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The rules were a wall they leaned on instead of climbed.
Soap liked to pretend it was choice—banter sharp enough to draw blood, flirting easy enough to laugh off. Ghost liked to pretend it was discipline—distance measured in ranks and regs, professionalism wrapped tight around something feral and wanting. Between them, it worked. Mostly.
Until it didn’t.
The rec room smells like burnt coffee and gun oil, part of the holy trinity of Task Force 141 downtime. Soap is sprawled across the couch in a way that absolutely ignores ergonomics and entirely respects his own comfort, boots hooked over one armrest, hands busy taking apart and reassembling a magazine just for something to do.
Ghost sits at the table across from him, skull balaclava tugged down just enough to expose the scar at his cheek. He is pretending to clean his rifle. Soap knows better. Ghost cleans his kit when he is thinking too hard.
“So,” Soap drawls, glancing over. “If ye keep glarin’ at that bolt carrier, it’s gonna start thinkin’ ye fancy it.”
Ghost snorts. “Jealous?”
“Always,” Soap shoots back. “I’ve seen how tender ye are with yer weapons.”
Ghost tilts his head, eyes narrowing with amusement. “Careful, Johnny. Fraternization regs and all.”
Soap grins, wide and unapologetic. “Didn’t say nothin’ about us. Just ye and yer gun.”
They’d been dancing this dance for years. Teasing, flirting, skirting right up to the line and then leaning back like they’d never intended to cross it. Sergeant and Lieutenant. Best mates. Something more, maybe definitely but never spoken aloud. Not sober. Not seriously. Not where it could become real and therefore dangerous.
The door opens, and the air shifts.
Price steps in, cap low over his eyes, gaze already locked on Ghost. “Lieutenant. Word.”
Ghost stiffens immediately, professionalism snapping into place. “Yes, sir.”
He rises and follows Price out without a backward glance. Soap watches them go, the grin fading just a touch. Ops call-ups were nothing new. Still, something in the way Ghost hadn’t joked back set his teeth on edge.
Soap finishes the magazine, then takes it apart again.
When Ghost comes back, Kit bag over his shoulder, he moves slower.
Soap notices right away. The way his shoulders are set, the way his eyes don’t quite meet Soap’s at first. He stops a few feet away, silent.
“Well?” Soap asks lightly. “Ye get volunteered for somethin’ fun, or am I finally gettin’ promoted to yer favorite sergeant?”
Ghost huffs, a ghost of a smile. “Op.”
Soap sits up straighter. “Figures. When?”
“Soon.” A pause. “Single operator. Covert infiltration. Intel gatherin’. Off the books.”
Soap’s fingers still and his grin falters. Just a fraction. Enough.
“And me?” he asks, already knowing the answer.
Ghost shakes his head once. “Single operator. You’re grounded.”
Soap scoffs. “That’s what they said last time, and I still—”
“Johnny.” Quiet. Firm. End of discussion.
The wall was back.
They didn’t talk about it after that. Not really. That was their other rule: don’t touch the thing in the middle. Joke around it, tease its edges, never say its name.
Soap swallows, then forces a smirk. “Reckon the world’ll survive without me for a bit.”
“It’ll survive,” Ghost says quietly. “I might not enjoy it.”
Soap blinks, surprise cracking through. “Was tha’… sentiment, Lieutenant?”
Ghost’s eyes finally meet his. Dark. Serious. “Don’t get used to it.”
Their eyes meet. Something unspoken presses against the silence, heavy as humidity before a storm. Ghost reaches into his kit bag. “I’ve got you something.”
Soap blinks. “Ye… what?”
He reaches into his kit bag and lifts something up, holding it out awkwardly, like he isn’t entirely sure what to do with his hands.
It is a plush.
Soap stares.
Black fur. Little wings. Big red eyes. A mothman—Mothman—dressed in a tiny skeleton costume, ribs stitched in white, a skull grin sewn into its face.
Soap’s mouth opens. Closes. “Is that… is that a Build-A-Bear?”
Ghost’s ears go red beneath the balaclava. “Don’t.”
“You went tae a mall,” Soap breathes, awestruck. “Simon Riley, fearsome lieutenant, scourge of terrorists everywhere, went tae a mall.”
