Chapter Text
She was known as a serious person, always focused on the task at hand. Most on the task force underestimated her, because she was a woman.
Currently she was engaged in a bloody battle against two enemy soldiers that looked about twice her size, handling them with only a knife in hand. Her eyes had grown cold, her moves set to kill.
“Fuckin’ hell..." Ghost mumbles to himself as he watched from across the field, shocked.
She was in the heat of the moment, her knife moving swiftly and surely through the enemy soldiers. She didn't even have time to think about what she was doing, just reacting to their advances.
As she finished off the last of them, she looked around, breathing heavily. She wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. Seeing Ghost just watching from afar made her feel a mix of emotions - pride for showing him what she could do and annoyance that he was off to the side instead of fighting by her side.
She walked towards him, still slightly out of breath, but with determination in her step. "Coulda used your help out there.” She joked as she nudged his shoulder with hers.
Ghost chuckled at her comment, but it was more of a forced reaction than anything else. He couldn't believe how easily she handled herself in such a situation. Normally he would have been right by her side, but today lately he felt like he has been holding her back somehow.
"Yeah, maybe next time," he said dryly, not meeting her gaze. "But you didn't need me anymore." He wanted to be there for her, to protect her and help her, but he couldn't bring himself to admit it, not even to himself. Ghost turned away from her and started cleaning his weapon, trying to focus on something else.
“I’ll always need you.” she said as she wiped off the blade of her combat knife.
Ghost stopped what he was doing and looked at her, surprised by her honest statement. He gazed at her for a moment before looking down and fiddling with his weapon again. "Always?" he asked, voice rough and low. He looked up at her again quickly and then looked away again, not able to hold eye contact for long due to some reason.
“Yeah, always," she reassured him, but still he didn't look at her. After a while of forced silence he spoke again, this time meeting her gaze directly. "You don't need me."
“Why do you say that?”
Ghost stared at her for a few moments, trying to find the right words. He took a deep breath and looked into her eyes, trying to convey everything he felt but failed miserably. He couldn't tell her how much he wanted to be there for her, to protect her and to make her happy. He also couldn't tell her that he felt like he was just holding her back, that he knew that she would be so much better if he wasn't there.
"You're... stronger than me," he finally said after a long pause. His voice was raspy and barely audible, revealing how much the conversation was affecting him. "You don't need someone like me standing over your shoulder, telling you what to do."
“No, I don’t need you standing over my shoulder.” she said to him. “I need you beside me.
Ghost looked at her for a moment, unable to believe what he had heard her say. He met her gaze directly and saw the sincerity in her eyes, the raw emotion that she was feeling. It made his heart race and his mouth go dry, but he also felt a weight lifted off of his shoulders. "Beside you?" he repeated her words, a small smile forming on his lips. He took a step closer to her and put an arm around her shoulder, pulling her into a hug, resting his head on hers for a moment before letting go and taking her hand in his. "Then that's where I'll be."