Chapter Text
The phrase ‘military grade’ was, in John Price’s opinion, one of the greatest public relations lies ever told in the entire history of the British Armed Forces.
In his extensive experience curated over many years of tactical fuckups, anything built or maintained by the military was either holding on by a thread, actively falling apart, or already broken. It spoke volumes about the National Defence budget when a concerning amount of important equipment was secured together with duct tape and accompanied by the phrase “if it’s stupid, but it works…”
It was unnerving at first, but after all his years dealing with monumental bullshit and red tape at every hurdle, John had learned to roll with the punches with such magnificent efficiency he wasn’t sure he knew how to exist without it anymore. Eventually, he also came to swear by the sanctity of duct tape and WD-40 based on whether or not something was or wasn’t supposed to be moving.
God bless the military. It was the only place in the world they would let you behind a fully functional SA80, but you needed a 200 slide PowerPoint safety briefing if you wanted to use the barracks kettle.
This philosophy also seemed to extend further out of the physical barracks and crept its way into the Armed Forces family accommodation, and John’s own house on base was no exception to this rule. Holding on by a thread when they moved in and was expected to be Buckingham Palace when they would eventually move out.
They had finished up their deployment a hair’s breadth away from right on time, and as a captain, the second he’d stepped foot back in ol’ Blighty what welcomed him was not the loving embrace of a warm meal and good rest, but a mountain of paperwork piled high on his office desk… and a reminder to bring his deployment gear back to supply. Such as life.
Over the years, there had been many people from friends to complete strangers who have thanked him for his service, and while that may have been a nice sentiment, John wondered what those people would think if they found out that the considerable amount of what they were thanking him for was his proud work wrestling the shoddy out-of-date computer in his office. That and trying to figure out for the nth time that week why the fucking printer magically had no knowledge of aforementioned computer.
This must have been why they had amped up the Defence Aptitude Assessments these days for the youngsters.
Even so, he had made slow work of the paperwork and then saw that the rest of the 141 were off to their respective households for a much-deserved break. Soap hopped on a train up to Glasgow (which cost one-hundred and fifteen Great British pounds. Daylight fucking robbery), he saw Gaz off on the train in the opposite direction down to London, and he had waved Ghost away in the car as he made the drive up to Cumbria. God help the British motorists. Only after all that was done and everyone was taken care of did he allow himself the anticipation of seeing his wife and giving his two little girls a big hug.
Packing up for the night, he made the short walk from his office to the residential part of the base, adding an extra twenty minutes onto the journey on account of him forgetting his ID. An irritating amount of phone calls later and he was finally allowed into the residential area, and his torturous odyssey was coming to its end as he padded towards the direction of his house.
With every step, he felt the jitters of nervous anticipation grow. He’d thought that after years of coming and going it would get easier, but much like the phrase ‘military grade’ there were parts of John too that perhaps were falling apart, and not just his creaky knees. Sometimes he considered the possibility that the military environment of maximum efficiency and directness had hardened him to the point that coming back to his family and their soft domesticity felt out of place. He tried not to ponder on it too excessively lest he start developing any more grey hairs that Soap and Gaz could tease him about.
He was just grateful that he’d made it home for Christmas this year, and despite the nerves, he couldn’t wait any longer to see his girls.
Every house on the base, like the houses on every military base up and down the country, looked exactly the same. As John walked past, he knew exactly what the layout of every house would be down to the exact colour of the carpets or the pattern on the curtains. It was even slightly eerie knowing that his house looked the exact same way.
Settled near the rear of the base, his house backed onto a large area of woodland where he’d often see other service personnel going for runs or walking dogs or spending time with their families. Of course, they just had to give the Price family the house as far as physically possible from the entrance. It was certainly a little bit of a trek, but the promise of what was waiting for him was more than enough motivation to drag his tired legs up the path until finally, his house came into view.
Still tawdry and falling apart just like he’d left it all those months ago.
The roof was in a pretty dire condition, a few of the tiles missing and in need of some serious TLC. A quick look at the gutter also confirmed that they were backed up with leaves and weren’t draining properly. The front lawn was overgrown, and the gate was hanging onto its hinges for dear life. However, nestled in amongst the disarray were the unmistakable signs of a well-loved and well-lived in home. Framing the windows was a string of twinkly lights, and a Christmas wreath was put up at a wonky angle on the off-white uPVC door. John knew that the Christmas tree would be up too, dragged out from the loft in all its spidery glory. If he was being honest, their house was getting dangerously close to an arsey letter reminding of ‘the standards upheld by the Defence Infrastructure Organisation’.
He'd have to do some DIY.
He could also see that there was a dim yellowish light shining through the crack of the living room curtains, and he could see the flickering of the television probably playing the Christmas broadcasting. Most likely the yearly reruns of the Harry Potter movies in order, or a special episode of something or other in the run up to Christmas.
None of that, however, trumped the fact that his girls were home, and he was home. And in that moment, they were everything that John ever wanted. After the long deployment, stress, boredom, violence and everything else, his family were waiting for him as always, giving him something to return to. He was not beyond the knowledge that he was lucky in that regard, too. It was something a lot of soldiers in his line of work didn’t have, and John was aware that he had defied a lot of odds to get this.
He quietly pushed open the gate. The living room window opened straight to the front garden, and John was careful not to be seen as he pressed his back against the brick and trudged through the overgrown grass.
If he ever found himself needing a new ghillie suit, he’d look no further than his own lawn.
He peeked through the gap in the curtains about six inches wide and glanced in on the living room.
Like the rest of the house, the living room was also exactly how he’d remembered it when he left. Washed out beige carpets and a tiny TV pushed haphazardly into the corner at an odd angle like an afterthought. It was balanced precariously atop an Ikea cabinet John had the vague memory of assembling. Wallace and Gromitwas playing, but no one was watching it as it appeared the room remained deserted, the occupants somewhere else in the house. The sofas were brown and well worn, the cushions deflated from the strain two little children put on them by jumping and diving into them. The poor couch probably also had more than one suspicious stain embedded into the fabric of their being.
