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The words were starting to blur together. Gaz sighed, rubbed his eyes, glanced at the clock. Too fucking early to quit, too late to keep going. His gaze fell back to his desk, lingered on the photo of the 141 he kept there as a reminder. It had been taken after their success in Mexico, half-posed, half casual. All of them smiling, arms around each other, even Ghost relaxing as Soap leaned towards him. It had been such a hopeful beginning. Some days he looked at it and only remembered the good times, the missions that had gone smoothly, the reassurances when they went sideways. Some days he wanted to scratch out Price from the picture completely. Bastard.
They’d had a plan, the three of them, to get revenge. Maybe not a good plan, maybe they would’ve all ended up dead, but they’d been furious and ready for a fight. And then one day he’d been dragged out of bed and interrogated for hours. That was how he’d found out that Price had abandoned both him and Ghost and gone alone to kill Shepard. Gaz thought that he might’ve only been released because he couldn’t have faked being so fucking angry at Price.
Soap’s death had fractured the team, but he’d still believed that they’d hold together until the people responsible were dead too. Instead, Price had betrayed them. And then Ghost had been sent after him, capture or kill, and as much as Gaz wanted to confront Price himself, he knew neither of them were coming back alive. Not that there was anything left of Ghost to come back. Gaz had seen Ghost only briefly after they’d both been interrogated, and there had been a terrifying blankness in Ghost’s eyes. That spark of life that Soap had found and nurtured had been extinguished completely, not even the promise of revenge left to sustain it. Simon had died with Johnny and Ghost was a walking, breathing shell that did what it was ordered to do without thinking or feeling.
So Gaz had lost all of them. And in exchange he’d gotten a promotion and orders to form a new 141, because the brass still needed someone to do the dirty jobs and he’d be cleared of any charges if he accepted. He hadn’t really had a choice, but part of him had actually wanted to do it. To spit in Price’s traitorous face by forming a new team, a new family, and proving to him what those words really meant. Selfish fucking bastard.
He put a piece of paper over the side of the photo so he wouldn’t have to look at Price any more, studied the other three smiling faces. Blissfully unaware of all the shit that would happen later. After Soap’s death Ghost had given Gaz a few of Soap’s precious journals. Some of the pages had been carefully cut out, clearly too private for anyone else to see. But Gaz had appreciated the gesture, the acknowledgement that Soap had been important to Gaz too even though it wasn’t in the same way as he had been to Ghost. Gaz read through them sometimes, when he was feeling especially worn down, reliving some of those happier times through Soap's observations and drawings.
There was a knock on his door, then it opened before he answered. Roach, of course, no one else would dare toe the line with him now that he had a reputation almost as dark as Ghost’s. Roach was the first of his new sergeants, quiet and serious, but with a streak of humour that seemed to appear just when Gaz needed it. He wondered if this was how Ghost had felt about Soap, if even after all the loss and betrayal someone could still show up who made everything better by simply being there.
‘Gonna get a headache working in the dark, Sir Gaz.’ Roach admonished him, but his tone was teasing.
‘Already got one.’ He groaned. ‘Please tell me you aren’t bringing me more paperwork, Gaz.’ It annoyed Roach when anyone else called him that, but they shared the nickname and somehow it had become allowed between them.
‘Nah, just reminding you to get to bed, gotta check out that new batch of hopefuls tomorrow.’ Roach grinned at him. ‘Don’t wanna scare them too much.’
‘You saying I need my beauty sleep? That I don’t look good unshaven with bags under my eyes?’ Gaz countered, shaking his head in amusement.
‘Hmm, might have to write me up for insubordination if I answer that.’ Roach’s eyes were bright, playful with a hint of something deeper, but then he sobered. ‘Get some sleep, Kyle.’
Gaz watched him close the door, then looked at the picture again. He wouldn’t remember what Price had turned into, he would remember that moment when they were united. He would make his new team what the old one should have been, a family loyal to each other.