Chapter Text
He feels numb. He feels like nothing at all really. There are echoed voices and the beeping of various medical equipment, but Ghost can hardly hear any of it over the sound of his own heartbeat.
In any other setting-- this soon after a mission-- his skin would be crawling with the need to run away. To escape into the nearest restroom and wash off what is usually several days worth of blood and sweat. Sometimes it’s his own, usually it’s not. But now he can barely move a muscle. His hands are shaking, but he can’t actually feel it, limbs filled with static. He only notices the tremor when it fully registered in his brain that the blood caking his gloves, under his nails, and dripping down his wrists was Soap’s.
No, it’s Johnny’s .
I’m covered in Johnny’s blood .
Shit… when’s the last time it was this bad?
His train of thought-- or at least what was left of it-- gets fully derailed when a hand grabs his shoulder, and seemingly slams him back into his own body. The fuzziness of his vision starts to recede a little.
Ghost turns his head to see Price staring down at him. He looks more worn down than Ghost has ever seen him, and considering the many all-nighters he’s seen the man do both on and off the field, that’s saying something. His eyes are tinged in obvious concern, as if he can see clear as day what Ghost is thinking. If thinking it can even be called.
He looks away, unable to stand it a moment longer.
In the row of chairs opposite to them sat Gaz, looking like he had completely deflated into his seat. His eyes are glued to the doors Soap had been rushed through like he was hoping at any moment the loud-mouthed Scot would burst through the hallway and lighten the mood of the whole room with his larger-than-life personality. Maybe he was. Ghost was, at least a little bit.
“He’s going to be ok.” He looks back at Price, the worry in his eyes betraying the reassurance of his words. “We need to get back to Laswell and update her on the situation. We can come back after the debrief.”
“No.” Ghost says simply.
“He’s not going anywhere. We still have a job to do.”
“I’m not leaving.”
Price sighs, sounding a bit like he was about to try and argue with a child, but it was obvious he didn’t have the fight in him for it. Which served him well, because it wouldn't be a fight, because that would imply he ever stood a chance at winning.
“Fine, but I can’t leave you here armed to the teeth either. Go to the toilets and get your gear taken care of, give it to me, and I’ll be back with something more comfortable to wear.” He levels his eyes with Ghost’s own stare, “deal?”
“Yes sir.” And that was the end of it.
----
Ghost emerged from the restroom a few minutes later, blond hair disheveled and smudges of black makeup leftover around his face where he couldn’t quite scrub it all off. The surrealist nightmare portion of this dissociative episode has faded enough for him to have gotten a hold on the aforementioned hand tremor, but he’s still fighting not to grimace at what he knows is coming when he hands Price the armful of gear.
“Your mask?” He says it quietly, kind of like he wasn’t sure whether or not he was supposed to acknowledge it. From the corner of his eye he can see Gaz turning around to look at the very blank wall. Subtle.
“Has blood on it. Seems like that would do the opposite of helping me blend in.”
Price seems to give him a look of sympathy before nodding, “I’ll find something a bit more subtle.”
Ghost swallows a bit and nods before sitting back down and preparing to wait.
---
He sat in that waiting room for a little less than an hour longer until his attention was drawn to a nurse and doctor walking out from those same doors together. He watched their eyes scanning the room like they were searching for someone . The nurse's eyes seemed to zero in on Ghost at the same time he'd begun to worry whether or not anyone would recognize when he came in, and started to walk over with the doctor close in toe.
“You came in with John Mactavish.” she states.
Ghost slips his phone back into his pocket, “I did. Is everything alright?” He asks, tries to keep his voice calmer than he feels.
“Well, Mr…?”
“Riley.” Ghost fills in, cringes a little at how long it’s been since anyone called him that.
“Mr. Riley,” the doctor chimes in, “The surgery went really well, at least as well as it could have. We got the bullet out and it doesn’t look like it penetrated deep enough to cause lasting damage to the brain itself. He’s very lucky for that. “
“I’m sensing a 'but' in there somewhere.” Ghost says quite bluntly.
“Yes, well…” the doctor trailed off, “There was extensive damage to the skull and plenty of brain swelling as a result. Assuming nothing goes catastrophically wrong out of nowhere, he should make a recovery with minimal complications, but for the moment we had to put him into a medically-induced coma. At least until the swelling goes down. That could take a few days, but it could also take a few weeks. The latter seems more likely.”
Ghost is silent for a moment as he tries to process it. Realistically he knew that, but that didn’t make it easier to sit with.
“Do you have any idea what the long term effects of this would look like?”
“It’s probably safe to assume the usual issues brain damage can cause; pain, memory issues, maybe he has to relearn to walk and talk again. Really it’s too soon to tell. We probably won’t know that until he actually wakes up, but I guess you probably figured that.”
He did. Part of him had to wonder how much of it was reading on his face. Lord knows he’d gotten pretty bad at hiding expressions nowadays.
“He’s hooked up to a lot of machines right now, but I can have a nurse show you to his room if you’d like?”
He nods eagerly, moving to stand up. He certainly didn’t wait all this time because he was admiring the hospital’s interior decorating-- which was plain even by London’s standards.
The nurse smiled at him and gestured with her arm in some vague direction, “Follow me.”
