Archive of Our Own

John MacTavish, youngest recruit to ever pass selection and the youngest man to ever make captain at a shocking 29 years old, who has survived being shot, stabbed, blown up and run over, really, really did not expect the thing to put him in the hospital to be so mundane. 

He was home on leave against his will; the brass had noticed the lack of vacation days taken over the year and had clearly become concerned about being sued for neglect of their soldiers. No matter that MacTavish didn’t take those days by choice and had no intention of suing the government. Even if he were to sue, which he had no plans on doing, he’d do it on behalf of Riley who barely even got allowed medical leave before he was thrown back into the fray. He had to fight tooth and nail every time to get the Lieutenant even a little bit of downtime to recuperate after a rough mission. 

In front of him, Fireman Sam was playing on the shitty television screen that hasn’t been updated since the beginning of the century. Maisie, his sister’s daughter, his niece, was sitting on her mother’s lap and completely entranced by the episode playing. They’d been watching the show for the better part of an hour and a half. By now it was early evening - outside had been enveloped in a blanket of darkness around two hours ago. The joys of Scottish winters meant it got dark at sixteen hundred during December, instead of twenty two hundred like it did during the height of summer. 

By the time yet another episode was coming to an end, MacTavish was parched. He hadn’t drunk anything all day, having not done anything that made him particularly thirsty. Throughout the day, he’d dropped Maisie at school, picked her up from school and worked through a couple reports that he hadn’t quite finished before being forced onto leave. It wasn’t that he didn’t love his family - he did, quite a lot actually - but they were always so overbearing. He was the youngest of his siblings, meaning as well as protective parents fretting about every move, he had protective sisters fretting about everything he did. In the last two years, he’d only come home once for the kids’ birthdays and once for Christmas. Both times he had gone back to base and immediately sought out Riley to spar with as the other man was the only person who could actually hold their own against him. 

“John, can you grab us a drink?” The voice of Fiona drew him out of his thoughts, apparently everybody was thirsty. It was timed conveniently, as when he swallowed to respond, he felt just how dry his throat actually was. 

“Aye, course. Any preferences?”

“I’ll have a coffee please, dare say Maisie’ll drink anything.”

“Alright.”

He stood up - dutifully ignoring how his back cracked painfully as he did so - and made his way into the kitchen just down the hallway.

Coffee was easy enough, two mugs, four spoons of coffee, fill them with hot water and you were done. For Maisie he poured a glass of apple juice as she had let slip the fact that it was her favorite drink during the walk home from school that day. To carry everything, MacTavish grabbed a tray from the top shelf of the cabinet and placed everything on it. 

It shouldn’t have been hard to return to the living room and put everything down safely but then again, the universe never let him do anything the easy way did it? As he entered the lounge, he didn’t notice the small mess of toys right by the rug, lifting the edge slightly and somehow managed to catch his foot on the underside of said rug, causing him to fall straight over and drop everything. As he hit the ground, a searing pain shot up his right leg and made him grunt. Years of training wouldn’t let a louder noise escape his lips, his subconscious telling him to not give away his position by making unnecessary noise. 

“John- Mam, Mam come here!”

Before he could tell Fiona he was fine and that their mother really didn’t need to come all the way downstairs from where she was in the middle of a sewing project, their mother was halfway down the stairs.

“I’m fine, ‘s just a slip.”

“Johnathen Andrew MacTavish, don’t you dare tell me yer fine. Yer bloody ankle is pointing the wrong fuckin’ way.” 

“Oh-” so it was. Steaming hell, he was turning into Riley. Soap had once witnessed the man dislocate his shoulder and then pop it back in himself before moving along with his day like it was barely a minor inconvenience. Suddenly, he felt hands on his shoulders, presumably belonging to his mother. She had vanished from her position on the stairs, so it was most probable. 

“John, darling, are you alright?”

“Of course he’s bloody not Ma!”

“Right.”

“I’ll call an ambulance.”

“Don’t bother-” MacTavish tried to stop them from doing that, it was a pain to visit civilian hospitals. They asked too many questions and lacked efficiency. It was also a pain in the arse to list his medical history since the file was locked down to anyone without clearance. There were a few cons to being in the SAS and that was one of them. However, it was too late and Fiona was already stepping aside to dial 999. 

“U-uncle John?” Maisie appeared at his side, holding her stuffed animal close to her chest and looking worried. 

“Aye Mais?”

“Are you okay?” 