“I will throw you off the helipad.”
Soap takes the plush, hands careful, like it might explode. “It’s brilliant,” he says honestly. “Absolutely terrifying.”
Ghost exhales, relieves. “Good. Press the paw.”
Soap does, still grinning.
The plush crackles to life.
“Johnny.”
Soap freezes.
The voice—Ghost’s voice—purrs through the tiny speaker, low and intimate, like a hand on the back of his neck.
Soap swallows. “That’s—”
“Press it again,” Ghost says, voice rough.
Soap does.
“English MacTavish.”
Growled this time. Familiar. Dangerous. Soap’s breath hitches despite himself as a shiver works down his spine.
“Ye absolute bastard,” Soap laughs, cheeks warm. “Ye recorded these.”
Ghost shrugs. “Figured you might get bored.”
Soap hugs the plush to his chest, joking cover for the way his heart is pounding. “Gonna sleep with this, y’ken.”
Ghost’s gaze lingers a second too long. “I know.”
They stand there, the unsaid pressing in. Time ticking down. The op looming like a shadow. Ghost steps closer, voice dropping. “Take care of yourself.”
Soap nods. “Ye too. Dinnae make me come save yer arse.”
A corner of Ghost’s mouth twitches. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
They didn’t hug. Didn’t touch. Just a long look, heavy with everything regulations didn’t allow.. Then Ghost turns and walks away; he left before dawn.
——————————————————
Days stretch. Then weeks. Time becomes elastic in the way it only does when you’re waiting for something you can’t chase.
Soap tells himself he’s fine.
Price says it’s normal. Deep cover. Comms blackouts. Ghost knew the risks; they all did. Single-operator ops don’t come with tidy timelines or reassuring updates. “No news is good news,” Price reminds him, clapping a steady hand on Soap’s shoulder like that should be enough to anchor him.
Soap nods. Says, “Aye, sir.” Smiles when expected.
At night, he presses the mothman’s paw.
“Johnny.”
“English MacTavish.”
He pretends that’s enough.
—
He runs ops with Gaz—clean hits, sharp extractions, the kind of work that usually keeps his head clear. Gaz notices anyway. He always does.
“You’re quiet,” Gaz says once, as they strip gear in the armory. “That’s usually my job.”
Soap shrugs. “Aren’t I allowed an off week?”
Gaz eyes the mothman peeking out of Soap’s kit bag. Says nothing. Just nods and lets it drop.
But the silence gnaws.
Soap checks manifests he’s not assigned to. Lingers near comms longer than necessary. Counts days since Ghost left, then stops counting because the number feels cursed once it gets too big.
Price keeps reassuring him. Calm. Steady. Command voice wrapped around concern. “We knew contact would be patchy… we’d know if something went wrong, son.”
Soap nods. “Aye. Didn’t ask.”
Price gives him a look that says he absolutely did.
Soap believes him. Mostly.
—
The call comes after a debrief that went too smoothly. No casualties. No complications. The kind of day that should feel like a win.
Price asks Soap to stay behind.
Just him. The room empties out, voices fading down the corridor. The door closes with a soft, final click that makes Soap’s chest tighten.
Price doesn’t sit. He takes off his cap instead.
That’s when Soap knows.
“Sir?” he asks, careful. Neutral. Soldier.
Price exhales slowly. “We’ve missed Simon’s last three check-ins.”
Soap’s breath catches. “Comms interference?”
“That’s what we hoped,” Price says. “But the window’s passed. Protocol says—”
“Say it,” Soap snaps, then immediately swallows. “Sorry. Sir. Just—say it.”
Price meets his eyes. There’s no command there now. Just honesty.
“Lieutenant Riley is officially missing in action.”
The room goes quiet in a way that feels unreal, like the air’s been sucked out through a pinhole.
MIA.
Not dead. Not alive. A terrible, endless maybe.
Soap nods once. Twice. His hands curl into fists at his sides, nails biting through gloves he forgot to take off. The room feels smaller. The air heavier. Soap stares at the desk like if he looks away everything might fall apart.
“So what,” he says hoarsely, forcing the words out. “Ye send someone in?”
Price’s eyes are kind. That somehow makes it worse. “We’re evaluating options.”