The overwhelming colour of the living room, however, was pink. Occupational hazard of having two little girls. Pink toys, pink dressing up clothes, pink dolls. More than once, John had had his nails painted pink in such a manner that they more closely resembled chewed off fingers, and had small pink bows and hair ornaments pinned into his beard. To be quite honest, John had seen claymores leave less fallout than his daughters. Things in their house for the past nine years were, generally pink, and were, generally messy.
John shifted himself to get a better look around the room through the crack of the curtain, and just as he’d predicted, the Christmas tree was right there propped up in the corner and looking a bit sad. The poor plastic thing had made its appearance every Christmas since John had started dating his wife and they had their dingy and depressing little flat in Dartmoor. John hadn’t wanted the damn thing at first, but once his wife insisted on it, he hadn’t realised how much he needed that horrid little flat to become a home after weeks upon weeks of shared barracks.
All of that, though. Everything he was looking at in their slightly shit house with their slightly shit decorations faded away into nothingness as John caught sight of his girls bounding into the room cackling like witches and playing a little too roughly to be well-advised.
Christ, they’ve gotten big, he thought to himself, a little shocked.
John wasn’t one to let feelings overtake him, and even if he was, he couldn’t. When he had a job to do, he put everything aside to get it done. It was trained into him and came as naturally as eating or sleeping. That did not mean in any sense, however, that he did not care. No one could accuse Captain Jonathan Price of not caring. In fact, John knew he cared so deeply about those under his watch it hurt sometimes. The burden of responsibility he felt had potential to be crushing, especially when it came to Gaz and Soap, who were on the younger side.
The feeling that settled over him now, however, was not one that was filled entirely with a happy warmth to see his daughters more grown up than he’d expected. Creeping in was a kind of bone-deep sadness he couldn’t pin on a single moment. Something complicated he didn’t really want to face, so was squashed down deep within his chest.
His eyes landed on Emily, scrambling around the room with her little sister, dodging toys and clothes. She was so much taller than the last time he’d seen her. The thing about young kids was that they grew like weeds. When she was a baby John swore that every time he blinked, she grew. She was a whole eight years old now and the hard-to-place feeling within John’s chest now sunk to his stomach in the acknowledgement of how much he’d missed.
Emily’s hair was held back by a bobble with purple plastic beads. Her hair had a gentle curl at the ends and was a chestnut brown hue the same as John’s own. When she was born everyone lamented day and night how much she was his spitting image. Needless to say, she had changed from the baby photo he kept of her in his pocket.
She laughed, she cried, she ran, she played. She was bossy and emotional even at her age. It was simply a true and established fact that Emily Price was an all-feeling little whirlwind.
And where Emily Price was, Nora Price wasn’t far behind.
Just as predicted, Nora tackled Emily with a force that would make Jonah Lomu proud, slamming her sister back onto the couch cushions. Emily squealed with laughter and Nora flung herself belly-first onto the sofa, making a valiant attempt to smack Emily square in the face. Watching them was a strange dichotomy, and John couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Sometimes they could hit and kick each other and it was all in good fun, and other times one need only breathe wrong and the other would be in hysterics.
John found himself smiling fondly at his youngest girl. Nora was a proper little person now, somehow grown from a babbling toddler to a fully-fledged five-year-old. She had a proper little school uniform and dark, slightly ratty pigtails. John had blinked and she had grown from a baby into this.
He says he blinked. The fact plain and simple stared him back in the face. He hadn’t been there for much of their childhoods. Whole chunks at a time he was missing.
That feeling in his chest intensified.
He should have been used to it by now. Every time he went home it went a bit like this. It was something he had never really gotten used to, made worse by the arrival of his children. The feeling greeted him before his family had the chance to. For someone who had always been cool-headed and analytical, it was startling for John to feel like anything was truly overwhelming. He suspected maybe it was the endless apologies he’d have to dole out.
Sorry for missing your birthday. Did you get a video of that? Sorry I missed it. How was parents’ evening? The school play? The ballet recital?
Sometimes the weight of it all was like wearing a rucksack that was far too heavy.
John tried to shake the feeling off. No use crying about it now. It wouldn’t fix the problem. Show some of that military pragmatism.
He carried on watching through the window as Emily and Nora barrelled around the room. When the girlish squeals reached an ear-piercing volume John could hear the clatter of something being thrown down in the kitchen sink and footsteps thumping down the hall.
“Girls! Keep it down, I can’t hear myself bloody think!”
And then she was there, stood in the doorway.
His Samantha.
John felt no small amount of affection well up within him at seeing his wife, gorgeous even when she was threatening their children with a dirty butter knife. Her hair was pulled up, but not so tightly that a couple of loose strands didn’t hang about her face. She was wearing that same pair of sweatpants and threadbare shirt that had survived her two pregnancies and years and years of washes. From paint, caulk, spit up, food, breastmilk. That plain grey shirt and pair of sweats had seen it all. The tea towel thrown over her shoulder completed the look. John recognised it as the one from the girls’ school with a bunch of children’s poorly drawn faces on and topped off with the school logo.
She looked older than when John had seen her last. There was something tougher about her edges now as opposed to those early days before John had joined the SAS and was gone at a far higher frequency than was conducive to family life. Through it all, Samantha had just rolled her sleeves up and got on with it, no matter what endless bullshit John put her through. Months-long deployments, new house every year, pregnancies in which he was barely there for the conception.
“Mum! Nora hit me first!”
“Did not!”
“You did!”
“You bit me!” Nora shrieked and raised her entire arm ready to smack her sister, but thought better of it with her mum standing right there over them. Samantha fixed the girls with a flat look, deeply unimpressed before she hummed and shrugged.
“Well, someone is going to have to hit someone else properly otherwise I don’t know who started it,” she explained with an air of calm John found admirable, because there was no worse sound in the world than two little girls fighting. Samantha raised an eyebrow, waiting for either an explanation or someone to hit someone else, and because his daughters were dramatic and not stupid, John watched the pair of them side-eye each other.
