anymore, so he just…isn’t. By the time he feels more in line with his body again, Grace is putting her notebook aside and smiling at him.
He remembers the session, he knows he does, but he doesn’t feel like he was in control. Doesn’t feel like he’s spent the last hour answering basic questions. He feels like a ghost haunting his own body. Fuck.
“Well, thank you for talking with me. I do think you can benefit greatly from proper psychiatric treatment if you really try with it. There’s nothing shameful in getting help.”
Ghost doesn’t say anything to that. He knows he’s coming back, whether he wants to or not.
“Hopefully I’ll see you soon. Oh, and before I forget, military or not, patient confidentiality is still one of our strictest rules. None of this goes back to your Captain except a diagnosis, and even that will be on your own terms. Understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She laughs a little at that. “Not a ma’am, it’s just Grace. Have a good rest of your day.”
He nods, words still feeling trapped, and flees before he can do something as awful as ask a question.
— [redacted] —
Another week passes. Ghost evades everyone mechanically. Shifts are switched surreptitiously, as if Ghost has been deployed rather than dismissed. He doesn’t dare show his face beyond what is necessary, though he knows the rumour mill will churn regardless. It always does.
He goes to therapy five days a week. Sneaks into the mess at odd hours, trains in his room, and showers at midnight. More than ever, he is a ghost, haunting the halls of the 141. After two meetings with Price, it’s clear enough that his medical leave is as good as indefinite. If not for the confusion he’s causing the brass with his citizenship status, he would be discharged.
He hasn’t even said anything particularly damning to Grace, but the evidence is stacking up against him. There are too many blank spots, so obvious now that they’re being probed. But the trap is obvious: you can’t remember forgetting something. Now, Ghost spends his days in a manic-paranoid state trying to even stay in reality.
On Friday, the hours feel like they’ve gone too quickly, but Ghost doesn’t dare examine them too intently. He can’t help but fixate on perceived gaps in time. At a cursory glance, though, it’s all there. It’s not clear per se, but it’s there. Time flies, and all that.
He stops thinking about it before he works himself up again.
But there’s nothing to do to distract him. Even training, earlier, had felt like a useless distraction. Will he wilt now that he doesn’t need all this bulk? It’s probably the only reason he puts any effort into his diet or routine. You can’t fight when you’re half-atrophied, but Ghost’s not a big fan of food, or even exercise for that matter. He fights for the adrenaline rush, not the burn. He can’t do the same bulking-up routine as Soap, he just feels like an idiot.
When he gets back from his session with Grace, he zones out, perched on the edge of his bed and waits for the clock to pass. It’s not like he really means to. But after an hour of being told to spill his guts out, it feels safer to just…float. He doesn’t have to go on about his fucking feelings there.
He’s broken out of it an hour or so later by a knock on his door. A rare occurrence, though not extraordinary. He can’t imagine anyone’s summoning him for anything, he’s as good as fired at this point, but he can hold out hope regardless. Price hasn’t announced the news yet. Maybe someone still has use for him.
“Come in.”
The door opens.
“Soap.” He tries to not let disappointment colour his voice.
“Hey, LT. Haven’t seen you in a while.” Not your Lieutenant anymore, he wants to say, though it feels too cruel when Soap is standing so eagerly on the boundary.
“Did you need something?”
Soap shakes his head, rocking back onto his heels with a guileless expression. “Uh, no, look, I heard from Price that…”
“Spit it out.”
Soap sighs. “I heard you’ve been put on med-leave.” By the look on his face, Ghost thinks he knows a whole lot more than that.
“Correct. And?”
Soap grimaces. “I thought I’d see if I could…help, in any way. Whatever you need.”
“I’m fine.”
Then, the crux of the matter. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
Ghost deflates, defeated. He’s run out of energy for anger, or for the nagging worry that’s followed him relentlessly for the last few weeks. It’s not Soap’s fault that he pointed out the obvious. It’s Ghost that’s the problem. His brain can’t even function properly enough to keep his job. He wishes he could shout, put all the vitriol on the poor Scotsman who revealed the truth, but he can’t. With anyone else, he might, but Soap doesn’t deserve that. Not from him. Not right now, when apathy feels like a weighted blanket. “I know,” he finally says.
“If I thought it would lead to this…”
“You didn’t know. Too late now. Focus on your job, Sergeant. Pretty sure there’s a gap opening up for promotion.”
Soap rolls his eyes. “Don’t speak like that. You’ll be back.”
Ghost isn’t so sure. It’s the uncertainty that’s killing him. Because he needs this, like his brother had needed to be doped up twelve times a day. It’s an addiction he won’t survive without, a withdrawal he isn’t ready to cope with. But he’s been left with no choice. He’s almost certain it’s cold turkey from here on out. “We’ll see.”
“It’s just, whatever’s wrong with you, I hope it can get better. Yeah, that’s all.”
“I’ll be fine. Always am.”