Soap laughs once, sharp and broken. “Bloody hell.”
Price steps closer. Lowers his voice. “This isn’t over. Simon’s resourceful. You know that better than anyone.”
Soap nods because he has to. Because falling apart in front of his captain isn’t allowed. “Aye. I know.”
“We’ll keep looking,” Price says firmly. “Every asset we have. I promise you that.”
Soap hears the words. They don’t quite land.
“Aye, sir,” he says automatically.
Price hesitates, then reaches out—just a brief squeeze to Soap’s shoulder. “You’re dismissed.”
Dismissed, Soap walks out like nothing’s wrong. He makes it to his bunk before the crack shows.
He sits hard, dragging the mothman out of his bag like a lifeline. His fingers shake as they brush the plush’s shoulder by accident, right where the bullet had torn through him in Las Almas.
Click.
“I like you more than strictly alive.”
The words hit harder now—soft, earnest, devastating and Soap’s breath leaves him in a shaky rush.
“What the—” His voice breaks. He clears his throat and presses it again.
Same words. Same gentle honesty. Right where Ghost’s hand had hovered, shaking, as if afraid to touch and afraid not to.
Soap stares down at the plush, vision blurring.
“Ye absolute,” he whispers, laugh catching on a sob. “Ye absolute idiot.”
His fingers curl into the black fur, gripping it tight to his chest like it’s the only solid thing left in the room.
“Could’ve just said it,” Soap murmurs, voice wrecked. “Could’ve told me.”
The plush says nothing back.
Soap presses his forehead into the mothman’s stitched skull, shoulders trembling now that there’s no one to see, no one to impress, no regulations to hide behind.
“Come back,” he whispers into the quiet, into the hope he refuses to let die. “Ye dinnae get tae say somethin’ like tha’ an’ disappear on me, Simon Riley.”
He presses the voice box one more time, lets the words settle into him like a promise instead of a goodbye.
“I like you more than strictly alive.”
“So do I,” Soap says fiercely. “So do I.” And for the first time since Ghost left, Johnny lets himself be afraid.
——————————————————
Time stretches into something cruel.
Days blur into weeks, marked only by briefings that don’t include Ghost’s name and ops that don’t include answers. Soap keeps moving because standing still feels like drowning. He trains harder. Volunteers faster. Signs his name at the top of every deployment sheet that even smells like it might head in the right direction.
Every time, Price denies him. Not sharply. Not unkindly. That’s the worst part.
“Not yet,” Price says the first time Soap corners him after a briefing. “We don’t have enough to go on.”
Soap nods, jaw tight. “Then put me on standby.”
Price meets his eyes. “You already are.”
The second time, Soap doesn’t bother pretending it’s casual.
“I should be there,” he says flatly. “If anyone can track Riley, it’s me.”
Price sighs, scrubbing a hand over his beard. “That’s exactly why you’re not.”
Soap bristles. “Sir—”
“I’m not losing you too,” Price cuts in, voice low but firm. “Not on a hunch. Not on grief.”
The word lands like a slap.
Soap swallows hard. “He’s no’ dead.”
“I didn’t say he was,” Price replies. “And neither did the report.” A beat. “When we have solid intel,” Price continues, deliberate now, “you’ll be the first to know. I swear it.”
Soap nods once, stiff. “Aye, sir.”
He leaves before his voice can betray him.
—
Nights are the hardest. Soap lies awake in his bunk, mothman plush tucked under his arm like a secret. He presses the paw less often now. Johnny. English MacTavish. He knows the cadence by heart. The pauses. The way Ghost’s voice dips around his name like it’s something precious.
The second voice box—he presses that one every night.
I like you more than strictly alive.
Sometimes he pretends it’s a message Ghost recorded knowing he’d listen when things were bad. Sometimes he pretends it’s a promise. Sometimes he lets himself believe Ghost is still out there, breathing, fighting, stubborn as hell.
“Still alive,” Soap whispers back. “I know ye are.”
—
He runs ops with Gaz, with other units, anywhere Price will send him. He does his job brutally well. Too well. There’s an edge to him now that wasn’t there before—something sharpened by waiting and worry and a fury that has nowhere to go.
Gaz notices.