Emily turned to Nora hesitantly and stuck out her hand in a tentative ceasefire, eying Nora up like she was a bomb.
“Time out?” Emily suggested, offering the olive branch. Nora looked back at Emily just as sceptically.
“…Okay,” she said finally, and they shook on it. Samantha clapped her hands together and caressed the girls’ hair fondly.
“There’s hope for one of you becoming UN Secretary General yet.”
John chuckled.
And suddenly he was very aware of himself.
He was very aware of himself standing outside the window of a family home that had specifically adapted to function without him there.
In the time he had been gone, his two little girls had somehow undergone a total metamorphosis into real people that had thoughts and opinions on things. His wife, whom he’d snatched away for himself and pledged to her father to take care of, was holding down the fort and protecting and providing for their family when it should have been him. The woman he promised to love until his dying day was fulfilling her marriage vows alone while John fell through on his promise.
John just stood there, peeking through the window on this family that somehow belonged to him. Stock still, like how he stood at attention.
Suddenly, he wasn’t looking through the curtains anymore. He was looking at his own reflection in the glass. A long, hard look at himself. Looking back at him was a man who did everything to provide for his team, but couldn’t do the same for his own wife. He then had the audacity to feel guilt and melancholy when it was finally time to step up. The love he had tucked away in that little corner of his heart could never fill the void left by someone who was meant to be there.
A woman and two young girls all with his last name. What had he done to deserve that?
And yet, despite all his failures, when those two little girls finally sensed they were being watched and glanced towards the window to see him standing there, their faces lit up like he hung the fucking stars.
“Daddy!”
Was there a better name in the whole world?
Emily and Nora scrambled, shoving and barging through the doorways to get to the front entrance. John’s face broke into a wide grin as he watched them tear through the house. He trudged through the overgrown grass of the front lawn and knelt on the driveway just outside the door in anticipation of a warm welcome. An endlessly forgiving and innocent welcome.
He heard shuffling behind the door and saw shadows behind the frosted glass. The door flew open, making the wreath jump violently against the knocker as the door slammed against the wall. John’s arms were then filled with the two solid weights of his daughters, hugging him with so much force and enthusiasm that he was knocked backwards. He laughed brightly and pulled them in close, squeezing his eyes shut as emotion threatened the corners of his psyche.
Emily sobbed into his neck.
“Dad! You’re back!” She wailed, and John gave her a little squeeze and planted a kiss to the side of her head while making a valiant attempt to sit up and right himself. Nora was all wailing sobs too, squeezing him around the neck so tightly he might choke. It was the first time, John realised, that she was crying because she actually understood what was going on and wasn’t just doing so out of empathy for her sister.
He managed to wrangle himself back upright, and pulled both his girls in, lifting them as he heaved himself up off the ground. They buried their faces into his neck and John leaned his cheek against Nora’s head.
“I missed you too!” He spoke softly into Nora’s hair, “been causing trouble for your mum without me?” He asked teasingly.
Emily shook her head from the comfort of his neck and John felt Nora’s fingers toying along his jaw and stroking his beard. She had done that ever since she was a baby, enjoying the texture of the coarse hair under her fingertips. John was secretly glad she hadn’t grown out of that habit quite yet.
“Y-You were gone forever!” Emily whined through sniffles.
“I wouldn’t be back now if I was gone forever,” John teased, and Emily pouted at that, clearly not appreciating the sentiment.
“But you were gone for aaages!” Nora affirmed, joining in on the whining. It had been a long deployment this time, but John had to roll his eyes good-naturedly at the pair of them.
“Well, next time I’ll pack you in my bag,” he said as he set the girls down and made a big song and dance of scooping Nora up by her socked ankles and pretending to stuff her in his bergen as the mood shifted and she shrieked with delight. Emily went back to cackling and joined in to pretend to help stuff her in.
“And what is this strange man trying to do with my daughters!?” Came a voice from the doorway. John flipped Nora back to her feet and turned his attention to Samantha leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed, backlit like some kind of angel. Somewhere in the back of his mind Dreamweaver started playing in his head. John held out his arms for Samantha, his Sam, and waited for her to step into the circle of his embrace.
She sank into his arms, and John felt a welling of affection as he just took her in. Her shampoo, her skin, her mere presence.
And finally, he kissed her.
“Welcome back,” she smiled against his lips.
“Glad to be here,” he replied. She pulled away for just enough time as it took to caress his cheek before she was ushering him inside. The girls helped by shoving at the backs of his thighs.
“Come on, you’re in time for dinner.”
John was very glad to hear that. He hauled his bergen over his shoulder as Emily and Nora escorted him inside like two small, very enthusiastic bodyguards.
.
He was quickly ushered into the kitchen with barely enough time to kick off his shoes and set down his things. Their kitchen was a small space with cheap plastic wrapped tops and an ancient induction stove. The lack of a proper dining room had led them to try and fit the table into the centre of the kitchen so they could all eat together. It was a tight squeeze, less now there weren’t two highchairs in the way, but it did the job. John was shoved into a rickety wooden chair, and the girls each dragged their chairs as close as possible to either of his sides in order to be closer to him. Samantha stood at the countertop next to the stove plating up everyone’s dinner, bringing out an extra plate for John and stretching the food so they each got their fair amount.
On his left, Nora was clinging to his arm like a limpet. Emily, on his right, enthusiastically directed his attention towards the fridge, where an array of colourful alphabet magnets held up all sorts of certificates and achievements intersected with a few art class projects.
“You’ve been keeping busy while I’ve been gone?” John asked, prompting the girls into some conversation. He scanned his eyes over the certificates, so many that you could barely make out the form of the actual fridge from behind them. From the counter, Samantha interjected in an exasperated tone, “You’ve got no idea.”
Emily pulled at his arm and grinned wide, pointing to a certificate in the top right corner.