“Aye love, I’m fine.” he shifted to get more comfortable, behind him his mother sat down and pulled him against her chest silently for support. No matter how old they got, her children would always remain her babies to her.

“Does it hurt?”

“A little bit, not much.” Weirdly enough he found that it wasn’t actually a complete lie, despite the fact it should be hurting like a bitch right now. “C’mere.”

Maisie wrapped her little arms around him in a very careful hug. She was trying very hard not to hurt him more than he already was. Soap guided her to sit on the floor too and tucked the eight year old under his arm in an attempt to reassure her it was going to be alright. 

“Paramedics’ll be here as soon as they can. It’s a low priority call though so it could be upwards of thirty minutes.”

“Can you pass me my laptop, I've got a report to submit by nine.” The thought popped into his head out of nowhere and there was no time like the present. The document was about the latest operation he’d run with Ghost to take down a drug runner who provided cover for a much larger fish, a fish they were desperate to catch. The op had been a success, perhaps one of the easiest jobs in years, the safehouse had been shockingly nice - it had had running hot water, a fully stocked fridge, the latest TV, the comfiest beds and an armoury fit for a king - and to top everything off the report had just about written itself. All he needed to do now was press the big blue submit button and he could forget all about this piece of paperwork for the rest of his life. 

“Seriously, you want to work?”

“It’s not like we’re going anywhere”

“Alright, fine.”

Fiona passed him the shitty, standard issue laptop that had previously been sitting on the arm of the couch and he pulled it onto his lap and put in the passcode. A passcode that he really needed to change, it had been flagged in the system as susceptible to a data breach and superiors had already ordered him to change it on three different occasions. He’d even been reminded by Ghost, who had been using the same password for the better part of twenty years so really shouldn’t have had room to speak. 

He’d left the tab with the document open, as well as the application he needed to submit it. With a couple button presses the file was sent off and no longer his problem. The backlog of emails however, was his problem. Soap had let them build up for far too long. Sure he’d read the important ones that contained information about missions and the running of the squad, but the unimportant ones about faulty appliances and general reminders had been left to future Soap. And now, he was future Soap. 

When he looked closer, the most recent email he had was one from Ghost. The address sat innocently at the top of his inbox, [email protected], but spoke volumes about the friendship he held with the other man. Ghost didn’t email people for anything, ever. He received mission notices and briefing times the same as everybody else, there was a reason he had an email after all, but he would never reach out to other people beyond required communication with superiors. Not in the way other soldiers often used it to communicate with comrades stationed across the world if text wasn’t an option. So for Ghost to choose to email him, it obviously meant something. Deftly, he guided the clicker to select the email and open it, curious as to what it contained. 

Bet you’re glad you're not here right now, whoever designed the barracks needs their shit rocking.

-1 attached file.

Soap opened the file, well aware of both his mother and Maisie watching over his shoulder. He severely hoped whatever Ghost had sent was child appropriate. 

The picture was terrible quality, obviously taken from Ghost’s old cell and contained a grim looking barracks. The hallway was flooded and from the angle the photo was taken, Soap could tell Riley had been standing in his doorway, meaning all the rooms were likely filled with water as well. In the top left corner of the photo, there was another soldier's boots that provided a good gauge for the depth. The waterline reached to just above the ankle, which was no mean feat. 

“Looks pleasant.”

Even without seeing his Mam’s face, MacTavish could tell she was pulling a face of disgust.“Very.”

“Who sent you the photo?”

“A friend from work.” John didn’t know how much to reveal to the others. He knew Simon valued his privacy and wouldn’t like his name being disclosed without his knowledge. It had taken him around a month and a half to learn the first name of his lieutenant and it had only been by accident. Now, Ghost didn’t mind, but back then you would’ve thought MacTavish had just accused him of plotting to overthrow the government with the reaction he’d received.

Fortunately, the paramedics arrived and saved him from having to elaborate further. Fiona let them in and gently extracted Maisie from the scene. The child went without a fight, understanding that the kind new people needed to do their jobs. 

“John MacTavish?”

“Aye”

“We were told you had a broken ankle?”

—

The ambulance ride was perhaps one of the smoothest and most pain free medical rides he’d been on ever. Usually it was in the back of a medivac helicopter or the back of a stolen car as they put pedal to the metal over rough terrain. So the Glaswegian roads were a rather nice reprieve from such things. The paramedics were pleasant people as well, the one that was in the back with him was ex-SBS, so for most of the ride they exchanged stories about their time in the special forces. At one point, they found out (through very much legal disclosing of information) that they had met once before when one of their operations crossed over and the task force MacTavish was running with needed a ride across the straight of Mexico. 