“You’re gonna burn yourself out,” he says one night, passing Soap a mug of something that claims to be tea.
Soap shrugs. “Keeps me busy.”
Gaz hesitates, then says gently, “He’d want you alive, y’know.”
Soap laughs without humor. “Yeah. He was always bossy like tha’.”
—
Weeks turn again. Soap volunteers for another search team the moment a whisper of intel surfaces—chatter, maybe, nothing concrete. Price calls him into his office before the roster’s even finalized.
“You’re not going,” Price says.
Soap grips the back of the chair so hard his knuckles whiten. “Sir, with respect—”
Price steps closer. Puts a hand on Soap’s shoulder, firm and grounding in a way Ghost’s always was.
“I know,” Price says quietly. “I know what he is to you.”
Soap’s breath catches despite himself.
“I also know,” Price continues, “that if I send you in blind and something happens to you, I’ll have failed both of you.”
Soap’s head dips. “I can handle it.”
“I don’t doubt that,” Price replies. “But I won’t gamble you on maybes.”
A long silence stretches between them.
“When we have proper intel,” Price says again, slower, more certain, “you will be informed. Not if. *When*.”
Soap nods, shoulders tight. “Aye.”
—
That night, Soap sits on his bunk, mothman plush balanced on his knee. He traces the stitched ribs absently, thumb hovering over the hidden voice box.
“Price says when,” he murmurs to it. “So ye hear tha’, aye? Means ye’ve gotta hold on.”
He presses the shoulder.
I like you more than strictly alive.
Soap smiles faintly, eyes burning. “Good,” he whispers. “Then dinnae ye dare stop bein’ alive on me.”
He leans back against the wall, plush held close, and waits—because that’s what soldiers do best when there’s nothing else left. They wait.
And Soap waits like he’s done everything else in his life: stubbornly, fiercely, and with a hope that refuses to die.
——————————————————
It happens on an ordinary day. That’s the cruel part.
Soap doesn’t mean to bring it.
He tells himself that as he tugs on his kit, checks his weapon, runs through the same motions he’s done a thousand times before. The mothman sits on his bunk, black fur dulled from too many sleepless nights, wings a little bent from being held too tight.
He hesitates.
Then he stuffs it into his pack anyway, wedged between spare socks and a med kit, like it belongs there. Like it’s just another piece of gear. Like it isn’t the last place Ghost’s voice still exists.
—
The mothman. He doesn’t notice right away that something’s wrong. The plush is on his bunk where he left it, but it’s half-buried under a mess of gear—someone’s tossed a rucksack up there in a rush, clipped a strap wrong. The mothman’s wing is bent at an awkward angle, stitching strained. Soap frowns, irritation flaring sharp and immediate.
“Oi—” he mutters, scooping it up. “Careful, yeah?”
He presses the paw out of habit. Nothing.
Soap blinks. Presses it again, harder. Nothing.
His pulse stutters.
“No, no, no,” he murmurs, thumb jabbing the fabric. “C’mon.”
Silence.
His chest tightens. He turns the plush over, checks the seams, fingers suddenly clumsy. Maybe the battery’s loose. Maybe it’s just stuck. He squeezes the paw again, again, again—panic creeping in around the edges.
Still nothing.
Soap swallows and moves his hand to the shoulder. The hidden one that he presses every night.
“Easy,” he tells himself, breath thin. “Just knocked loose.”
He presses it. Nothing. The quiet that follows is louder than any gunshot.
Soap sits down hard on the bunk, mothman limp in his hands. He presses both spots again, slower this time, like gentleness might coax the sound back.
Nothing answers him.
His jaw tightens, teeth grinding as he inspects the plush more carefully now. There’s a faint tear along the seam near the shoulder, stuffing peeking out. Whatever weight was thrown on it must’ve hit just right wrong crushing the internal casing. He knows enough about electronics to recognize a dead circuit when he feels one.
The plush is repairable. The recordings aren’t.
Soap’s hands curl into the fabric, knuckles white.
“…Fuck,” he breathes.
It hits him all at once then—not like grief crashing down, but like the floor quietly giving way beneath his feet.
Ghost’s voice is gone.
