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The hallway outside the ICU is too bright.
The lights hum overhead with the same flat, indifferent buzz they always do, reflecting off polished linoleum and pale walls, and Gaz thinks—absurdly—that places like this should know better. Should dim themselves in the presence of grief. Should lower their voices. Should pause.
But hospitals never do.
Gaz stands where Price left him, a few steps back from the glass, his injured shoulder throbbing dully in its sling, his pulse still skidding just beneath his skin like it hasn’t realized yet that the fight is over. He feels wrong in his own body—hollowed out, scraped raw—like something vital has been scooped clean out of his chest and the space hasn’t decided what to fill itself with yet. He’s seen men die. He’s seen bodies break, blood pooling bright in the dirt and the sand, he’s watched life flicker out in places far uglier than this. He’s carried the weight of it, learned how to compartmentalize, how to lock things away so he can keep moving. But that was enforced distance. That was work.
This is his best mate.
This is Soap.
This is watching a monitor flatline while medics shout and hands press brutally down on a chest that should never, ever stop rising on its own.
This is helplessness.
Gaz drags a hand down his face and exhales slowly through his nose, grounding himself the way he’s taught others to do. In. Out. Count it. His heart finally starts to settle, but the image won’t leave—the sharp, endless tone of the monitor, the way Ghost surged forward like something feral, the way Price barked orders with a voice so controlled it bordered on unnatural.
He lifts his gaze again, past Price, past his own reflection in the glass to the room beyond. Soap lies still in the bed, pale beneath harsh fluorescents, lines and tubes threading him to machines that hum and beep and breathe for him. And Ghost…
Ghost isn’t wearing his mask.
Lieutenant Simon Riley is folded over Soap’s body, his great shoulders hunched inward, his head bowed until his forehead rests against Soap’s shoulder like that’s the only place left in the world that makes any sense. From this angle, Gaz can only see the back of his head, but it’s enough. His shoulders shake, small at first, then harder, and Gaz’s chest tightens painfully as the soundless reality clicks into place.
Ghost is crying.
He’s breaking.
And something about that—about the sheer intimacy of it, about how utterly unguarded it is—roots Gaz to the floor. He shouldn’t be seeing this. It feels like witnessing something sacred, something private and raw that no one was ever meant to look directly at.
He swallows hard and shifts his focus.
Price stands in front of him, closer to the glass, his broad frame blocking part of the view as though by instinct, shielding what little privacy Ghost has left. His arms are crossed in front of his chest, shoulders squared, but there’s nothing rigid about him right now.
Price looks…lost.
The word lands fully formed, heavy and undeniable.
His eyes are bloodshot, rimmed red in a way Gaz has never seen before. His face is pale beneath the harsh lights, lines etched deeper around his mouth, his jaw tight but trembling ever so slightly, like it’s holding something back by sheer force of will. He looks smaller somehow—not physically, never that—but stripped of something essential. Younger. Almost boyish in his naked confusion.
This is not the captain who barks orders and carries the weight of the world like it’s nothing. This is not the unshakable leader who always knows what to do.
This is a man watching two of his men fall apart, knowing that he cannot fix this. Not right now.
Guilt sits heavy on his features, unmistakable now that Gaz knows how to read it. Fear, raw and unfiltered. Loss, even though Soap is still breathing. And something else underneath it all, something that looks dangerously like heartbreak.
Gaz’s throat tightens.
He thinks of Chicago. Of Price bleeding in the back of an ambulance, arguing with paramedics like pain is an inconvenience. Of the quiet hotel room, the shared bed, the warmth at his back. Of the question that lodged itself in his chest then, one that has never quite left.
Who does Price have?
The answer stares back at him now with brutal clarity.
No one.
Just them.
And for the first time, Gaz sees it. The cost of being the man who never bends, who never breaks, who never lets anyone shoulder the burden with him. The loneliness of it. The sheer, grinding exhaustion of carrying everyone else’s pain and having nowhere to set it down. He doesn’t know what to do with that knowledge. Doesn’t know how to help, how to bridge the space between the man Price is supposed to be and the one standing in front of him now, quietly bleeding in ways no medic can stitch.
So he does the only thing that comes naturally.
He says something about it.
“I’ve never seen Ghost like that,” Gaz says softly, his voice barely carrying in the hum of the corridor. He hesitates, the rest of the thought catching painfully in his chest before he forces it free. “Do you think—do you think they’re going to be okay?”
For a moment, Price doesn’t move.
Then Gaz watches it happen.
The breath Price takes is small but deliberate, like a man bracing himself against a sudden gust. His shoulders square, his jaw firms, and something inside him pulls tight, stitches drawn with practiced efficiency. The rawness drains from his face inch by inch as the mask slides back into place. Not gone, but hidden.
It’s devastating to watch.
Price turns from the glass and looks at him, really looks at him, and his moustache twitches into the faintest hint of a smile. Not the sharp, commanding one he wears in briefings. Something softer. Sadder.
“They will be, Kyle,” he says quietly. “They’re going to be just fine.”
Kyle.
The name hits Gaz square in the chest.
Price never uses it. Not without rank or reprimand attached, not without purpose. It slips out now like a tell, like a reach for something human before the door slams shut again. Gaz nods, because that’s what’s expected of him, because he knows how this works. But inside, something has shifted irrevocably. He’s seen behind the curtain now. He’s seen the man beneath the legend, beneath the rank, beneath the steel-spined resolve. He has seen how much heart John Price carries…and how alone he is with it.
And Gaz knows, with a certainty that settles deep in his bones, that he will never unsee it. No matter how carefully Price sews himself back together.