Once they reached the hospital, he was deposited in the ER where doctors took one look at him and moved him along. By that time, his Mam had arrived and despite him being a twenty nine year old adult, stayed by his side the rest of the time. Elaine MacTavish was not a force to be reckoned with.

By the time the clock struck midnight, he was set up in a hospital room still high from the general anesthesia mixed with a dosage of morphine he’d been given so they could reset the bones in his ankle. Later he would find out he was also scheduled for a surgery the next day so they could get in there and fix it properly. Elaine MacTavish had been required to leave as visiting hours were over, she had been asked nicely several times but had only left after a threat of being removed from the premises by security. She hadn’t left without promising the entire MacTavish clan would be over the next day though.

Now, he was staring at the ceiling, lost in fairytale land thanks to the drugs and had no real sense of what was up or down. The room felt smaller than it really was and the floor kept tilting for seconds at a time if he looked down for too long. 

MacTavish had always hated this part of being injured. He hated the feeling of not being in control of what was going on, of being defenseless in the event of danger. This was probably what led to him ultimately fumbling around for his phone in the dim light of the hospital room and typing in Riley’s number on autopilot. The phone rang four times before the line connected.

“Riley.”

—

Ghost was fucking done with everything about the past seventy two hours. The captain had been forced onto leave by the brass so they’d had a stand-in captain take over for the period of absence, and Captain Wells was an absolute knobhead. The bloke didn’t have a clue how to run a unit like theirs, they’d already been out and done drill twice in the last twenty four hours. Before now, he couldn’t remember when the last time he’d had to do drill was, just that it was a long time ago. At least he hadn’t been as bad as Meat and Royce. Who had ended up with a dressing down for forgetting how to about turn. Roach had fumbled several times next to him, he knew for a fact that he’d been out of time or out of step more than half the time, Worm had completely tripped over his own feet and Diver had almost punched Jester in the face while doing dress offs. Wells had spent a solid half hour shouting at them afterwards. 

He also seemed scared of danger as three people, including himself, had gone to ask for a mission and all three of them had been denied and told that instead someone else would take care of it. He had wanted to throw something - preferably Wells - at a wall after that. There were only so many times he could throw a fellow soldier around on the mats and he could only run so many miles before he began to go insane. 

To top everything off, a storm had come in just after MacTavish had left and along with it came three days worth of relentless rain. So much so that the barracks had flooded, including all the personal rooms in both the North and South wings. Funnily enough, the West wing where Wells was being housed hadn’t flooded as it was positioned on the higher end of the housing block so their Captain hadn’t actually given two shits about the state of their housing. Even the rec room was five inches underwater. The fridge had broken last he’d heard from Roach; who had gone to grab a bite after they missed dinner doing drill of all things. 

It had become so bad he’d felt the need to take a picture and send it to Soap, just to grouse about it. He hadn’t quite managed to get across every little bit of frustration he had with the situation in that one sentence he’d allowed himself to bother the Captain with but he’d done a decent job. He hadn’t received a response, just as he had expected. MacTavish probably had much better things to be doing than going through his email inbox. Soap was also shit at replying to non important emails, ones that didn’t require immediate responses often went unread for weeks at a time. The only thing you could guarantee would be read by the man, were leave requests. Soap allowed every member of their unit as much leave he could grant without getting in trouble for. 

So when the call came in, he was at about the end of his rope and had no tolerance for bullshit left. He fumbled about for the brick of a thing and jabbed the answer button with more force than was really necessary. 

“Riley.” He kept the greeting short, trying to get across the fact he didn’t want to talk. 

“S-simon?” 

Well that was a surprise. And concerning. Was MacTavish drunk?

“Sir? Are you drunk?”

“N-Nae. ‘M tired, flo-floor keeps moving.”

Now he was really concerned. For one, he’d never heard the accent so pronounced since the time he’d found Soap doubled over his desk, exhausted and ill from the bug that was making the rounds on base at the time. 

“Where are you?”

“Glasgow R-Royal.”

“The hospital?”

“Aye.”

Fucking Hell. “Can you tell me why?”

“Broke ‘m ankle. Badly apparently. Can’t- Can’t really feel much.”

At least he wasn’t on the verge of death.