Not Ghost—not the man, not the possibility—but the sound of him. The proof. The thing Soap clung to when nights were long and silence got mean. Johnny. English MacTavish. I like you more than strictly alive.
Gone.
Soap stares at the mothman until his vision blurs.
“No,” he whispers, shaking his head. “No, no, no—”
He laughs once, broken and sharp, and presses the shoulder again like it might magically fix itself if he just believes hard enough.
Nothing.
His throat closes.
“Bloody hell,” Soap murmurs, voice cracking. “That was— that was all I had left of ye.”
He bows forward, elbows on his knees, clutching the plush to his chest like it might still hear him. Soap stares at it for a long time. Then his shoulders start to shake.
It’s quiet at first. Just a sharp inhale that won’t quite go away. Then his face crumples, and he presses the plush to his chest like he can will the voice back into it.
Soap is furious at himself. At the op. At the rules. At the universe for taking and taking and never giving anything back.
“I should’ve left ye here,” he murmurs hoarsely to the plush. “Should’ve kept ye safe.”
The mothman offers no forgiveness. No reassurance. Just silence.
“I memorized it,” he tells the empty room, desperate and small despite himself. “I did. I know what ye sound like. I know.”
But memory isn’t the same as hearing it. Memory fades. Distorts. Softens around the edges until you start doubting yourself.
Soap presses his forehead into the mothman’s skull, breath shuddering now that there’s nothing holding him together.
“Ye’d laugh,” he mutters. “Say I’m bein’ dramatic.”
His fingers trace the stitched ribs, gentle now, reverent. The plush still smells faintly like soap and gun oil and something uniquely Ghost—leather and smoke and cold nights.
“I didn’t even get tae tell ye back,” Soap whispers.
The room stays quiet.
Eventually, he wipes his face with the heel of his hand and straightens. Soldier instinct kicks in, stiff and automatic. He grabs a needle and thread from his kit, repairs the torn seam with careful, practiced movements. Makes it whole again as best he can.
When he’s done, the mothman looks almost the same. Almost.
Soap sets it back on his bunk, sitting beside it like he’s keeping watch.
“A’right,” he says softly, voice steadying around the hurt. “Guess I’ll just have tae remember.”
He exhales, slow and controlled, and stares at the door like he’s daring it to open.
Because the recordings might be gone.
But Soap refuses—refuses—to believe the voice that made them is.
He lies back, staring at the ceiling, jaw clenched so hard it aches. Ghost is still missing. Now his voice is too.
And for the first time since Simon Riley vanished into the dark, Johnny MacTavish feels something inside him crack in a way that might not heal at all.
——————————————————
Soap moves through the days like he’s underwater—everything muffled, slowed, distant. He still performs. Still hits his marks. Still jokes when someone expects it. But there’s a hollow look to him now, something Price notices and Gaz pretends not to, because neither of them know how to fix a man who’s lost the last sound of someone he loves.
The mothman sits repaired on Soap’s bunk, stitches neat, wings straightened. Empty.
Price stops him once in the corridor. “You should take some leave.”
Soap shakes his head. “And dae what?”
Price has no answer.
Gaz tries humor instead, nudging Soap’s shoulder during weapons maintenance. “When Riley gets back, he’s gonna give you hell for lookin’ this miserable.”
Soap snorts weakly. “He’d better.”
But at night, when the base settles and the noise fades, Soap finds himself pressing the plush out of habit, thumb hovering where the voice used to live, heart stuttering when nothing answers back. He stops himself every time—sharp, angry—like muscle memory is something to punish.
—
The word comes on a gray morning. Price calls an unscheduled briefing. Just him, Soap, Gaz. The door closes with a heavy finality.
Soap knows before Price speaks that something has changed. Not relief—not yet—but tension, taut as a drawn wire.
“A Marine unit conducting an unrelated op,” Price says, voice measured, “has recovered a survivor.”
Soap’s pulse spikes despite himself.
“A civilian?” Gaz asks.
“Unknown,” Price replies. “Male. Non-local. Malnourished. Injured. Signs of prolonged captivity.”
Soap’s fingers curl into his palms.
Price continues, “He escaped on his own. Made contact during exfil.”
Soap swallows. “Where.”
Price names the region.