“Yeah! I got my one hundred metres swimming badge!” She exclaimed proudly, and John raised his eyebrows, impressed considering they’d had to drag her kicking and screaming to the swimming pool last time he was home. Upon reflection, perhaps Jaws was not the best film to introduce to his seven-year-old daughter. That incident had landed him in the doghouse with Samantha for at least a week.
“You’re practically Michael Phelps now,” he smiled, but the joke was lost on Emily as she blinked up at him in confusion.
“Who?”
“Never mind.”
Not one to miss out on the action, Nora tugged at his other arm to direct his attention away from her sister and pointed towards a photograph held up by a blue letter E.
“That’s me at Brownies!” She said, and John gave her an affectionate squeeze.
“Ah, took the oath did you? You’re finally a full Brownie now. Not half-baked or anything,” he waited for his daughter to laugh, but yet again, the joke was lost. The sympathy chuckle from his wife felt less like a win than it should have.
John glanced over some of the other achievements.
School sports day participation certificate, Nora’s maths challenge prize, Emily’s nativity, a photograph of the girls with their friends holding a large cheque for £100 donating to Help for Heroes. Beside that was a small envelope which apparently contained Nora’s tooth. Samantha had told him it had fallen out the day before and part of his duties tonight was being the Tooth Fairy.
They had certainly been busy.
“Alright, grub’s up,” Samantha leaned over the small table to set the plates down. She used to insist on placemats, but that dream had died when their table began to fall apart. Crumbling table aside, John mentally rubbed his hands together upon seeing the sausages, mash, greens, beans and the big Yorkshire pudding. After months of MREs he could have cried (aside from the hot chocolate, which was surprisingly good). Samantha sat down opposite him, and scooted Nora’s chair to be beside her, giving him a bit of room to eat. Nora, however, was reluctant to go.
“Girls, daddy might need his arms to eat. Stop clinging,” John was about to protest that he didn’t technicallyneed his arms, but he wasn’t sure the sentiment would have been appreciated. Nora let out a little ‘aww’ and padded around the table to her seat. John smiled and tucked into his dinner, homemade for the first time in months.
The kitchen cum dining room filled with the noise of scraping cutlery, but John sensed something amiss. When he looked up at his wife, he noticed Samantha was narrowing her eyes in Emily’s direction.
“Something wrong with the food, Em?” She asked, and John could tell she was trying to sound casual. The classic opening gambit. Pretending like nothing was wrong.
John peered over at his daughter, who was eyeing up the plate with her nose upturned, poking the sausages around primly.
“The sausages look bad,” she said. John could feel the tension in the room thicken. It was the same kind of feeling he got when he watched the bomb disposal team at work. Emily had made her move and waited for the response. He watched Samantha carefully. Anyone else would have said she kept her cool, but John could tell she was already annoyed.
“You like those ones.”
“No, I don’t,” Emily shot back almost immediately. Samantha stopped eating and set her cutlery down with a flat look.
Oh shit, John thought. Game, set, match.
“Emily Rose Price, that is the biggest fib. You scarfed down three of those last week,” Samantha said, pointing an accusing finger at their eldest. Logic, however, was not something Emily was interested in. She pushed the plate away, unrelenting to reason as most children were.
“Well, I don’t like them anymore,” she shrugged. John and Nora awkwardly watched on, and just as he saw Samantha’s expression spell out the word ANGER in big, bold letters, he figured it was about time he stepped in. He leaned sideways to whisper to Emily.
“You know what, I bet Peppa eats her sausages,” he suggested.
“Peppa is for babies,” Emily replied, and John was taken aback. Has the day finally come? Was his house free of Peppa fucking Pig? He’d have to crack out the wine later.
His mental celebration was rudely interrupted when he heard Samantha huff in his direction.
“Really John? Peppa likes pork sausages?” She raised a curious eyebrow, and John smirked.
“I don’t know what Peppa gets up to in her spare time.”
“I have a feeling it’s not cannibalism.”
“That’s what she wants you to think,” he winked conspiratorially. Samantha couldn’t help a soft titter.
“When was your last psych evaluation?” She asked, and John took a sip of his water.
“Too long ago. Sleep with one eye open.”
God, he’d missed this.
“I’m not eating that,” Emily put her foot down and folded her arms in the brattish disposition he’d come to associate with little girls that thought they knew absolutely everything. John could see Samantha’s eyes, calculating and sharp. It was the face that told him she was about to pull one of her Jedi mind tricks. Her wizardry and manipulation tactics had only grown stronger with every child and had ascended to levels John wasn’t even sure Laswell could match.
John was useless in this regard. All Emily and Nora had to do to get anything out of him was blink their big brown eyes and John would move heaven and earth to make them happy. Forget the years upon years of training to resist interrogation and torture. Bring him his girls and he’d break in seconds.
Samantha though? Samantha was clever. She waited a moment and eventually, she shrugged.
“Fine,” she said, and reached over the table to stab a fork into Emily’s sausage. Emily could only watch on in horror as she let it drop onto Nora’s plate.
“Hey!” The outrage from someone who supposedly didn’t even want her sausages in the first place was amusing to say the least. John felt himself smirk as Samantha returned to her own food.
“If you don’t want your sausages then Nora can have them.”
John tried his very hardest not to laugh as Nora expressed her genuine delight at this plan, obnoxiously taking a big bite of her dinner and smacking her food in Emily’s direction.
Emily wasted no time in reaching over the table to take her sausage back. John swatted her away, very greatly aware that the chance she had of knocking someone’s drink over was high, and then there would be pandemonium.
“That’s not fair! I’ll eat them!”
John met eyes with Samantha from across the table.
Damn, you’re good, he said with a look.
Oh, I know, she replied.
This is what parenting was really about. Deceit, bribery, and the occasional collective punishment.
Bit like the army really.
It seemed their daughters had reached their competitive ages now, and God forbid one of them got something that the other didn’t. John considered briefly what their teenage years were going to be like, and a shudder ran up his spine. It was certainly going to be interesting, that was for sure. However, if he had to place bets, John’s money was on Nora. Emily was all bark and no bite, while Nora was a little tactician. A small five-year-old Sun Tzu. She sat and waited for her moment to strike.