“Alright- fuck, alright that’s good. You're okay. They’ve got you on the good stuff yeah?”

A small laugh from the other end floated over the static-y phone line. Ghost considered that as a win. Suddenly the lights cut out and his room was enveloped in darkness, the telltale hum of the power line absent. Great. 

“G-host?” 

“Yes sir?”

“Don’t like it here. ‘M defenseless.”

“Hey- hey it’s alright. Hospitals have security, remember the system we had to dismantle to get into that one in Serbia?”

“Can- can ye come?”

What.

“Sorry?”

“Can ye come?”

So he had heard it right the first time. 

“I-”

“Please”

“Alright, alright. I’m coming okay? I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Thank ye.”

MacTavish didn’t need to know that the second he’d asked Ghost had already been up, rummaging around in the darkness for his hoodie, gun and wallet. He could stop by Soap’s office and borrow the laptop to buy a last minute plane ticket to Glasgow - there had to be something going there that he could hop on.

“Power’s out on base, phone line is probably next but I’ll be on the next flight to Glasgow I can find.”

“Aye- Ghost, thank ye.”

The line disconnected in time with a large crash coming from outside, just as Ghost had opened his mouth to reply. He sighed with frustration, the base was a piece of shit. With a quick flick of his wrist, he unpicked the lock on MacTavish’s office and moved over to log onto the computer. He used his own account, so that when repercussions hit for him not telling anyone he was leaving, Soap wouldn’t get in trouble.

The flights he found were both devastatingly undesirable. One from Bristol Airport at oh-four-hundred hours and one from Birmingham at oh-five-hundred-hours, both from RyanAir. He checked the Bristol one, purely because it was earlier and he’d be able to get to Glasgow earlier and found a spare seat right at the back of the plane in the aisle. Jackpot. He booked it and printed the boarding pass out because there was no chance he was going to trust the printers at the airport. 

His next issue was how he was getting to the airport. A glance at the clock told him he had two hours before departure, so if he wanted to actually make the flight he had to haul ass. He had forty eight miles to cover and not enough time if he factored in the minor inconvenience called the law. 

—

So he didn’t. He borrowed a humvee (more like stole, there was no permission involved while taking it.) and sped down the M5 Southbound, much quicker than the allowed seventy miles an hour. At one point, the speedometer had lapsed out and showed him as going zero miles an hour. 

Fortunately the motorway was empty at three in the morning so he didn’t hit any traffic and somehow made it to Bristol for three-thirty-six. Unfortunately the gun and knives that he didn’t think to check made him look like a crappy terrorist who had intentions to massacre everybody in the airport. While that may have briefly crossed his mind each time someone bumped into him in the security line, it would have been a counterproductive course of action. 

He was so used to flying in the back of a cargo plane that didn’t give two shits as to what you had on board that he’d forgotten how civilian airlines worked. Now it was a pain in the ass to explain to the police force that had been called in. His watch told him he had fifteen minutes to make it to the plane and that was seeming less likely by the minute. 

Before the officer in charge could even open his mouth to say anything, he’d already made up his mind about what he was going to do. A little bit of white lying and some good natured threats went a long way- and if they happened to run him through the system then nothing would come up except a warning to back the fuck off.  He knew he could easily take down everybody in the small side room without any effort or particularly hard thinking on his part, so this shouldn’t be too difficult. 

Ghost waited for the door to swing shut before he moved, pinning the chief against the wall.  Nobody had ever said he was required to be gentle. 

“British special air service, hold me up again and you’ll pay for it with your job.”

After he’d made his threat, a fairly weak one by his standards, he dropped the bloke and moved towards the door without incident. Probably because everyone was too shocked to say or do anything. 

Ghost did make it to the plane, with three minutes to spare no less. He wasn’t even the last to board, there was still a man with a child behind him. He had already received several dubious looks down to the mask, which he had replaced with a black surgical mask. There were only so many locations the full balaclava wouldn’t get him thrown out of, and this wasn’t one of them.

They took off at four-ten on the dot with surprising efficiency, then again the army was perpetually behind schedule so anything that was relatively on time was a shock to the system. His boots had finally dried out, a fact he was grateful for. He didn’t fancy spending the entire flight with wet clothing. 

