Chapter Text
Soap leaned up against the window of the transport vehicle they had been provided. He absentmindedly watched the raindrops racing down the glass and was glad of the heat coming from the vents. Having felt the crisp fall air when they had gotten in the car. Ghost sat next to him quietly, focusing on the road, one hand lazily draped on the steering wheel.
Soap would obviously never say this to his Lieutenant, but he had a feeling this surveillance mission was just a way to get the pair of them out of the way for a while. Don't get him wrong, he had full faith in Laswell and Price, but he figured that they simply didn't have anything important for them to handle.
They had been deep in intel gathering for about a month, and it didn't seem like they were going to be letting up anytime soon.
So, Ghost and Soap had been sent to America. They were on their way to some sort of mountain resort. While most people, especially soldiers, would be thrilled to have such a simple mission at a quiet resort, Soap was not most people. He figured that being in the 141 would be high risk high reward, and it usually was, but this was decidedly not that. He just knew this was going to be boring, and who knows how long they would be stuck in these woods.
"Stop sighing." Ghost suddenly jostled him from his thoughts.
Soap hadn't even realized he had sighed, let alone more than once.
"Sorry sir." He mumbled out.
"What's the problem?" Ghost didn't bother sparing a glance in his direction.
"Nothin' LT." He replied unconvincingly.
Ghost let out a low hum in response. Soap wondered if he had similar feelings about this surveillance mission.
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They finally pulled into the parking lot of the main lodge to get the keys to their cabin. Soap would be the first to admit, the place was beautiful. He had been in many beautiful locations, but something about the rainy mist that enshrined the mountains, dotted with dark evergreens and yellow and orange fall conifers entranced him.
Soap popped in to check in at the front desk, mostly because they figured Ghost, and his mask would possibly alarm some of the resort goers. He looked around the lobby, eyes running over the faces of the people within, wondering if any of them were the reason for their mission.
"Alright here you go sir!" The lady behind the counter handed him the keys, smiling.
"Thank ya' ma'am." He started to turn to leave when she stopped him.
"Oh, I should mention, you aren't the only extended residents checking in today."
"Aye?" Soap wanted to groan inwardly; Ghost was going to be just thrilled.
"It's a school group, a boarding school called Nevermore. I'm sure a couple of big military men such as yourselves won't have a problem but you should know, they aren't normal students." She said in a hushed tone.
There was a sudden surge of noise as a large group of uniformed students made their way through the lobby doors. Soap didn't get a chance to ask what the woman had meant by that as she was ducking away and heading to the back room behind the counter. Soap worked his way through the cluster of kids and back out into the cold.
He climbed back into the passenger seat and Ghost was immediately pulling out of the lot and back toward the road to make their way to their cabin. Soap noticed two school buses painted all black.
Strange.
The cabin was nice for what it was. A kitchen, living room, and they each got their own bedroom and bathroom. Soap was honestly pretty excited about the prospect of having his own bathroom during their stay here.
"These kids might complicate things ay LT?" Soap asked, looking up from the book he had been attempting to read, not making much progress.
Ghost looked up from his own book, he had been steadily flipping pages unlike Soap, "They shouldn't. Price and Laswell haven't even told us what we're supposed to be "surveilling" yet. Try to relax, Johnny."
Soap knew he was right, but he watched Ghost's leg rapidly bounce up and down as he looked back down at his book. They had only been here for about an hour, and they were already beginning to get restless.
"I just mean that it's a little strange that a school suddenly up and sends its students to the mountains so suddenly." Soap continued, he had investigated the schools booking and found that they had suddenly shipped a bunch of their students here while they handled some serious repairs to their facility, he couldn't find any actual information of the school, however. "And the lady at the front desk said that they weren't normal kids. What do you think that means?"
Ghost sighed, "Message Laswell about it, if you can't find any information on the school from google, take it a step further. Now why don't you go for a walk or something Sergeant?"
Soap didn't have to be told twice, immediately standing up and walking towards the door. Ghost grabbed his arm on the way by, "Uh-uh. Not like that, Johnny." His eyes raked slowly over Soap's bare arms making the Sergeant's face flush a bit, "Go grab a jacket."
Soap pulled himself away and rolled his eyes making his way to his room to grab a jacket, mumbling something about Ghost acting like his mother when he walked past him again, he thought he caught the sound of Ghost's amused snort as he closed the door behind him.
Soap wandered down some of the paths. It was quiet in the woods, just the sound of the rain hitting the leaves and the forest floor. Their cabin was at the very edge of the property, so that they would not be disturbed by other guests. He expected that he wasn't going to run into anyone.
He could see his breath in the air, and he rubbed his arms up and down for warmth. Reluctantly glad that Ghost had made him grab that jacket.
His ears suddenly peaked at the sound of some sort of rustling in the leaves. His hand instinctively jumped to his hip, resting on his gun. The sounds stopped, and then suddenly was behind him. He whipped around looking for the source. There was a quick flash of movement from a bush, and he slowly began to approach not taking his hand off his hip.
He started at a voice directly behind him, "Hello."
He spun around and for the briefest moment didn't see anyone, before looking down.
Staring up at him was a very petite teenage girl. She was dressed in all black, he recognized the pattern of her uniform and its seal however as being that of the Nevermore students. She had stark black hair, braided pigtails hanging almost perfectly over her shoulders. She had an extremely serious look on her face, exacerbated by her bangs hanging low onto her eyebrows, making her look slightly grumpy.
"Creepin' bloody Jesus!" Soap felt himself nearly jump out of his skin. "You shouldn't sneak up on people like that, little lass!"
She stared up at him unblinking, seemingly not caring about his light scold.
"What are you doing here?" She asked a little severely, getting down to business.
Soap shook his head in a bit of disbelief, "I'm walkin'."
She continued to stare at him.
Did this girl ever blink?
She let out a slightly annoyed sounding hum. Clearly not the answer she was looking for.
"I don't know what a pair of foreign Special Operations soldiers are doing at a cabin resort, but for your sake I hope it has nothing to do with our school."
He frankly didn't know how to respond to that. He was just gonna have to try his best, "Seeing as how we didn't know you were gonna be here, I don't believe it will involve you, no."
"So, you haven't been fully briefed on what your mission is yet, interesting." She observed her head tilting ever so slightly.
"You're an observant wee one aint'cha?" He said, taken aback. He hadn't been expecting her to try and analyze his statements like this was some sort of interrogation. "Ye' got a name lass?"
She looked him up and down momentarily considering. "Wednesday. Wednesday Addams."
She looked behind him at the bush he had been investigating, Soap suddenly heard it rustling again and quickly spun around to face it. He bent down to look in the bush, finding nothing he turned to face Wednesday again, but she was gone.
"Bloody Jesus." He breathed.
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Ghost didn't look up from his book as Johnny opened the door and entered the house.
"How was your walk then?"
When he didn't respond Ghost looked up from his book to watch Johnny walk in and sit down looking confused and bewildered.
"Soap?" He questioned.
"What kinda bloody name is Wednesday anyway?"