Soap, who grew up the youngest of three older sisters, did mention that it was around this time when the psychological warfare began. He wondered if his daughters were going to turn out absolute maniacs like his Sergeant, or maybe they’d even out and mellow, a bit more like Gaz…. as long as they didn’t end up as emotionally stunted as Ghost, he’d consider his and Samantha’s parenting a job well done.
The dinner continued smoothly after the sausage fiasco, and John was happy to hear that the ‘why’ phase hadn’t completely fizzled out.
“Dad, are you staying home for Christmas this time?”
Yes. Can’t let you eat all the mince pies without me.
“Where were you this time?”
Far away.
“Dad, what do you actually do?”
I’m a vampire hunter.
“Was Uncle Simon there?”
He’s always there.
“Did you know I was Mary in the school play?”
Mum told me. You’ll have to show me the pictures.
“Did you get us any Christmas presents?”
Father Christmas gets you presents. It depends on if you’ve been naughty or not.
“Did you know that Nora is five now?”
Of course I know. I called her on her birthday, remember?
They packed the dishes into the dishwasher, turning sideways to scootch around each other, and Samantha did that thing where she not-so-subtly rearranged all of John’s packing work to her preferences. John reminded the girls to hold the plates with two hands when more than one spoon or fork ended up on the floor under the table. Everything whirled by in a comfortable domesticity, and John felt as though he’d been home for barely five minutes.
He'd blinked and they’d eaten dinner, and now he was getting the girls ready to go to bed after some TV time finishing the film they’d put on earlier. There was a silent agreement that when he was home, John did the bedtime routine.
He raced the girls up the stairs and filled the bathtub halfway. He was mentally grateful that they were still just young enough to share the bath still. Emily and Nora splashed one another viciously, and by the end of bathtime, John looked like he was the one who took the bath fully clothed. The floor was absolutely drenched as they played. Nora, as it turned out, still screamed bloody murder whenever the shampoo got anywhere near her eyes, and Emily still cackled at her sister’s torment every time it happened.
John was exhausted by the time they were towelled dry and bundled into pyjamas. The egg timer was set to two minutes as they brushed their teeth, which resulted in a disgusting bathroom mirror full of spat toothpaste as they tried to talk and brush at the same time. The whole room smelled of artificial strawberries as John finally corralled them into their bedroom.
Then, he was tucking his daughters in for the first time in months.
The girls still shared a room with bunkbeds, and there had been genuine warfare over who would get the top bunk. Emily had eventually won that argument on account of being older. John was suspicious Nora still hadn’t forgiven her.
The room itself, like every other room in their already small house, looked like the aftermath of a glitter-infused airstrike. He mentally filed away that idea for Nikolai. If the enemy sparkled pink, they’d know much easier who to aim for.
Nora wiggled into the bottom bunk, and John leaned down to help Emily up the ladder, but she turned around, looked him straight in the eye and said, “Dad, I don’t need any help.”
And had someone shot him in the chest at point-blank range, it would have been less painful.
But John knew that he couldn’t let it show on his face, so he smiled, nodded, and stepped back to let Emily scale the ladder to the top bunk, and she did so with not even a hint of uncertainty or instability. Just as she had told him, she could do it all on her own now, and it was precisely then that John quickly came to the realisation that the days of him helping his little girls and being their hero were numbered.
Emily and Nora were growing up, and there was nothing he could do about it. No magic clock he could turn back to take it all in and appreciate their formative years a little more. One day, he’ll come back from deployment, and they’ll be off to university.
As it was, John was stuck in a space he always entered when he came home and faced the existential dread of time. He would never regret his job. He was so damn good at it and he loved it, but he would also never regret the choice he made to marry Samantha and become a father. Independently, these two desires were fine, but marrying them harmoniously was what became difficult. It was almost like being two different people.
“Dad?” Nora asked through a yawn, and John knelt beside the bed, his back aching a little in protest as he ducked under the top bunk.
“What’s up, Norb? Got your tooth under your pillow?” Nora nodded and giggled at the nickname. It was one of those things that had just slipped out when she was about eighteen months old and stuck. She’d been ‘Norb’ ever since.
“Promise you’ll be here tomorrow?”
She said it so hopefully and her eyes went wide and pleading. John felt a painful tug at his heartstrings that was more like a jolt. Pulling on the reigns of an angry horse or slamming the breaks on a car. She was not a tiny unaware baby anymore. Not a being who could have been replaced with some kind of potato or potted plant and they wouldn’t have been any the wiser. Nora knew what was going on when she woke up one morning to find that her father was gone, having been whisked off to some far-off corner of the world. All she would be consoled with was that her daddy was doing something important and that he was protecting the country. Protecting her.
It was true to varying degrees, but it didn’t change the fact her dad was doing the dirty work for those far too willing to send someone else to clean up the messes of power-hungry men. It was a job someone had to undertake, but that wouldn’t mean anything to Nora.
“I’ll be here tomorrow, I promise,” he said, forcing down the knot that had formed in his throat. Nora threw her arms around him and John squeezed her tight. Then she whispered in his ear.
“Can we have daddy breakfast?” She giggled, and John smirked, he had been wondering how long it would be before it was brought up. ‘Daddy breakfast’ was a time-honoured tradition when he got home. The girls would be allowed any number of sugary E-number filled cereal with chocolate milk and any number of pastries and a side of anything they asked for. It was chips last time, because there were no rules for Daddy Breakfast.
“Absolutely.”
Nora giggled again and laid back down into bed, and John kissed her forehead. He then got up to the top bunk to do the same for Emily. After he’d kissed his girls goodnight, he stepped over the various bits and bobs left scattered over the carpet to flick on their nightlight, a purple flower mounted on the wall that emitted a soft yellowish glow.
“Goodnight, girls,” they both chirped back softly, “goodnight, dad.”
John turned off the lights and closed the door quietly behind him.