Briefly, he wondered what MacTavish had done to break his ankle, it had to be something bad. Given the man had fallen down two flights of stairs once and came out with one bruise and nothing else to show for the ordeal. The last time the other man had broken a bone was around two years ago when they were skiing down the side of the alps to escape an onslaught of French Mercenaries trying to kill them and the captain had hit a rock at the bottom and was sent flying. He’d broken his collarbone and had had a month’s worth of medical leave to recover before returning to duty. Bitterly, Ghost was annoyed that they’d probably have Wells for the foreseeable future now that MacTavish was out of action. That meant no actual missions for at least six weeks and six weeks worth of close order drill. He was going to shoot someone before the first week was up if he wasn’t removed from the task force first. 

Before joining task force 141, Ghost had bounced around just about everybody. Nobody wanted him after his usefulness ran out, or after he questioned their orders one too many times. His file was littered with disciplinaries from captains who had a stick so far up their ass he didn’t know how they weren’t dead yet. MacTavish was different, they hadn’t got on well at the start sure, but after a few weeks of being at each other’s throats without a threat of being removed from the team, things began to settle down. After two months without even a disciplinary added to his file, he had begun to trust the fact that MacTavish might actually want him around. Now, three years later, he was infinitely grateful that Soap had done that for him. He didn’t know if he’d even still be alive otherwise. 

—

After landing, getting out of the airport was dead easy. It wasn’t an international flight so they could just walk straight from the airplane doors to the airport exit without stopping. Transport to Glasgow Royal was also easy enough, shuttle straight to the inner city and then onto the underground to the hospital. 

Now, he was standing in the queue for the front desk behind a woman holding a crying baby and a man with a very ill looking young child. The front desk was severely understaffed and the person at the front was taking an age to fill in the forms required for admission. He was getting bored, he’d been standing there for around twenty minutes and had moved exactly nil paces. 

After another quarter of an hour, he finally reached the front desk. At last. 

“Hi, how can ah help ye?”

“I’m looking for a man admitted here either late last night or early this morning. Names John MacTavish?”

“Give me two secs.”

He tapped a finger on the desk impatiently, glove keeping a comforting barrier between his skin and the glass top. The walls were littered with posters about staying healthy, which Ghost imagined was the last thing anybody who was ill enough to go to the emergency room wanted shoved in their faces. He certainly wouldn’t, last time he’d had to give in and go to the med tent after catching a nasty throat infection he’d put a knife through one of the tables containing a pile of pamphlets about staying healthy. The underpaid med staff weren’t best pleased for his efforts. 

“Aye here we go. John MacTavish, admitted around six hours ago now-“ the nurse checked her watch to confirm she was correct, “nevermind, it’s closer to seven, sorry. Room 141, quickest route is to take the third set of stairs on the left. You're lucky, visiting hours just opened.”

Room 141, how ironic. 

“Cheers, thanks for your time”.

“Nae worries Mr-?”

“Riley.”

“Mr Riley. I’m sure your friend will be glad to see you.”

He dutifully ignored the crawling of his skin at the title- Mr Riley had been his father and he hadn’t been a good man. Not by a long shot.

Neither was Ghost. He was self aware enough to realise this, a lot of his work led to tough decisions where either outcome ended awfully for some people. He had maimed, tortured and killed hundreds throughout his lifetime, yet he had never hurt a child nor an innocent bystander. Which, in his eyes, made him just slightly better than his father- who had no qualms in hitting any of them when it suited him. 

He threw the receptionist a final smile, the mask still covered his face so it was down to the nurse to interpret the gesture, and began his trek upwards. On the way, he pulled his hood up a bit more, skin prickling at the curious gazes shot in his direction. Most people didn’t mean any harm, some did, but not all, however that still didn’t make him any less uncomfortable with the idea of being perceived. Many people didn’t react well to seeing his face, a lot of kids had been scared by the scars when he used to pick up Joseph and was running on so little sleep he couldn’t tell the colour of a wall, let alone remember to pick up a face covering. 

The stairs revealed themselves to be surprisingly steep for a hospital, whichever poor nurse or doctor had to climb these every five minutes was undoubtedly incredibly fit. However they barely caused him to break a sweat, after years of running around warzones where every second could be the difference between life and death you were generally capable of climbing a flight of stairs without losing any breath. It would have been severely disappointing if he had. 

Crossing the hallway, Ghost took a minute to observe the other people in the wing. There were a few people in the waiting room, a family was crowded around one bed in particular celebrating a birthday, obviously finding a small moment to be happy in an un-optimal situation. A group of nurses were gathered around the nursing station, having a general chin wag about something- Ghost didn’t care enough to eavesdrop. It didn’t take long to reach the room with the small brass placard that had the numbers 141 burnt into it, the signage was fairly obvious to follow. 