“Sure ya are,” Soap says, and Ghost honestly can’t tell whether it’s sarcasm or not. But he doesn’t bring it up. “Guess that’s my bit. Just wanted to say sorry,” Soap adds.
“Don’t apologise. Wasn’t you.”
“Okay then.” Soap nods, takes a step back and gives Ghost a look that sees right through him. He can’t help but turn his face away; even with the mask, it feels too exposed. There’s a desperate urge to please Soap bubbling up inside. To ignore all convention and make sure Soap understands that it’s okay, that he’s forgiven, that there was nothing to forgive in the first place. Instead, he nods back and shuts the door before he can become the fool. He’s a soldier, for god's sake, he’s nobody’s fool.
The anger comes easier then. It always is when it’s turned inwards. The vicious glee of lashing out can’t be met with a guilty conscience. He’s free real estate, as far as his own mind’s concerned. And berating himself for the endless string of stupidity that’s got him up to this point seems like a good way to pass the hours.
— [redacted] —
“Tell me about your relationship with your team,” Grace says.
“What of it?”
“Well, I’d like to know more about your life here. Are you close? Merely colleagues? Do you have people you confide in?”
“I-” Ghost stops before he can trip himself up. “We’re close enough.”
“You can be less vague than that. How would you explain your relationship with each member?”
Ghost tries not to look like the question has him on edge. He can survive torture without a single word spoken, and yet under the therapist’s gaze, he feels himself cracking. There’s something in him that wants to tell her everything — a part of him that feels like betrayal — a little voice in his head telling him to just lay it out in front of her, page by page.
Instead, in a stilted monologue that can’t be any longer than a minute, he manages to summarise his relationship with Price, then Soap. Even, vaguely, those further down the ranks that he had responsibility for.
“So you and Soap are close then?” Grace asks, latching onto the one thing Ghost doesn’t want her to touch. Whatever he and Soap have, it’s fragile, private. Dangerous, even. Ghost doesn’t trust easily, and he fears if he has to explain it, he’s going to persuade himself out of it.
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“No?” Grace jots something down in that damn notebook and then looks back up at him with a pleasant smile.
“He’s just. Always there. Like he wants to be my friend.”
Grace frowns and does her irritating little head tilt. “Do you not want to be friends?”
“He’s my subordinate. Or was.”
“Are you not allowed to be friends with your subordinates?”
Ghost shifts in his seat, fingers ripping at the seams of the twenty-year-old monstrosity of an armchair that some poor sod has dragged in from the nearest charity shop. It is comfortable, he’ll give them that. “It’s not that.”
“Then what is it?”
“He’s just- I don’t think I should be friends with him.”
“Why not?”
Ghost finally meets her stare and something breaks. Ghost can almost hear the crack. “I’m not the sort of man that has friends.”
“No person shouldn’t be allowed to have friends.” She’s treading carefully now. Voice soft. It feels like a deception, like she’s trying to worm her way under his skin. He wants to lash out — it’s so much fucking easier to be angry than terrified — but even the thought of it makes his skin crawl with guilt. He knows what it feels like to be lashed out at. He knows what it’s like to transfer your fears onto someone else.
Instead, he holds her gaze and admits the one thing that has felt like his security belt for the last half a decade. “Maybe I’m not a person, then.”
“Why do you think that?”
He rolls his eyes. “Was the Ghost thing not obvious enough?”
Her lips purse in disapproval. “Sarcasm will only get you so far. I know it can feel safer but I want you to be honest here. To feel okay to be honest. That’s how we’ll make progress.”
Ghost scowls. What the fuck does she think he’s doing? That he’s just saying this shit for the sake of it? “I was being serious.”
Her eyebrows climb and she jots another thing down in her notebook before she shuts it, puts it on the table and places her full attention on him. “Why do you feel like a ghost then?”
The words are stuck, lodged somewhere deep down. Or crawling all over him, like ants on his skin. Or in his chest, squeezing his heart into overdrive. “I-” He doesn’t want to be here. He wants to be anywhere but here. He doesn’t want to. “Isn’t it obvious?”
He can’t. He can’t. He just can’t.
I want to go.
I want to go.
I want to go.
“Okay, that’s all for today.” Ghost’s head snaps up, eyes wide.
“Really?”
“Yes, that’s all. I’ll let you go. We can go into this further next week.”
Ghost blinks. Wants to ask one of a thousand questions. To ask where the time went, or why he doesn’t remember what he said or-
He doesn’t. He snaps his mouth shut and ignores the blank, because if he doesn’t, he won’t be able to do it. Won’t be able to walk out that door, or go back to his room, or fucking sleep. So Ghost runs out the door without so much as a goodbye and wonders whether it's not about him possessing his own body but whether someone is possessing him.