It’s wrong. Too far. Off Ghost’s projected route by hundreds of kilometers.
Soap’s shoulders sag before he can stop them. “That’s not him.”
Gaz glances at him. “Soap—”
“It’s not,” Soap repeats, firmer now, forcing himself to breathe. “We’d have heard somethin’. A trace. A whisper.”
Price watches him carefully. “You don’t want to get your hopes up.”
Soap gives a humorless smile. “Already learned that lesson, sir.”
Price slides a tablet across the desk. “You should still see this.”
Soap hesitates, then takes it. A still frame from the Marines’ helmet cam. Grainy. Night vision. A man slumped against a wall, face partially obscured by shadow and grime. Too thin. Too still.
Soap studies it with a clinical eye, forcing distance, forcing reason. The skull mask is gone. The gear stripped. The posture wrong.
But something about the way the man holds himself—tight, coiled even in exhaustion—tugs at Soap’s chest.
“Plenty of blokes stand like that,” Soap says quietly.
“Aye,” Price agrees. “Plenty do.”
Gaz leans forward. “But not many survive captivity alone.”
Soap’s grip tightens on the tablet.
“Where is he now?” Soap asks.
“En route to a forward medical facility,” Price answers. “Marines are holdin’ him until debrief.”
Soap nods slowly. “Good.”
Price studies him. “You’re not asking to go.”
Soap meets his gaze. There’s something steadier there now, something cautious and hard-earned.
“No,” he says. “Not yet.”
Because hope is dangerous. Because he’s already buried Ghost once in his head, and he’s not sure he can do it again.
Soap hands the tablet back and stands. “Let me know what the debrief says.”
Price inclines his head. “You’ll be the first.”
Soap leaves the room and heads back to the barracks, steps measured, controlled. He sits on his bunk and picks up the mothman, turning it over in his hands.
“Not ye,” he murmurs, half prayer, half warning to himself. “Cannae be.”
But his thumb lingers on the silent shoulder.
And despite everything—distance, logic, fear—something deep in Johnny MacTavish refuses to let go.
Just in case.
——————————————————
Soap is still shaking dust out of his kit when Price finds him.
It’s muscle memory—strip, clean, reset—hands moving on autopilot while his mind lags a step behind his body. Another op done. Another box checked. Another nothing to show for it.
“Soap.” Price’s voice cuts through the noise.
Soap looks up, already braced for another *no update*, another careful assurance wrapped in command tone. Price doesn’t give him one.
“The recovered individual wasn’t civilian,” Price says.
Soap’s breath catches. “Sir?”
“No tags,” Price continues, steady but tight. “No identifying gear. Tattoos were obscured—dirt, blood, scarring. Marines didn’t recognize him for who he was.”
Soap feels the room tilt, just slightly. “Who,” he manages, “was he.”
Price steps closer. “It’s Riley.”
For a second, the world goes utterly silent. Then everything crashes back in at once. Soap’s helmet slips from his fingers and hits the floor with a dull *clatter*. He doesn’t notice. His heart is pounding so hard it feels like it’s trying to break out of his ribs.
“…Say tha’ again,” Soap whispers, because words are fragile things and he’s afraid they’ll shatter.
Price meets his eyes. “It’s Simon, Soap. He’s alive.”
Soap sucks in a sharp, broken breath. “Where.”
“Medevac’d back to Credenhill,” Price says. “Medical’s got him now. He’s stable. Rough, but stable.”
That’s all Soap needs. He’s moving before Price finishes the sentence—boots skidding on the polished floor, kit abandoned where it lies. He barrels out of the room, past startled personnel, past someone calling his name, past everything that isn’t medical.
His chest burns. His lungs ache. He doesn’t slow.
—
Medical smells like antiseptic and recycled air and something coppery underneath it all.
“Sergeant!” someone snaps as Soap skids to a stop at the desk. “You can’t—”
“Simon Riley,” Soap pants. “Lieutenant Riley. He was just brought in.”
The medic hesitates, eyes flicking to Soap’s face—wild, desperate, unguarded—and then to the chart.
“…Bed four,” she says quietly. “Don’t touch anything.”
Soap’s already gone. Bed four is surrounded by monitors, by hanging IV lines, by the soft, constant beep of a heart that is—mercifully—still beating.