However when he knocked on the door and pushed it open, he was met with an empty room. Confused, he checked over his shoulder as though MacTavish was about to appear from nowhere behind him. When he didn’t, Ghost backtracked and closed the door again. There hadn’t even been a bed in the room. 

He headed back to the nurses station, surely there had just been a mixup in the system. He was definitely at the right hospital. 

“Can we help ye sir?”

“I was told downstairs that my friend was in Room 141 but the room’s empty.”

“What’s his name, ahm sure we can sort this out in a jiffy.”

“John MacTavish.”

One of the nurses flipped through a clipboard of information that likely contained the running of the day.

“Aye, here we go. He’s in surgery at the minute, hence the empty room. He left aboot twenty minutes ago so it should’nae be long before he’s back.”

“Surgery?” The question left his mouth before he even had a chance to process. The break hadn’t sounded that bad over the phone, but then again there had to have been a reason Soap was staying overnight and not getting it casted before being kicked out and sent home. 

“Break was a bad one, it wouldn’t have been safe to leave it how it was.”

“Right- yeah, yeah makes sense. Thanks, sorry about the inconvenience.”

“Ah, it’s nothing. Had much worse questions asked. One time a lady came lookin’ fer her husband an’ we spent aboot half an hour convincing her she was in the wrong hospital block an’ we hadn’t made ‘im magically disappear.”

A small huff of laughter escaped his lips, the story was particularly amusing. One must encounter some strange things working in a hospital, just as much as they encounter strange things in the field. 

They exchanged a couple pleasantries before parting ways, the nurse back to her previous conversation and himself to the waiting room. He didn’t exactly have anywhere else to go and he was drop dead tired. He’d been awake forty eight hours straight- having been kept up the first night by bad memories and the second night he had spent travelling. 

He sat down heavily, limbs going to mush as he curled up into the chair he’d picked to wait in. It was situated in the back corner of the room, where he had a clear view of the entire ward- give or take a few corners. The birthday group had moved along, having gained themselves a room a couple of minutes ago, meaning there was now relative peace and quiet. Ghost could just about tune out the background noise of low chatter and constant beeping of machines and the mask did just enough to combat the smell of antiseptic and sterilisation that he absolutely despised. 

Back during the dark years where he was held by Roba, antiseptic had been the only scent to accompany him during day to day life, leading now to his lasting hatred of it. The first few years after the whole event, he had had a panic attack every time he entered a hospital without fail. Nowadays the discomfort with the place was manageable but the feeling under his skin was still present, after long enough without air it made him want to claw his skin off just to make it go away. However he was here for MacTavish, so he was going to have to get over that issue and be there for the Captain; who clearly enjoyed it just as much as he did. 

——

The MacTavish clan made it to the ward their John was supposed to be located at eleven twenty six in the morning with Elaine MacTavish leading the charge. 

Fiona followed along behind her mother, one hand holding Maisie’s as they fought to keep up. When her Mam was on a mission, there was no slowing her down. Behind them, her husband was carrying their son and her Da was engaged in an active conversation about airplanes with Julia, who was her other sibling. Julia was the oldest of them all and had just finished training to become an aerial medic the previous day, hence her late arrival to the scene. 

As they walked through the waiting room, she spotted a lone figure at the back, dressed in all black with a hood pulled over his head. He had his arms crossed over his chest and one leg drawn up- uncaring that he was probably dirtying the chair with his boot. Poor sod, he looked as though he’d been there a while, or had at least had a hell of a journey judging by the way his head was bowed and he was napping soundly, despite all the hustle and bustle that was starting up as the day got busier. 

When they entered the hospital room, John was fast asleep- a rare sight to see. Somehow her brother always managed to sense when someone was nearby and woke up, no matter which state of REM he had been in. 

Now that wasn’t the case, the anesthesia was stronger than any sixth sense he may have. So everybody found a place to sit and wait. She sat in the chair by the window, Maisie on her lap and playing with her doll she’d brought to amuse herself with. 

Of course their Mam took up the position by John’s bed, hand slipping into his. They’d all always been a bit protective of him, especially after he’d joined the army, but their Mam had always held the top spot on the podium when it came to worrying about her children. 