— [redacted] —
Ghost can’t avoid the others forever, he learns. He lives in the same building as them, and there are only so many places he can be when not on active duty. It doesn’t help that they are persistent. Some less than others. Most of the 141 are good at staying out of other people’s business, and Price only tends to interfere if he sees a storm brewing.
What he really means is that Soap is a persistent twat who can’t let something go.
“Ghost!”
Ghost isn’t in the mood for it today. He woke up from only two hours of sleep. He hasn’t eaten since yesterday but has no appetite to swing by the cafeteria. His back has taken up a persistent throbbing that no stretches can help. And most of all, the idea of human company has him wanting to strip off his skin.
Something in his head just won’t fucking shut up. So loud that Ghost barely even hears Soap, grating against his own fragile nerves. A memory crops up, of panting in Roba’s torture chamber, and spotting a shadow in the corner. A hallucination, though he didn’t realise that at the time. The way it would rant and rave, screaming at the top of its lungs. It had almost been a comfort then, to focus on someone else’s terror rather than his own.
He sighs and tries to keep walking like he hasn’t heard, but Soap jogs up to his side with an anxious smile. “Hey, LT.”
“Sergeant.”
He picks up the pace, but Soap just matches him step for step, even if it means picking up an awkward half-jog. “So, how’s everything going?”
“That’s none of your business.”
Soap winces. “I didnae mean like that. Just, you alright?”
“I’m fine. Did you have a reason for running up to me or are you just here to nag?”
Soap rolls his eyes. “I’m not naggin’, ya bastard. I’m checkin’ in.”
“Don’t.”
He strides away, leaving Soap to flounder behind him. “Wait! Ghost, seriously, hold up a minute.”
Ghost ignores him and turns the corner and gets out the nearest door he can see and into the courtyard. Soap is only moments behind, wincing in the sudden light. It’s unseasonably warm for April and it has most of the base down to the bare layers for at least the rest of the week. Ghost still wears a minimum of two layers at all times; he’s gotten used to the sweat.
“I don’t want you to think badly of me. I was just trying to be nice.”
“Then stop.” Ghost hates himself. He wishes he could be nice to Soap, to act like a normal human being and throw him a smile or an apology or a friendly tap on the shoulder. Wants to be the apathetic phantom who let Soap into his room and said none of it was his fault. Whatever this is, it doesn’t feel like him. He feels like a leashed beast, teeth out and ready to bite. Anything that will get Soap to go away faster.
“Ghost-”
“Seriously. I don’t want your pity. It’s fucking embarrassing.” Embarrassing for who, he doesn’t say.
“Is not pity. We’re a team. And that means sticking together. Wasn’t that what you said?” In Las Almas. Right. Fuck Las Almas.
“Not a team anymore.” Ghost can’t see an escape. Soap doesn’t seem to care what Ghost says. He’s planted himself on the ground, unshakable. Ghost doesn’t have the energy to bring out the chainsaw. Instead, he just wishes for a cigarette, something to take the edge off this conversation. This feelings bullshit is so out of character for all of them that he knows it's pity. Poor ol’ Ghost got too fucked up by his time in the army and now we’re all really sorry about it. Well, fuck you too, he thinks. Fuck you for not buckling under the pressure. Fuck you for just fucking hiding it better.
“You’ll always be a part of the team, on the field or not.”
“Oh, stop it with the fucking pandering, Soap,” Ghost spits. “I’m out of fucking commission, you can’t get a shiny promotion from sucking up to me.”
Soap gapes, hackles rising. “You think I’m doing this for a promotion?”
He doesn’t. It’s just the first thing his angry brain could pinpoint, but he can’t be the sort of weak bastard to back down now. He looks fucked enough as it is, he doesn’t need to become a pushover at the same time. “I don’t know what you fucking want.”
“I want to be your fucking friend!” Soap bursts out. “That’s all I’m fucking trying to do but you’re being a right bastard about it.”
“I don’t do friends.”
I’m not real.
I’m not real.
I’m not real.
A ghost can’t have friends.
“Everyone has friends,” Soap says.
Ghost looks down at Soap, his chest hollowed out and aching. “I don’t. Now fuck off.”
'No person shouldn’t be allowed to have friends.’
“Why are you being like this?” Soap asks.
I’m not real.
“Fuck. Off,” Ghost says.
‘Why do you feel like a ghost then?’ Grace had said.
“This isn’t like you,” Soap pleads.
I’m not real.
Ghost spins on his heels, shoves his way into Soap’s face and spits, “you don’t fucking know me, Johnny. You don’t know a fucking thing about me. I’m not your friend, I’m not fucking anything to you. Now leave me the fuck alone, alright?”
Why do you push everyone away?
Soap swallows, steps back and hides his clenched fists in his pockets. “Fuck you too then, I guess. You know, sometimes you act like a different bloody person, I don’t get it. One moment you’re all fucking buddy-buddy with me, the next you can’t even stand me. Just fucking pick one, alright?”
Before Ghost can ask what the fuck he means by that, he’s gone.