Ghost looks wrong. Too thin. Too pale. Blonde curls overgrown and matted against his skull. Bruised in shades Soap doesn’t have names for. Bandages wrap his torso, his arms, his shoulder and his face is partially obscured by gauze and an oxygen mask. His skull mask is nowhere to be seen. But it’s him.
His feet slow, just at the edge of the bed, like he’s afraid getting too close might wake him—or worse, prove he’s dreaming.
“Simon,” Soap breathes.
Ghost doesn’t respond. He’s unconscious, lashes so very pale against hollowed cheeks, chest rising and falling shallowly beneath the sheets.
Soap’s knees threaten to give out.
He reaches out, hesitates, then carefully—carefully—takes Ghost’s hand. It’s warm. Calloused. Real. Alive.
Soap bows his head, forehead resting against their joined hands, shoulders shaking as everything he’s been holding back finally breaks loose.
“Ye absolute bastard,” he whispers, voice wrecked with relief and fury and love he’s never been allowed to say out loud. “Ye scared the shite outta me.”
The monitors keep beeping. Steady. Insistent. Soap squeezes Ghost’s hand just a little tighter, grounding himself in the feel of him.
“I’m here,” he murmurs. “I’m not goin’ anywhere. Ye hear me?”
Ghost doesn’t answer. But his heart keeps beating. And for the first time in weeks, Johnny MacTavish lets himself believe that when might finally be now.
——————————————————
The medical wing becomes Johnny’s world.
He doesn’t leave. Doesn’t want to. Doesn’t dare. The mothman plush, scorched and voiceless, sits on the small bedside table, wings bent, costume stitched unevenly—a quiet reminder of everything they’d survived and all the words that had almost been lost forever.
Gaz and Price drop in periodically, carrying food and coffee and little necessary annoyances like normal human interaction. “Eat something, Johnny,” Gaz would insist, sliding a tray toward him.
“Aye, I will…,” Johnny murmurs, eyes never leaving Ghost’s bed.
Price had brought in a small cot after the third night. Soap hadn’t wanted it at first. He’d said he could sleep in the chair, on the floor, anywhere as long as he was here. The medical staff had insisted, and eventually he’d collapsed into it, sat up straight in the cot anyway, arms resting on the bed’s rails, eyes glued to the motionless figure beneath the sheets.
There was no pretense now. No jokes, no teasing, no skirting the lines of regulations. The way he looks at Ghost, the way he hovers, the way he refuses to leave—if anyone had ever doubted, the doubt had died the moment he laid eyes on him alive and broken on that bed.
Almost a week passed.
Every beep of the monitors is a countdown. Every shallow breath Ghost takes is a victory. And then, finally, the eyelids flutter.
Johnny’s heart explodes in his chest. He rushes forward, leaning over the bed, gripping Simon’s hand with both of his own as if letting go could undo everything that had happened.
Ghost’s eyes open, brown and haunted and slow to focus. The first thing he sees is Johnny’s face. Worn, pale, eyes red at the edges from lack of sleep. Full of relief and something else—something earnest and dangerous.
“Johnny,” Ghost rasps, voice raw.
“I’ve got ye,” Soap says, voice thick. “I’ve got ye.”
Simon’s fingers twitch in Johnny’s hold, trying to find purchase in the warmth of his hand.
“Ye scared the absolute shite outta me,” Johnny whispers, thumb brushing over the back of Ghost’s hand. Tears he hadn’t allowed himself to shed spill anyway, voice thick and accent heavy. “Dinnae ye ever… dae tha’ again. Ye hear me?”
Ghost’s lips twitch, half a smile, half a grimace, too weak to form words yet.
Johnny squeezes harder, then bends closer, lowering his head to press a gentle kiss to Simon’s knuckles, choking back more tears. “I… I like ye more ‘n strictly alive, tae,” he says, voice breaking, every word heavy with everything he’d held back for months.
Simon’s eyes shimmer, focusing finally. He tries to speak, but his throat croaks, so he squeezes Johnny’s hands in return, fingers trembling.
“You… you do?” he rasps, almost disbelief, almost awe.