It didn’t take long for her brother to wake up, but it happened in a way they hadn’t been expecting. He’d tossed slightly in his sleep, face contorting into a pained sort of frown before jerking awake and instantly throwing a hand to where a belt would go on his person. When whatever he’d been looking for wasn’t there, that was when he seemed to panic. If they couldn’t tell by the increased breathing then the rapid bleep of the heart rate monitor would have told them so. 

Everybody looked between each other, confused and unsure what to do about the situation, even their Mam didn’t know what to do and she was an expert in all things emotions, when John’s eyes suddenly found the doorway and his body seemed to regain consciousness as he blurted out “Riley?”

—

Ghost dropped his cup of tea, wincing as it hit the ground and went everywhere, when not one but seven pairs of eyes were suddenly looking in his direction, all holding varying degrees of shock. He’d fallen asleep in the waiting room, but not for that long. 

“Sir?”

“Where’d ye come from?”

“Been here a while, was waitin’ on you.”

“Hold on a minute, who’re you?” 

The person sitting right by MacTavish’s bed spoke up next, having recovered from the shock first. 

“Lieutenant Riley, ma’am. I work with MacTavish- er, John.” 

It felt weird using the Captain’s first name while talking about him with someone else. He rarely used it as is, so to refer to MacTavish as John in a regular conversation threw him slightly. 

“Riley, huh. I don’t think he’s mentioned you.”

“Well- it's usually best to keep work and personal life separate.”

“Simon, yer nae work, c’mere.”

He felt his eyes widen at the beckoning, and the accent. He did comply with the request, walking silently over to the side of the bed where Mrs MacTavish wasn’t sitting and placed the pack of biscuits he knew Soap enjoyed so had picked them up with the cup of tea that was now all over the floor, much to his chagrin.

 “Where’d ye get those?”

“Shop downstairs.”

It wasn’t long before the irresistible lull of sleep washed over MacTavish once more, likely down to the anesthesia that hadn’t worn off yet, and he fell back asleep; leaving Ghost alone to face the entire clan. He hadn’t been expecting this, he’d planned on sitting in relative silence for a while, maybe a couple conversations here and there while Soap was awake, not entertaining five- no six, MacTavishes. 

“So, Riley. Is that your real name?” It was the mother who spoke first, clearly suspicious of him. 

“Surname.”

“Suppose Simon is your first name?”

He made a noncommittal noise, really Soap had already dropped him in it by using the word when beckoning him over. 

“Ye work wit’ John?”

 It was one of the siblings this time, finally looking up from her phone enough to scrutinise him. 

“Uh, yeah- yeah, he’s my captain.”

“So why’re ye here?”

“Mam! Ye cannae just say tha’!”

“It’s fine, I guess you could consider me a friend?”

“Is tha’ a question or a statement?”

“Statement.” He huffed, even more thankful for the mask to hide the red flush that crept up his neck from embarrassment.

After a while, the rest of the MacTavishes disappeared to get food, leaving Ghost alone with a sleeping Soap. He shifted from standing at the back awkwardly, to the chair Mrs MacTavish had vacated a minute prior. With a relief, he sat down, virtually collapsing into the chair. Soap didn’t want to be alone, so he wasn’t going to get left alone. The captain had sat with him in the med centre god knows how many times after he’d admitted he hated anywhere medical because of what happened in his past. It was the least he could do to return the favour. 

Despite the uncomfortableness of the hospital chair, he found himself fading into blackness once again; the quick kip he’d had in the waiting room hadn’t quite cut it apparently. He let his torso drift forward more as he fell farther into sleep, by the time he lost consciousness he was resting his head on the hospital bed, hands curled tightly around the mask to protect it from being removed. Old habits die hard and that one would die even harder. 

—-

Captain MacTavish woke up slowly, blinking himself back into the land of the living. He noticed he was in a hospital room and memories flooded back into the forefront of his mind. He buried his face in his hands, that had to have been the most embarrassing injury he’d ever seen, who knows what he did after being given anesthetic. 

Once he regained his bearings, he realised there was a heavy weight on the edge of the bed. So logically he cast his eyes down to find out what it was and was sufficiently surprised to notice his lieutenant - more affectionately known as his best friend - fast asleep, head buried in his arms and body bent over in such a way that he knew would be painful when the other man woke up. The second thing that came to mind was the question why. What was Simon doing here? Not that he had any objections to the fact of course, he was just a little confused. 

He wasn’t going to remain confused for long, as Ghost jerked awake the minute he shifted while trying to get comfortable. He felt slightly bad, Riley didn’t sleep enough as is. 