Price turns back toward the glass for a moment longer, eyes fixed on Ghost folded over Soap’s still form, then finally steps away from the window. He exhales through his nose, scrubs a hand down his face like he’s wiping away chalk from a board, and only then does his gaze drop.
To Gaz’s sling.
It’s like watching someone surface from deep water. Price’s brow furrows, his eyes sharpening with sudden focus, and the shift is so abrupt it nearly startles Gaz. Price’s attention snaps fully to him, cataloguing in a way that’s painfully familiar—injury assessment, threat evaluation, triage.
“How’s the shoulder?” Price asks, already moving closer. “Hurting?”
Gaz opens his mouth to brush it off out of habit, then stops.
Because this isn’t about his shoulder.
Price is already fussing, fingers hovering near the sling without touching, like he’s fighting the instinct to prod and poke and make it better himself. “You should sit down. You’ve been on your feet too long. Medics clear you properly, or did you give them the slip like I know you’re fond of?”
“I’m all right,” Gaz says, softly. He lets Price guide him back toward the row of chairs lining the wall anyway. Lets him steer, lets him worry, lets him do something.
Price eases him down into a chair like Gaz might shatter if he isn’t careful, crouching slightly to check the strap of the sling, his movements precise, almost reverent. His hands are trembling ever so slightly. Gaz feels it even through the fabric of his uniform when Price adjusts the strap at his shoulder.
“Any numbness?” Price asks. “Tingling in your fingers?”
“No, sir.”
Price huffs quietly. “You should be resting.”
“I was,” Gaz replies gently. “Hard to do when everything’s on fire.”
That earns him a brief twitch of Price’s moustache. An almost-smile, there and gone. He straightens, one hand settling briefly on Gaz’s shoulder, grounding himself there for a beat longer than necessary. Gaz lets him. He knows this instinct. He’s seen it before, just never aimed at himself like this. Price needs to take care of someone right now, needs proof that he hasn’t lost everyone under his command tonight. Gaz understands that in his bones.
So he stays still. Breathes slow. Offers himself up as something solid, something unbroken.
But it’s breaking his heart all the same.
“Price?” The word slips out before he can overthink it. Not sir. Not Captain. Just Price, and the name lands between them, quiet but unmistakable.
Price stills.
His hand remain on Gaz’s shoulder, but his gaze drifts, unfocusing slightly, settling somewhere around the middle of Gaz’s chest like he’s staring straight through him and into something much farther away.
“Yes?” he says, but it’s reflexive. Automatic.
“Are you okay?”
Gaz doesn’t expect an answer. He’s not even sure he should’ve asked. He braces himself for deflection, for a clipped reassurance, for the wall snapping back into place like it always does.
Price’s throat works. For a long moment, all he does is breathe.
Then, so quietly Gaz almost misses it, “I’m not.”
The admission is bare. Unqualified. Price’s hand tightens slightly on Gaz’s shoulder, fingers curling into the fabric like he needs the anchor. His eyes remain distant, pupils blown wide, the thousand-yard stare Gaz has never seen before in those eyes.
“I almost lost a man today. Watched him die on that table.” He swallows visibly. “And it’s my fault. I saw the signs. Knew something was off. And I did nothing. That’s how it works when you’re in command. Everything lands on you. Can’t pass it off. Can’t pretend it’s someone else’s mess. You carry it.”
His jaw tightens.
“But this,” he says quietly, finally blinking. “This feels different. Worse, somehow.”
He shifts, gaze flicking briefly back toward the ICU room, where Ghost is still bowed over Soap’s bed, unmoving.
“And with Ghost…” Price exhales, slow and unsteady. “That feels like another mistake. Only the bullet hasn’t landed yet.”
The words settle heavy and ominous between them. Gaz’s chest aches. Not with pity, but with awe. With something dangerously close to reverence. He’d always known Price cared. Knew he was invested, protective, loyal to a fault. But this—this depth of feeling, this feral love for the men under his command—it’s staggering.
It terrifies him.
Gaz lifts his uninjured hand and lays it gently over Price’s where it rests on his shoulder. The contact is light, deliberate, asking rather than taking.
Price’s hand is cold.
“I’ve got faith in you, Price,” Gaz says quietly. “You always do the right thing, whether it seems that way or not.”
Price finally looks at him. Really looks at him. Up close, his eyes are wide and bright, glassy with emotion he hasn’t had time—or permission—to process. For a fleeting second, the armor is gone again, and Gaz sees the man beneath it all. Tired, wounded, and carrying far too much for one heart to endure.
Price opens his mouth, like he might say something, like he wants to, but then he stops himself. He inhales, sharp and controlled, and the shutters slam back into place.
Price’s hand slips from under Gaz’s, leaving behind an empty outline. He straightens, shoulders squaring, spine locking back into its familiar, unyielding line. His fingers dip into his pocket, and Gaz catches the brief glint of plastic as Price draws out the spent stim cartridge Soap had used. He stares at it for a moment, jaw clenched, then curls his fingers around it and pockets it again.
“Thanks, Kyle,” Price says quietly, voice steady once more. “I just wish sometimes the right thing wasn’t so hard.”
And with that, he turns and walks away.
Gaz watches him go, heart pounding, the echo of Price’s words settling deep in his chest. This was the first time Price has let anyone see inside, and he doesn’t’ know if it will ever happen again. Gaz doesn’t know whether to feel honored…or terrified.
So he doesn’t call after him. Doesn’t stop him. Gaz lets him go, because that, too, feels like the right thing to do. Somehow, he knows this is all Price can give tonight.
And God help him—Gaz will take it.