He listened for a moment to make sure there was no shuffling about before he tiptoed away from the door. He didn’t make it two steps before he saw Samantha glaring at him from the stairs.
“I can’t believe it, you jammy git,” she whispered in outrage. She had a load of laundry balanced on her hip and her other fist planted firmly on her hip.
“What?” John wracked his brain for what he could have possibly done wrong in only the few hours he’d been home.
“They’ve been right little shits all week, and the second you get home they’re daddy’s angels.”
Upon hearing this, John couldn’t help but feel a bit smug. He held his arms out and shrugged his shoulders, as if it were all just too easy.
“Don’t be jealous because I’ve got the magic touch,” he joked. Samantha rolled her eyes and hauled the load of washing higher on her hip. He walked the short distance to her and took the laundry basket without a second thought. He considered what she’d said and thought about all she had dealt with in his absence. The guilt was the natural consequence.
“Tell you what, go run yourself a bath, and I’ll sort this out,” he suggested, nodding in the direction of the bathroom. Samantha fixed him with a look. The look. She quirked an eyebrow.
“Last time you said that we ended up with Nora,” she said, and John rolled his eyes and hurried her towards the bathroom.
“No ulterior motive. I’ll have you know that laundry is my speciality.”
“I thought cleaning was your speciality?” Samantha said sceptically, heading towards the bathroom. John pecked her cheek as she went past.
“That too. Special moperations, remember?” He replied, starting to head downstairs to the washing machine. Samantha shook her head fondly with a groan and padded her way into the bathroom.
John sat staring at the washing machine for longer than was practical.
Last time you said that, we ended up with Nora.
Would that be so bad? Was she hinting at something John was too stupid to recognise?
Jedi mind tricks, that woman. They worked on him, a full-grown man, just as well as it did an eight-year-old and five-year-old girl. John should have been more concerned about that fact than he actually was.
He wasn’t lying when he said he was good at cleaning. It was one of the very first things that was drummed into your head as a private when you were a baby-faced moron that had just moved out of your parents’ house. Keep your shit clean, or there will be consequences, and those consequences will hurt not just you, but everyone else too.
He stuffed the washing machine to maximum capacity and made quick work of the living room, tidying away the girls’ toys and clothes into a box in the corner. He figured he’d take a moment to straighten up the Christmas tree and admire the framed photos on the coffee table. His and Samantha’s wedding day, Emily’s first birthday. He felt slightly bad for Nora. Being the second child meant there were significantly less photos of her, especially as John had missed her birth by a day.
Samantha still wouldn’t let him live that down. He’d been out in Al Mazrah at the time and Nora had arrived early. It was, to this day, the only time she’d ever been early in her life. John had raced back to the UK as quickly as he possibly could and sheepishly made his way into the Labour and Delivery ward, armed with a bunch of flowers from the hospital gift shop. They were a bit spindly and droopy.
The look his mother-in-law had given him was evil. She’d never liked or even approved of him, and that little incident certainly didn’t land him in her good books. John wondered when he’d have to see that witch next. It would probably be Emily’s birthday.
For fuck’s sake.
John already knew how it’d go. She’d drive up from London to take a break from whatever the fuck she was doing (skinning dalmatians probably) just to try and outdo them on the gifts, neck the guts of a bottle of wine, and give John dirty looks all day.
Speaking of wine, once the living room was looking more habitable again, and he was satisfied all the windows and doors were locked, he made a quick stop to the kitchen to pick up a bottle, two glasses, and a cigar from the box he kept on top of the fridge. He tiptoed up the stairs to the landing and knocked gently on the bathroom door, entering after a moment.
Samantha was laid back in the tub, luxuriating amongst the bubbles and bath smellies that she always got from relatives that didn’t know her well enough to truly grasp what she liked as a gift. In the corner of the bath, Emily and Nora’s rubber duckies were a nice touch. John held up the wine and two glasses, and Samantha made an appreciative noise.
“You know me so well.”
She plucked the stem of the glass deftly from his fingers and held it out for John to pour her a generous helping of wine. It wasn’t an expensive Bordeaux by any standard, but it was reasonably palatable. Neither of them were truly picky. John sat down on the lid of the toilet and lit up his cigar and passed it over to Samantha so she could take a drag.
“Good?” John asked with a slight upturn of his lips.
“Don’t tell my mum, she thinks I quit,” she replied.
“Don’t worry about me telling your mum anything.” John scoffed, and Samantha pouted.
“Aww, you didn’t miss her?” She cooed, and John could practically feel the chill of his mother-in-law’s presence creep up his spine.
“The only people who miss your mum are the lion and the wardrobe.”
Samantha laughed and took a sip of wine, passing the cigar back over for John to take a deep puff. Samantha gazed up at him with sleepy half-lidded eyes.
“So, how was it all this time around?” She pried softly. John took a long swig from his glass.
“Not much different from last time.”
“Everyone get through it okay? I know Mrs. MacTavish was worried,” she said, and she poked her feet out the water to cross her ankles on the lip of the tub. John hummed.
“Yeah, everyone was alright. Sent them all off home. We’ll see them on New Year’s.”
“For the party?” Samantha teased. John looked ever-so-slightly pained.
“Yeah. For the damn party.”
It was a fairly common occurrence that military bases threw parties for forces families or sometimes even veterans living in the area. It helped build a sense of community and John totally understood why it was done. It doesn’t mean, however, that Emily’s primary school disco didn’t bear some similarities.
“Cheer up, you miserable old man. It’ll be a bit of fun. Besides, Mrs. MacTavish, Mrs. Garrick and Doctor Theo all said they’ll be there. I’m looking forward to meeting them in person,” Samantha looked at him with dark eyes from amongst the bubbles. John hummed, considering this. It was nice that Samantha and the girls were getting to know the others that ran in their circle outside the other families that lived on the base and the mums of kids that went to school with the girls. He didn’t say it aloud, but it meant a lot to him that she was friendly with the families of the 141.