---
Soap almost looked peaceful lying in that hospital bed. Maybe it would feel that way if half his face wasn't wrapped in bandages, or there wasn't a tube down his throat, or all the other wires coming off of him until he nearly looked to be more machine than man. Except it wasn't any of that which truly put Ghost off.
He was so…. still. Of course he was. The doctor had said as much with the word "coma" but it hadn't truly hit what that would mean before he actually saw it. Ghost had spent a lot of time staring at Soap while he slept. Not in a creepy way, well--not in a purposefully creepy way, it just happened to be that Ghost never managed to get much sleep while out on a mission, and that the Sergeant was always determined to be within his line of sight. It gave him plenty of time to catalog all the various ways Soap tended to twitch in his sleep. The lip twitches right before he started to snore, the eye movements while he dreamed, the way he'd sometimes turn and kick Ghost in the shin so hard he'd wonder whether or not it was actually an accident.
There was none of that now. He was still as a statue.
Still as a corpse, really.
Ghost sighed and slumped into a chair just beside the bed, eyes staring at the monitor reading off vitals he barely recognized the meaning too, and then once more at Soap's slack face.
"You got a hard fuckin' head, Johnny."
---
The days started to blur together after that. People came and went at random intervals, but Ghost remained, until he was really turning into his namesake with how he haunted the hospital staff with his constant presence. It was difficult to tell whether they pitied or resented the constant stream of questions. Both Gaz and Price tried to get him to step out at least once, with varying degrees of force, but he couldn't bring himself to leave.
It was irrational and he knew it, but that didn't matter. Anytime he had the thought that he was tired enough to want to leave, his mind would begin to race with anything that might happen if he did. What if something went wrong and there wasn't a nurse nearby to notice? What if he randomly woke up and was completely alone? What if Makarov knew he was still alive and came back to finish the job?
He couldn't bear the thought of any of it. It was Ghost's job to keep their team safe. He wouldn't fail them a second time. He couldn’t imagine there was anything that could have pulled him from the cheap and uncomfortable hospital chair he was sitting on.
The door opened early one morning. Ghost was expecting to see another doctor. Instead, an older couple walks in, the man holding a box of tissues for his very distressed looking wife, and followed close behind by a younger woman who appeared to be in her early thirties if Ghost had to guess. Their features certainly looked familiar, but the second one of them spoke it became very obvious who they were.
On day four of Ghost being awake the Mactavish family had finally arrived from Glasgow. Suddenly, it was much easier to imagine leaving.
A couple of things seemed to happen in quick succession; His mother rushed into the room and burst into tears at the side of the bed opposite to where Ghost still sat. His father walked up behind her and rested a hand on her shoulder as she cried, clearly at a loss for how to offer any comfort. And the younger woman, sister he figured, leaned against the wall and stared daggers into Ghost as if he was the one that put the bullet in Soap's head.
His father's voice was the first to break the relative silence of the room, diverting Ghost's attention. “We appreciate ya keepin’ our boy company till we got down here.”
“It's nothing.” Ghost muttered, neglecting to mention that he would've stayed there even if they'd shown up sooner.
“You work with him then?” His sister asked, arms crossed over her chest. Ghost felt a bit like he was being studied.
“Yeah. Johnny and I run a lot of missions together. “
“So you're like his partner then.” It was hard to miss the borderline accusatory tone of that statement. Ghost struggled to figure out why. Maybe she blamed him. He'd understand.
“I guess that’s one way of looking at it...” Ghost averted his eyes again towards the wall. Her gaze was hard to look at.
“That all?”
“Knock it off, Liv, now’s not the time.” His father cut in very sharply. Ghost got the distinct feeling he was missing some essential piece of context here.
As if on cue, the door started to open again, and Gaz poked his head in through. Clearly he’s as thrown off by their arrival as Ghost had been, and if his face is any indication the tension must also be painfully obvious. Ghost watched him shuffle in through the door frame and closed the door behind him, making a clear effort to be as quiet about it as possible. Gaz’s eyes dart over to Soap’s sister-- Liv, Olivia maybe?-- and then back to Ghost, and part of him has to wonder if it’s obvious how badly he would like to escape this situation.
“You guys must be his family.” Gaz says quietly, in lieu of having anything at all to say. Nods a bit at the murmurs of assent. “It’s nice to meet you guys. My name’s Kyle, I’m a friend of Johnny, like Ghost-...well, Simon I guess.”
Ghost would claw his own eyes out right now if he wasn’t wearing gloves.
“Well, you lot seem busy right now.” Gaz said, and then looked very specifically at Ghost, “You wanna go for a walk? Get some breakfast or something?”
There was nothing he wanted more in that moment.
Without saying a word Ghost forced himself off the chair. His joints popped a bit, stiff from disuse and the shitty chair, and started to walk over to the door. He offered a weak attempt at niceties with a small, “S’Nice meeting you all,” and then walked out, because anything would have been better than waiting there a moment longer, and even a ghost can tell when he’s not welcome.
Once out in the hallway he felt a bit blinded by the florescent lights overhead. There was muffled speaking he could hear through the door, but nothing he could actually make out, and then Gaz was following him out a moment later. Gaz shot him a look of concern, which really that could have been in reference to a lot of things. Clearly he wanted to know what happened, when they got there, how long it’d been since Ghost last slept…
Ghost chose not to think too hard about it though, deciding to start walking instead.
“Not a word, sergeant.”