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Enjoy the fluff, and mind the pickles. 🥒💚
The kitchen was the kind of quiet that didn’t feel restful, just… suspended. Like the base itself was holding its breath between missions and alarms and the constant thrum of other people’s lives.
A single strip light buzzed overhead, flickering like it couldn’t quite commit to existing. Shadows pooled under the counters, and the air smelled faintly of instant coffee and disinfectant that never fully left the walls.
She slipped in barefoot anyway, hair a mess, T-shirt wrinkled, eyes still heavy with half-sleep. She moved like she didn’t want to wake the place up, like if she was careful enough she could keep the world from noticing her at all.
Her stomach didn’t share that philosophy.
It rolled, then growled, then pitched a very specific tantrum that demanded something sharp and salty and immediate.
She opened the fridge, blinking against the cold light inside, and almost sagged with relief when she spotted the jar shoved behind a carton of eggs.
Pickles.
Sour, brined, aggressive little things that tasted like a dare.
She twisted the lid off, fished one out with her fingers, and bit down without thinking.
Salty. Sharp. Perfect.
For a second, her shoulders loosened. Her brain went quiet. The whole universe narrowed down to brine and crunch.
“It’s a strange hour for pickles.”
She jerked hard enough to slosh the jar. Her pulse kicked up into her throat.
Captain Price leaned against the counter across from her, mug in hand, looking like he’d been carved out of fatigue and stubbornness. His beard was slightly untamed, eyes tired but sharp, as if sleep only ever visited him in passing and never stayed long enough to unpack.
“Captain,” she breathed, clutching the jar to her chest like it could defend her. “Christ. You scared me.”
“Didn’t mean to.” His voice was warm and gravelly, like it had been dragged through too many early mornings. He tipped his mug slightly, then nodded toward the jar. “Just didn’t peg you as the two-in-the-morning pickle type.”
She swallowed, trying to arrange her face into something neutral. Casual. Normal. Like she hadn’t been waking up nauseous and hollow and craving things that made no sense.
“Guess I’m branching out,” she managed.
Price’s gaze stayed on her a beat too long. Not invasive. Not prying. Just… observant, the way he watched a map before a mission, the way he read a room for exits.
“Hm.” He took a sip of coffee that had to be cold by now, then set the mug down. “You’ve been off.”
Her fingers tightened on the jar.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re tired.” He held up one finger. “Distracted.” Another. “Snappy.” A third, and the corner of his mouth twitched like he found the whole thing slightly irritating. “And you’ve been dodging field rotations like they’re booby-trapped.”
“I’m not dodging,” she said too quickly. “I’m… reallocating.”
Price’s brows lifted.
She forced a breath in through her nose. She could talk her way out of gunfire and panic and half a medbay’s worth of chaos, but this? This was a different kind of battlefield. No cover. No clean lines. No quick extraction.
Price set both hands on the counter and leaned forward, voice lowering.
“I don’t do personal,” he said, tone blunt. “Not unless it affects the team. You’re a squad lead. You’re our medic. If you need to be pulled from the field, I need to know now.”
“I don’t need to be…”
He tilted his head, eyes narrowing with that infuriating precision.
“Doc,” he said, softer now. “When was your last cycle?”
The question hit like a flashbang.
Her stomach lurched. Not from nausea this time. From the sheer, sudden cold of being seen.
“I…” Her mouth opened. Nothing came out.
Price exhaled through his nose like a man already tired of the inevitable.
“You’ve been chewing pickles like they’re rations. You’re pale. Your hands shake when you think no one’s watching.” His gaze didn’t waver. “You need to take a test.”
Her throat worked around a swallow that felt too big.
“That’s ridiculous,” she whispered, because if she said it louder it might become true.
Price stared her down with the same expression he wore when someone tried to argue about the plan mid-mission.
“I’m not asking.” He paused, then, almost gentler: “And you’re not alone in this, yeah? You don’t have to be.”
Her laugh came out thin and wrong.