It had been Kate’s idea to put their families in contact, emphasising how isolating the nature of their work could be. John spoke to each of his men’s parents and partners and such periodically to give updates when he was able, but never had he thought of them contacting each other. It made sense. John was sure that when everything went dark and they had no clue where or what in the world they were doing, they could find a bit of comfort in each other.
“Didn’t know you were that close to all of them,” John reached over to stroke his wife’s hair gently and Samantha let out a pleased hum into her wine.
“Mrs. MacTavish gave me a fantastic shortbread recipe, and Mrs. Garrick had some great advice for getting Nora settled at school. Lovely women the pair of them,” she said firmly, and to this, John could concur. Every time he spoke to them respectively about Soap and Gaz, they had been nothing but pleasant and understanding. It was easy to see how their sons grew to be so likeable. Samantha made a noise of realisation, waving in John’s general direction.
“Doctor Theo also invited us and the girls up to Cumbria for the summer holidays.”
John tried to imagine Ghost occupying a house with Em and Nora for a whole six weeks and mentally barked a laugh at the mental image of them painting Ghost’s nails in pink and putting little bows on that skull mask. The best part was that John knew Simon would let them. He had a patience with children he didn’t have with adults.
John passed the cigar over to Samantha for one last draw before he put it out in the ashtray he had brought up with him. Samantha used her free hand to play with his fingers, her skin warm and wet from the bath.
“How was parents’ evening this time?” John asked as he gave his wife’s fingers a small squeeze. They did this every time he came back. They called it ‘The Debrief’ and it was the opportunity for Samantha to catch him up on everything important that he’d missed since going away.
Samantha polished off her wine and motioned for John to fill her glass again. He did so enthusiastically.
“They’re both doing well. Emily talks too much in class,” Samantha rolled her eyes and John chuckled.
“I could’ve told you that,” he affirmed, and Samantha chuckled in agreement.
“Nora’s first term is going well. Apparently, she’s a bit of a maths whizz. Still a little behind on the reading, but the teacher says that’s quite normal for her age,” as Samantha filled him in, John sipped at his drink and braced his forearms on his knees. He wasn’t surprised Nora was doing well in the same way he wasn’t surprised that Emily talked too much in class.
“Well, she’s good at maths, at least. Not all hope is lost then.”
“They definitely got their academic prowess from my side of the family,” Samantha boasted, giving him a look, and John could do nothing but peer fondly over the rim of his glass.
“Their good looks too.”
Samantha reached for his hand again and brought his knuckles to her lips in an affectionate kiss.
“You know, they asked me every day when you’d be home. They missed you so much this time. More so than usual.”
It was a rule in their house that they didn’t count down the days until John got home like other families did, but instead gave the girls a rough estimation. It had all stemmed from one particular incident in which John’s deployment had been extended two weeks past when he was due back, and as the time went on, the more and more anxious and upset Emily got. According to Samantha’s recollection (which she told much in the same way as someone who had witnessed a natural disaster) Emily had thrown some spectacular tantrums because of it. Newly postpartum with Nora, Samantha found it difficult to cope with both a newborn and the pent-up rage of a little girl who couldn’t see the reason why her dad was being kept from her.
John took the chance to look at his wife then. She had a couple of very sexy grey hairs coming through, and he thought about how many nights they had spent apart and how strong they’d both been over the years.
And still, guilt ate away at him.
“What?” Samantha knew him far too well to dismiss the look on his face. Her dark eyes were questioning and curious as to what was going on in his head. John took her hand earnestly.
“What if we could start again?” He began cautiously. She frowned.
“What are you on about?”
“Let’s have another one,” John spoke the words into the silence broken only by the sloshing of the water in the tub.
“Another what?”
“Another baby.”
Samantha clearly hadn’t been expecting that. She was still for a long moment before she tipped back her wine and let out a long sigh, as if she was figuring out how to broach the subject. John knew he’d probably made some kind of mistake by asking, but the idea of another baby had been poking him in the back of his mind every time he came home for the last three deployments. It felt like years before she finally spoke.
“That, Jonathan Price, is very easy for you to say.”
John knew it too. He knew he was asking too much, and knew he was being selfish. And he hated that none of those facts had stopped him from asking anyway on the off chance she’d say yes, and he’d get his way.
“I’m serious. Just one more.”
Samantha met his eye, and a small (almost pitying) smile played on her lips. Something complicated swam about in her expression. It felt resigned. Considerate yet compassionate.
“You really want that boy, huh?”
John immediately rejected the idea mentally, his mind taking him back to all the shit he had to deal with on a daily basis. The lads lads lads and Old Boys’ Club culture of the military. The bullshit that those men put him through was far beyond what his sweet girls could accomplish. Besides, after two daughters, he wouldn’t know what to do with a son. He couldn’t abandon Peppa and the Barbie movies after all they’d been through together.
That being said, John recounted the look of Soap’s traumatised face when he talked about his sisters and the teenage years, and he supposed he still had that to look forward to.
“Fuck no,” John said firmly before correcting himself. “I mean, sure. I’d love them either way, but…” he thought for a moment, “that’s not really what I’m on about,” he explained, struggling a little to put himself into words.
Samantha continued looking at him with that pity in her eyes, and John hated it. Hated that she was absolutely right in whatever she was about to say, and was about to read him like an open book.
“I know. But, John, now isn’t the right time.” There it was, and he couldn’t hide the slight edge of disappointment. Samantha picked up on it right away and squeezed his hand reassuringly, “I know you want to be there, John. I get it. But I have enough going on right now and the girls are finally settled now they’ve both started school. It’s not the time for me to be getting pregnant again.”
John knew she was right. Always tactical and looked at the bigger picture. Always sensible and didn’t take risks.
“Is this the end of the discussion?” John asked. Samantha thought for a moment.
“No. I’m not shutting down the idea completely. I’m just saying not now.”