“Sir, you're awake.”

“Aye, so are you.”

“Sorry, that was- shouldn’t have happened.”

“No,” he reached out to put a comforting hand on Ghost’s shoulder, he never wanted the lieutenant to think he shouldn’t feel okay to catch a few in his presence. If anything, that’s what he wanted Ghost to do, especially if he was tired and even now, in the awful lighting of the room, he could see the slightly too-drawn look that was painted over Riley’s upper face, “You're fine.”

Ghost hummed, eyes squinting into his version of a smile. He was one of the most expressive people MacTavish knew, but only if you knew where to look. Fortunately, he did know where to look.

“How’re you feeling?”

“Alright, yeah. Bit like I got hit by a truck though.”

“Does that though doesn’t it- the anesthetic."

“Aye. I have to ask, where did you come from?”

Ghost blinked slowly at him, as though he were an idiot. Maybe he was, there was probably a perfectly reasonable explanation for Riley’s presence. 

“You called me last night, asked if I could come up. ‘Course i agreed, hopped on the first plane I could find. I assume you were high off your tits on drugs then?”

“You.. you could say that.” He winced, not wanting to imagine how pathetic he must’ve sounded. Ghost didn’t question it any further, graciously leaving MacTavish with some of his dignity intact by not mentioning it. 

“Your family was here about fifteen minutes ago-” Simon mentioned with a glance to his watch, “Said they went to get food.”

“Aye, makes sense.”

They lapsed into a comfortable silence, Riley fiddling with the drawstrings on his hoodie, flipping them between his thumb and forefinger while MacTavish settled against the pillows, casting his gaze outside the window to the city skyline that surrounded them. Suddenly a thought popped into his head.

“Tell me, you at least informed someone you left.”

Ghost immediately looked guilty, shifting a foot ever so slightly so the sole scraped across the ground and made a noise, giving him away instantly. 

“Simon!”

“Sorry, I wasn't really planning ahead.”

“Who’s the stand-in captain?”

“Wells.”

“Bad luck.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You sound enthralled?”

“Barracks are flooded-”

“Aye, I saw the picture you sent. Looks like a nightmare.”

“Your room is fine, the west wing survived the invasion of the offending liquid.”

“Lucky me, how’s yours?”

“Destroyed, mostly. I left my laptop on the floor during the first night, desk broke don’t ask how and by the morning it was no longer working. My favorite hoodie got drenched after getting blown out of the windowsill- the hinges are broken so it’s permanently stuck open, fucking freezing at night and anything i left on the floor is a little more than damp. Even my bedsheets took a shower since they’re right by the window that i can’t close when it’s raining.”

“Jesus, why didn’t you say something?”

“Wasn’t important at the time. Anyway, point being, Wells is a knobhead who doesn’t care about his soldiers and has no clue how to run a unit. He’s also a stickler for the rules and scared of danger.”

“Aye, agreed. Pain to work with that one; has no bloody care for proper tactics as long as the op is completed with as little involvement from him as possible.”

“You’ve worked with him before?”

“On an op in Bosnia, it took two weeks before we finally settled on a plan of attack that everyone agreed with, to an extent.”

“Let me guess, you didn’t like it?”

“Not one bit, but we needed to hit otherwise the target would move on and the opportunity would be lost.”

“Would’ve paid good money to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.”

“Oh aye, proper comedic it was.”

He shuddered at the memory, the plan had been stupid, reckless and utterly idiotic. However Wells had refused to see it in that way as it fitted with what he deemed appropriate. Needless to say no amount of talking had got him to change his mind. Fortunately they’d scraped out of the encounter with only minor injuries to three people and two fully intact. Wells had also sat in his office slash tent back at the makeshift camp and did fuck all, which had really grated on his nerves when he’d returned, covered in blood and dirt, gun swinging from his shoulder and nursing a new knife would across his thigh. He still had the scars from it. 

He watched as Riley moved on to fiddling with the zipper, he was surprised the other man could even get a grip on it with the gloves he was wearing. They weren’t his go-to choice of covering, making Soap think his others had been amongst the stuff that got destroyed by the rain. He vowed to get Riley new gloves the moment he was released from the prison that was hospital. Hopefully it wouldn’t be long now, judging by the fact he could already feel his ankle had been cast. There couldn’t be much else to do. 

As if on cue, the door to the room swung open and an overenthusiastic nurse entered, clipboard in hand and a smile plastered across her face.

“John MacTavish?”