Johnny’s grin cracks through the tears, half-sob, half-laugh. “Aye… I’ve been sayin’ it in my own way, always. But… I dinnae care about any o’ the rules anymore, Simon. Ye hear me? No’ when it comes tae ye.”
Ghost tries to laugh, a rasping, broken sound, but it is there—their first shared moment of levity in days.
Johnny leans closer again, pressing his forehead to Simon’s hand, heart hammering, tears dripping into the curve of Simon’s fingers. “Ah’m here. Ah’m no’ leavin’. No’ ever. No’ without ye.”
And for the first time in nearly a week, maybe longer, Ghost Riley feels something heavier than fear and exhaustion: home.
Even without words, even without the voice boxes, even without the flirtation or teasing, the connection was loud and fierce and real.
Johnny’s lips linger a moment more on Ghost’s hand, soaking in the warmth, the pulse, the proof of life.
“I like ye more ‘n strictly alive, tae,” he repeats, just in case Simon had any doubt.
And Simon Riley—weak, battered, half-conscious—manages the faintest squeeze in return.
——————————————————
The days after Ghost wakes are slow, painstaking, and honest. Recovery isn’t just physical; it’s every scar he didn’t show, every bruise he swallowed, every second of fear he buried during captivity. Johnny doesn’t leave him. Not for a minute. He hovers, quietly, insistently, hands steady on Ghost’s when he needs them, voice low and warm, eyes sharp and soft at once.
The medics and Price watch with muted approval, Gaz just shakes his head and mutters under his breath about bloody obsession. But Johnny doesn’t care. He’s here, and that’s all that matters.
Weeks later, Ghost is cleared to leave the medbay officially, ambulatory and ready to transfer to the barracks proper. When Simon is finally wheeled out—leaner now, pale but moving under his own strength, with bandages gone and strength returning—Johnny’s heart practically leapt out of his chest.
“Och, finally,” he quips with a grin from his position just outside the main doors.
Simon’s lips quirk with the faintest smirk, one hand reaching to give Johnny’s a quick squeeze. “Look who’s pacing outside again.”
“I wisnae pacin’,” Johnny says quickly, though the crease between his brows betrays him. “Jus’… wanted tae be here.”
Johnny holds out a box. “Got somethin’ for ye.”
Simon raises an eyebrow, exhaustion still heavy in his honeyed eyes. “Aye? What’s that?”
Johnny shakes it gently. “Open it. Ye’ll see.”
Simon opens the box with exaggerated ceremony, he pulls the tissue paper aside. Inside is a Build-A-Bear like nothing Ghost has ever seen. A Highland cow. Massive, fluffy, impossibly soft. Dressed in a full Scottish kit: tartan kilt, tiny sporran, wee tam o’ shanter, even little bagpipes. He pauses, blinks at it, then back at Johnny; though a smile curls his lips. “A… plush?”
Johnny nods, grinning sheepishly. “Aye. But press the hoof.”
Simon pressed it lightly.
“Away an’ bile yer heid!” The growl, that unmistakable Johnny brogue, makes him blink and laugh softly.
He presses it again.
“Let’s get a win, L.t.”
Warmth hits him like a punch to the chest. Simon’s lips curve fully this time. “Fuckin’ hell,” he says softly, shaking his head.
Johnny laughs, relieved, then steps in closer. “Press the shoulder. Dinnae tell me ye’ve forgotten how good surprises are.”
Simon pressed the shoulder, almost shyly.
“Tha thu mo chridhe.”
(See end note for translation!)
His gaze softens, and for the first time since being rescued, he lets himself really feel it—the weight and warmth of Johnny’s lilting words, of Johnny’s love, of someone finally being home.
—
The Highland cow takes the bedside table next to Ghost’s bed. He keeps it there, always within reach, a quiet reminder that he’s alive, that he’s cared for, that he’s home.
Weeks later, once he’s strong enough to get around on his own again, Simon replaces the old Mothman’s voice boxes and the voice boxes only, at Johnny’s insistence. Johnny, of course, keeps the original Mothman on his bed, a symbol of what he once held so close and feared he’d lost forever.
The two plushes—Highland cow and Mothman—sit in their respective spaces like silent witnesses to the bond between them. One for now, one for then. One for laughter and warmth, one for memory and survival.