The pickle slipped from her fingers and dropped back into the jar with a wet plop.
She stared at it like it was evidence.
“…Oh.”
Price’s shoulders eased, just a fraction. Like the worst part was always getting someone to stop lying to themselves.
“Aye,” he said quietly. “Oh.”
Her chest tightened until breathing felt like a chore.
“Oh God,” she breathed, and the words were a prayer and a curse at the same time.
Price’s voice stayed steady, anchoring.
“Test. Confirm. Then we deal with it properly.”
She nodded because her body remembered how to follow orders even when her mind went blank.
And because she couldn’t trust herself to say anything else.
Before she fled the kitchen, Price added, carefully casual, like he already knew the answer but needed to hear it anyway:
“Does Soap know?”
Her heart did something small and sharp, like it had teeth.
She shook her head.
“No,” she said, voice going thin. “He doesn’t.”
Price’s eyes softened in a way that made her stomach twist worse than any nausea ever could.
“He’s not a mind reader,” he said. “But he’ll notice you’re pulling away.”
“I know.” She hugged the jar tighter, absurdly. “I just… it was meant to be fun. That’s what we said.”
Price’s mouth pulled into a line.
“And you believe everything you say in the dark?” he asked, dry as dust.
That sent heat to her face, equal parts mortification and something else she didn’t want to name.
Price pushed off the counter. “Test first,” he repeated. “Then you talk to him.”
Her voice caught. “What if I don’t know what to say?”
“Then say the truth,” Price replied simply, and walked out like he’d just told her the weather.
She took the test alone.
Of course she did.
The medbay was quiet at that hour, lights dimmed, beds empty, the faint hum of equipment like a lullaby for the anxious. She stood in the restroom with the little plastic stick in her hand and tried not to feel ridiculous, like this was some teenage nightmare instead of a grown woman’s reality.
The lines appeared fast.
Positive.
Clear.
Unarguable.
Her knees went weak, and she sat down on the closed lid of the toilet, staring at the result like it might change out of pity.
All she could think was: This wasn’t the plan.
Not the plan she’d made, anyway.
Because the plan had been simple. Clean. Controlled.
She was the squad leader. The field medic. The one who kept her people breathing. She didn’t get to be messy.
Soap was Soap, all quick grin and loud laughter and reckless bravery, the kind of man who could turn a hallway into a stage just by walking down it. He flirted like it was sport, like it was air. He made her laugh when she hadn’t meant to. He made her feel seen without ever demanding she be soft.
And then one night, after a mission that went too long and too bloody, when her hands wouldn’t stop trembling, he’d found her outside the medbay with a cigarette he didn’t even smoke and a look in his eyes that wasn’t joking.
Just honest.
They’d talked. They’d agreed.
No promises. No complications. Just relief. Comfort. Something warm in a world that ran cold.
A fling.
Fun.
Consensual.
Mutual.
Except fun didn’t explain the way he’d looked at her after, forehead pressed to hers like he was learning the shape of her breathing.
Fun didn’t explain the way she’d started listening for his footsteps without meaning to.
Fun definitely didn’t explain the way her body now carried consequences.
So she did what she always did when she didn’t know how to feel.
She worked.
She reorganized the medbay twice. She checked inventory until the numbers blurred. She volunteered for anything that kept her busy and kept her away from places Soap might appear, bright as sunrise and twice as impossible to ignore.
And she avoided him.
Not with malice.
With panic.
With a kind of silent terror that if she looked at him too long, she’d either tell him everything or crumble into pieces on the floor.
Soap noticed. Of course he did.
At first it was just small things. A pause in the doorway when he came to drop off wounded. A lingering glance. A quieter, “Ye awright, Doc?” when she didn’t answer his jokes.
Then it turned into him showing up more often, leaning on counters, hovering in corridors, finding reasons to be near.
She kept slipping away.
Every time she did, his grin got a little less easy.
His eyes got a little more searching.
The day Price officially pulled her from field rotation, it got worse.
Soap didn’t corner her right away.