When she glanced up through her eyelashes, the look in her eyes was loving and adoring. “I’d do it all again, John. Hyperemesis, gestational diabetes, cord prolapse and all. I’d go through it all again, but not when you could be shipped off to God-knows-where doing God-knows-what at any given moment,” she emphasised, and John nodded slowly, understandingly. “God forbid something happened to you, John. And I –“
He leaned over the rim of the bath to kiss her. As if the kiss alone would stave off any thought of something happening to him. She was right about this, as she usually was about most things. He wouldn’t be around for another child right now and the strain it would put on Samantha was too much.
More strain than he already put on her.
“Okay, I’ll drop it.”
“Bring the idea back to me when you retire, and I personally fight the entire Ministry of Defence to keep you retired…” she placed her wine glass on the floor and motioned for a towel. John plucked it from the rack and watched, transfixed as Samantha emerged from the bubbles to stand, “then I’m not opposed to having one more.”
John gave her a look as she wiped herself down of all the suds and excess water. His eyes lingered over the horizontal scar on her lower belly. The cut they had made to pull Emily out kicking and screaming into the world from the breech position she’d been in. And then Samantha did it all again for Nora.
That scar was the physical embodiment of the sacrifices she’d made for them to become a family.
John stood and finally managed to kiss his wife properly, placing his wine glass on the bathroom counter with one hand, and feeling her warm, wet skin with the other.
“You’re not convincing me to shelf this conversation when you look at me like that.”
Samantha chuckled and wrapped the towel around herself before embracing him, tucking her chin over his shoulder.
“I’m serious about only doing one more, though. I’m only doing the sleepless nights, breastfeeding and school projects Emily only tells me about at ten o’clock the night before it’s due one more time,” she said sternly, and John winced.
“Bet that was a fun night.”
“Who tasks an eight-year-old to build a sodding planetarium diorama from scratch? Where do I get Styrofoam balls from? We had to use tin foil in the end,” she tutted in disgust, and John pressed his nose into Samantha’s hair. There was a short pause, and they just held each other. John was the one to break the silence.
“They’re good kids, aren’t they?”
“The best.”
“Don’t think they’re maladjusted or got daddy issues?” He asked, and Samantha considered this.
“Give it a few years, at least. Soon enough they’ll be slamming doors in our faces and telling us how much they hate us. Then we can come back to where it all went wrong.”
“Lucky us,” he laughed in response.
.
Sleeping safely in his bed with his wife was one of the things in life John would never take for granted. Something he did have to get used to over the years, though, was the creepy little face of his daughter right at eye level at fuck-knows o’clock in the morning, and the horror movie-esque little girl whisper of “daddy!”.
That was how John was awoken that night… morning? And he fought every instinct in his body not to punch his own child in the face as his heart raced in his chest. Emily stared at him flatly as he pressed a palm to his heart to try and calm himself down.
“Oh my God, Emily. What is it? Why are you up?” He blinked blearily to the clock on the nightstand. 2am. What the fuck. Beside him, Samantha also began to stir.
“Em? What’s wrong?”
Emily pointed towards the bedroom door.
“Nora got her money from the Tooth Fairy,” she said like they were the ones who should know. John did know. John knew about the money. He’d exchanged the money for the tooth. He was the Tooth Fairy. Captain Tooth Fairy.
“Is that what this is about? The bloody Tooth Fairy?” He exclaimed in a hushed shout, and Emily shook her head and John just stared at her.
She blinked. He blinked.
“Okay, Em, you’ve lost me,” he huffed in resignation. Emily sighed in seemingly deep frustration.
“Well Nora got her money, and she thought that it would make her tooth grow back, so she swallowed it.”
Emily blinked again. John blinked again.
“She swallowed the pound coin?” He asked, just to make sure he was hearing it right. Emily nodded and calmly made her way out the room as if nothing were amiss. Once she was out of earshot, John groaned, “fucking hell, I thought Nora was the smart one.”
A wailing sob rang out from the direction of the girls’ bedroom and Samantha was up in an instant. John dragged his sorry arse out of bed to follow her with far less urgency.
Poking his head into the room, he did a sitrep. On the bottom bunk, Nora was sat up in bed, inconsolable. Snotty nose, wet eyes and all.
“Nora! What were you thinking!?” Samantha embraced her, as worried as she was exasperated, and Nora sobbed into the shoulder of her pyjamas.
“I thought she gave it to me to make the tooth grow back! Like medicine!”
“Oh my God, child. John, we have to go to the hospital.”
His mind viciously protested this the second he heard it, and John held his hands up.
“Woah, woah, woah. That’s a bit extreme, don’t you think?” He said, and Samantha whirled on him.
“We don’t know if it’s dangerous!”
“It’ll be fine! I’m not going all the way to A&E and waiting six hours just for them to tell us she’ll shit it-“
“John!”
“Daddy! That’s a bad word!”
“Not the time, Emily!”
John placed a palm to his forehead and wracked his brain for solutions. The only thing he could come up with was a Google search, and that surely would lead down the rabbit hole of Nora having some kind of rare tropical disease contracted by pound coins and only curable by a visit to some sort of Peruvian shaman in the fucking Andes.
He was about to look up flights to Peru when Samantha gasped and gestured towards their bedroom, waving her hand around in his general vicinity.
“Call Doctor Theo! He’ll know what to do!”
“Sam, it’s 2am.”
“He won’t mind. Just call him.”
John didn’t have it in him to argue anymore. He’d take a 2am call to Theo over a plane to Peru. He mentally hoped Theo (and Ghost for that matter) would forgive him. In this house, Samantha was a NATO Field Marshal and John could do nothing but follow orders. He plodded tiredly into the bedroom and picked up his phone. He had unread messages.
MacTavish
Made it home, cap. Say hi to Em and Nora for me 🏴 🏴 🏴
Price
👍
MacTavish
you’re such a fuckin dad
John chuckled. He was glad Soap had made it home okay. He had a matching message from Gaz and one from Ghost.
Now to sort out this fiasco with Nora and the Tooth Fairy. He made the decision to call Simon rather than Theo, just in case the poor man was on call.
And as he heard the phone ring and Samantha curse the Tooth Fairy, he thought perhaps it was for the best to wait for another baby after all.