He tried to do it the polite way first, which was honestly more unsettling. Like he was holding himself back with both hands.
He waited outside medbay doors, tried to catch her between patients.
“Hey,” he said, softer than usual. “Ye got a minute?”
She adjusted her gloves, even though she wasn’t wearing any. “Busy.”
“Busy every time I show up,” he said, the words light but the look not.
She forced a thin smile. “You’re imagining things.”
His gaze followed her down the hall. “Am I?”
She didn’t answer.
She couldn’t.
Because if she did, she might say: I’m terrified you’ll hate me.
Or worse: I’m terrified you won’t.
It happened three nights later, when she thought she was safe.
The base had quieted again, that in-between hour where everyone either slept or pretended they didn’t need to. She’d gone to the medbay storage room to grab saline bags, telling herself the tightness in her chest was just stress and not the way she’d seen Soap’s shadow in the hall and instinctively turned the other direction.
She had the box in her arms when the door shut behind her.
Not slammed.
Just… closed.
Deliberate.
Her spine went rigid.
When she turned, Soap was there, filling the narrow space like he’d been built for it. Broad shoulders, tired eyes, hair a mess like he’d dragged his fingers through it too many times. His usual grin was gone. In its place was something raw and uncertain.
“Don’t,” she blurted, and hated how small it sounded.
“Dinnae ‘don’t’ me,” he said, low and rough, the Scots thickening when he was trying not to let it shake. “I’m no’ here tae start a scrap.”
She tightened her grip on the box. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
Soap let out a strained breath that tried to be a laugh and failed.
“There’s everythin’ tae talk about,” he said. “Because you’ve been avoidin’ me for days, an’ I’m startin’ tae feel like I’ve done somethin’ wrong an’ you’re too… too stubborn tae say it.”
Her throat closed.
He swallowed, eyes flicking over her face like he was searching for something he’d lost.
“Ye can tell me,” he said, and there was a boyishness to it that didn’t belong on a man who kicked doors for a living. “Just… tell me straight, aye?”
She tried to sidestep him.
He shifted, blocking the doorway without touching her. Not forceful. Just present. A wall with a heartbeat.
Her pulse skittered.
“Soap,” she warned.
His eyes sharpened. “Dinnae use my name like that,” he murmured. “Like you’re about tae cut me loose.”
She froze.
He inhaled, shaky, then said the words that made her heart crack right down the middle:
“D’ye regret it?”
She blinked. “What?”
“Us,” he said, and his voice hitched on the last word like it hurt to even give it air. “Our time. Was it a mistake? Because if it was, I need tae ken. I can take it. I just cannae take you actin’ like I’m… like I’m nothin’.”
The box in her arms suddenly felt too heavy. Her vision blurred at the edges.
Soap’s face tightened, and for a moment he looked younger, stripped of swagger. Just a man standing in a storage room asking if he’d been foolish to believe something mattered.
“I thought you wanted it,” he said, and that was the worst part. Not accusation. Not anger. Just honest confusion. “I thought you wanted me. Even if we called it fun. Even if we… kept it light. I didnae think you were pretendin’.”
Her lips parted, but no sound came.
He took another step, cautious.
“If you’re done wi’ me,” he said, voice cracking just slightly, “just say it. Don’t… don’t make me guess. Please.”
Something inside her snapped, not violently, but like a thread pulled too tight.
Tears burned behind her eyes, sudden and furious.
“I’m not done with you,” she whispered.
Soap’s breath caught.
“Then why,” he demanded, still gentle but breaking at the edges, “why won’t ye look at me?”
She squeezed her eyes shut.
Because if she looked at him, she’d see everything she was afraid of.
His disappointment.
His anger.
His pity.
Or his affection, which might be even more dangerous.
She opened her eyes anyway.
His gaze was locked on her like he’d been starving for it.
Her voice came out small. “Because I don’t know what happens now.”
Soap frowned. “Whit d’ye mean?”
She stared at the box, then at her hands, then finally forced herself to meet his eyes again.
“I took a test,” she said, and her throat squeezed around the words. “It’s positive.”
Silence.
Soap blinked once.
Then again.
His face went completely still, as if his brain had stepped out for a moment to confer with reality.
“…Positive,” he repeated, slow.
She nodded, a single sharp motion. “Yeah.”
His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
“Are ye tellin’ me,” he said, voice faintly incredulous, “you’re pregnant?”
A laugh broke out of her, wet and shaky. “Yes.”
Soap stared at her like she’d dropped a grenade between them.
Then his eyes flicked down, not to her stomach exactly, but to the space where it would be, like the idea had weight.
He dragged a hand through his hair so hard it mussed it worse.
“Right,” he breathed. “Right. Okay.”
She braced herself for the next part. The recoil. The anger. The how could you.
Instead, Soap’s eyes snapped back to her face, suddenly sharp with worry.
“Are ye awright?” he asked immediately. “Are ye sick? Is it… did ye get checked? How far along? Does Price ken? Are ye safe?”
The rapid-fire concern hit her so hard she swayed.
“I’m fine,” she managed. “I mean, I’m not dying.”
Soap made a sound that was half laugh, half something like relief and terror tangled together.
“And it’s…” He swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing. “It’s mine?”
Something in her chest clenched.
“You think I’d be doing this if it wasn’t?” she snapped, then immediately softened, because she saw the fear in his eyes and hated herself for adding to it. “Yes. It’s yours, John.”
His name landed between them like a hand offered, palm up.
Soap went very still at that. Like hearing his name from her mouth made the situation real in a way nothing else could.
Then he exhaled, shaky.
“Okay,” he said again, quieter. “Okay…”
She waited. Muscles locked. Heart hammering.
He didn’t move closer yet. He didn’t touch her. He looked at her like he was trying to read her injuries without making them worse.
“You’ve been avoidin’ me because of this,” he said finally, voice rough.
She nodded, tears sliding down her cheeks before she could stop them. “I didn’t know what to say. We said it was just fun.”
Soap’s expression twisted, pain flashing across his face.
“Aye,” he murmured. “We did.”
She laughed bitterly. “And now it’s not. Now it’s… this.”
Soap stared at her for a long moment. Then his shoulders dropped, and the tension in him changed shape, less sharp, more vulnerable.
“I cornered you thinkin’ you were sick of me,” he confessed, voice cracking on the edges. “Thinkin’ you’d… decided I was a mistake. An’ you were just… scared.”
She wiped at her face with her sleeve. “I didn’t want to ruin it.”
Soap’s eyes softened, and he did step forward then, slow, careful.
“Ruin it?” he echoed, like the idea didn’t make sense. “Lass, you haven’t ruined anythin’.”
She scoffed. “You say that now.”
He shook his head, fierce. “No. I’m sayin’ it because it’s true.”
He paused just in front of her, close enough she could feel his warmth. He didn’t grab her. Didn’t take. Just lifted his hands slightly, like asking permission without words.
When she didn’t pull away, he cupped her face gently, thumbs brushing the tear tracks like he was memorizing them.
His voice went quiet, almost boyish again.
“I meant it when I asked if ye regretted it,” he said. “Because I don’t. Not a second. An’ I thought… I thought maybe you did.”
Her breath hitched. “John…”
“Aye,” he murmured, a flicker of humor trying to exist through the emotion. “If we’re doin’ this, you can call me John. Johnny, even, if ye feel like bein’ cruel about it.”
A wet laugh escaped her.
He smiled, small and shaky, then pressed his forehead to hers.
“I don’t know what you want tae do,” he said, voice low. “An’ I’m no’ gonna pretend I get a vote over your body. But I do get a say in whether ye do this alone.”
Her throat tightened so hard it hurt.
“I’m scared,” she admitted, barely audible.
“Aye,” he whispered. “Me too.”
That honesty undid her more than any promise could’ve. Tears spilled again, and this time she didn’t fight them.
Soap’s hands slid from her face to her shoulders, then he pulled her in carefully, like she was something fragile and precious and he didn’t trust himself not to break her.
She clutched his shirt with one hand, box of saline bags forgotten against her hip.
His arms tightened around her, firm and real.
“You should’ve told me,” he murmured into her hair, voice thick. Not accusing. Just aching. “I was walkin’ about like a bloody idiot, wonderin’ if I’d ruined somethin’ I didnae even get tae name.”
“I didn’t know how,” she whispered back.
Soap kissed the top of her head, slow and reverent.
“Then we learn,” he said. “Together.”
She pulled back just enough to look at him. His eyes were bright, lashes damp, expression caught somewhere between terror and wonder.
“You’re not mad?” she asked, voice trembling. “You’re not… you’re not going to hate me for changing everything?”
Soap’s brows drew together, wounded by the question itself.
“Hate you?” he repeated, incredulous, then huffed a laugh that sounded like it could turn into a sob if he let it. “Lass, I cannae even manage tae be angry at ye right now. I’m just… scared I’ll say the wrong thing an’ you’ll slip away again.”
“I don’t want to slip away,” she admitted, voice cracking. “I just… we never talked about anything real.”
His gaze held hers, steady as a hand on her back.
“Then let’s talk now,” he said softly. “Real. Messy. All of it.”
She swallowed. “What if you don’t want this?”
Soap’s mouth twitched, and his eyes went painfully tender.
“I didnae know I could want things like this,” he confessed, voice low. “I didnae think I’d be… that guy. The one who looks at a future an’ sees more than the next op.”
He glanced down, hesitant, then back up at her, asking again without words.
When she nodded, barely, his hand drifted to her midsection, palm hovering for a breath before settling gently, as if he expected reality to flinch.
He breathed out, shaky.
“But it’s you,” he said. “An’ I… I want you. No’ just in the dark. No’ just when it’s easy.”
Her eyes stung.
He looked up again, and something in him finally gave, like he’d been holding his heart behind his teeth and was tired of biting down.
“Truth is,” he said, voice rough, “I told myself it was ‘just fun’ because it was safer. Because if I admitted I liked ye, properly liked ye, I’d be handin’ you a weapon.”
Her breath caught.
He smiled, small and helpless. “An’ you’re a medic, so you’d probably use it to stitch me back together when I deserved tae bleed.”
She let out a soft, broken sound that was half laugh, half sob. “John…”
He nodded, eyes shining. “Aye. John. The eejit who’s been fallin’ for you since that first night ye barked orders at me like I was one of your trainees.”
Her cheeks went hot. “I didn’t bark.”
“You absolutely did,” he said, and there it was, the faintest return of his grin, trembling at the edges. “An’ I loved it.”
She swallowed hard, fingers curling into his shirt again.
“I like you too,” she admitted, the words slipping out like they’d been waiting at the back of her throat for weeks. “More than I meant to. More than I planned. I just… I didn’t want to be the one who asked for more and ruined it.”
Soap’s expression softened into something almost reverent.
“Ye didnae ruin anythin’,” he whispered. “Ye just made it real.”
Outside the storage room, the base remained quiet, still holding its breath.
Inside, between shelves and supplies, he held her like an anchor, like a promise he didn’t have to dress up to mean.
He pulled back just enough to look at her again, eyes searching her face like he was making sure she was real.
“C’mere,” he murmured, gentler now. “Just… c’mere, lass.”
Before she could overthink it, he leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to her lips, slow and careful, like he was asking permission with every heartbeat of it. She kissed him back, small at first, then surer, her hands sliding up to cradle his jaw the way she’d held wounded faces steady in the medbay.
When he finally pulled away, his forehead rested against hers. His smile was shy, boyish, a little stunned.
“Aye,” he breathed, eyes flicking down to her mouth and back up again. “That’s better.”
Then, like he couldn’t help himself, he stole one more quick, sweet kiss, the kind that felt like a secret kept warm between them.