Archive of Our Own

THURSDAY, NOV 21 2023

The call comes in just as they touch down on British soil, or rather the call connects, because when he fishes his phone out of his tac vest it's to find he has seven missed ones, all from the same number.

"John Noah MacTavish?" the man on the other end of the line says when he picks up and if the number of attempts to reach him wasn’t a dead giveaway that something is very very wrong, this is. No one has called him this exact combination of words since he showed up at a recruitment office at sixteen, knuckles bloody, one eye swollen shut.

"Yes?" he says, stepping away from the plane and the questioning looks, cupping his hand around the receiver in a feeble attempt to drown out the noise of cargo crates being dragged across concrete.

"This is Dr. Ferguson at Queen Elizabeth," the man says, and then, in that tone he’s only ever heard Price use when talking to widows of soldiers he’s barely known, "I'm afraid there's no easy way to say this but your sister and her husband were in an accident. We tried everything we could, but they did not make it."

Soap swallows, nods even though the doctor can't see him. His first thought, as his eyes catch on where Ghost is gesturing something to Gaz, is – I don't have time for this. His second, in quick succession, that if it's not any of the government-sanctioned murder, that thought alone is what's gonna land him in hell. Then, third, "They have a kid," he says, "Cassandra. Is she alright?"

"They are fine, they were not in the car, but–”

"Yes good," he says and then, "Alright," and then maybe a bit too fast, "So you need me to make funeral preparations? How long can you hold them at the morgue? I'm currently deployed, I'm afraid I–"

He falters for a second, thinks of burying his mam and how that grave has probably been resold by now, how it won't fit his sister or her husband, how he never thought about needing to make them fit, how he was sure as anything he’d go out first, nothing left for them to bury.

He catches Ghost’s eyes across the tarmac, watches him tilt his head in that way that means, Alright, Johnny?

"We have services that can help with that Mr. MacTavish," Dr. Ferguson says on the phone, gentle but firm. "But that's not why I'm calling. Not primarily. This is about the kids."

"Kids?" Soap asks, curving his fingers into a silent okay to Ghost without thinking. "Plural?"

"Yes. A boy and a girl. Little Joseph was born a couple of months ago, according to the records."

"Oh," is all Soap says because oh. He has a nephew. A little baby nephew. And then, because that is apparently not enough of a revelation, the doctor says:

"You are listed as their legal guardian, Mr. MacTavish. We need you to pick them up."

TUESDAY, NOV 28 2023

A week after John Noah MacTavish turns twelve he watches his mother pour something into his father's drink that makes him hunch over in his armchair, deep enough asleep that he doesn’t even twitch when the glass slips from his fingers and splinters on the floor. 

She makes John pack all his things into the little beat-up backpack with the ninja turtles he gets teased about in school, bundles him and his sister up in two layers of thick jumpers that scratch against the bruises on his arm, and ushers them out of their flat and into a train, taking them up towards rolling snow covered hills he’s never seen before.

Whatever happens to me, his mother implores him that day, the three of them cramped into a two-seater row, his sister asleep on his mother's lap, you protect your sister, promise me, john.

Two days after he turns twelve and a half John watches his father break down the door of their one-bedroom flat, gun in hand, and takes that promise to heart. 

There are parts that are fuzzy, on account of his father slamming him into the kitchen table so hard it splits his chin and knocks out two of his teeth, but he remembers, even now, well over a decade later, what it felt like to blink himself back to consciousness to see his mother on the floor, unmoving, carpet blooming red beneath her, and his father looming over his sister, and how the weight of the cast iron pan nearly made him slip on the linoleum floor as he knocked it first into the back of his father’s knees, and then the back of his head. He remembers too, how his sister didn’t cry, didn’t even scream, and how she didn’t dare to look him in the eye for over a year after.

All this to say he’s never been particularly fond of people banging on his door and today – at eight thirty-two pm, with little Joey wailing in his ear and Cass in the bathroom, suspiciously quiet – is no different.

Another set of bangs, always in threes, bam bam bam, more insistent now that he’s ignored the first two, and he wonders distantly as he shifts Joey to his left side where he’ll hear him scream twenty percent less thanks to that explosion gone off to close back in basic, what bawbag wouldn’t just ring the doorbell instead of slamming their whole fist against the door like they’re on some bloody cop show. He refrains from calling out to them to shut the fuck up, too well trained even sleep deprived to give up his location, and instead just hurries over to pull the switchblade from his jacket by the door as he looks through the peephole to see–

“Ghost?” he asks as he pulls open the door, knife still in hand, baby still wailing. “What are ye doin’ here?”

“What am I doing here?” Ghost throws back at him, brows creased and eyes downright murderous, the kind of look that back at base would mean Soap is about to run laps until he pukes. “You just disappeared for a bloody week, Johnny! Didn’t even tell Price where you were going, aren’t answering your fuckin’ phone, what the hell do you think I’m doing here?”

Briefly Soap wonders if he’s simply lost it between the screaming and the sleep deprivation, if this is all just a fever dream, because there’s something so surreal about seeing Ghost here, in civvies – hoodie tucked under a windbreaker, hat and nondescript mask, jeans that look so soft that that sleep-deprived part of Soap’s brain wants to use Ghost's thighs as a pillow, all of it various shades of gray and black, gun concealed at his side, only visible because Soap knows where to look – nearly filling out the door frame, backlit by that hallway light that constantly looks like it’s about to go out, standing on that stupid doormat that reads it’s always happy hour around here.

“Right,” he says belatedly because yes right, he has a vague memory of Ghost texting him, but he also doesn't really have a clue where his phone is right now and he definitely wasn’t aware it’s been a week until he just mentioned it. For a moment Ghost looks like he’s going to take him by the shoulders and shake, and then his eyes land on Joey, and he frowns harder as if he only just noticed that Soap is holding a screaming child.

“You knock someone up, Johnny?” he asks and it sounds oddly offended but mostly like he’s taking the piss, so Soap is about to tell him to fuck off when there’s a loud crash from the bathroom, followed immediately by a high shriek. He whips around, trips over one of Cass’ tiny toddler-sized shoes, and nearly impales himself on the damn knife if it wasn’t for Ghost grabbing him by the arm to hold him steady.

“Give me the baby,” Ghost says like he says give me that gun when they’re hunched over in the dirt, bullets flying past their heads, so Soap does.

Cass is sitting in the middle of the bathroom when he finds her, wrapped in the bath mat and covered head to toe in pink glittery toothpaste, staring up at him with her big blue eyes as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. He makes the executive decision to just hose her down instead of trying to wipe any of it off because they’ve got about one roll of toilet paper left between the three of them and by his current estimates that’s gotta last them a couple more days. She kicks him square in the stomach not once but a whopping four times, and half of his shirt and sweats get soaked in the whole ordeal, but she’s also properly giggling for the first time since he picked her up, twirling around the tub, and he takes that as a win.

He’s still not fully sure why they handed him the kids in the first place, how they looked at him back at that hospital – bruises blooming up his neck from where one of those Konni assholes tried to knock him down with the butt of his gun, knuckles split and dirt crusted under his fingernails, still wearing combat boots because he couldn’t find his fucking sneakers in the rush to get here – and didn’t decide that no, we should not leave this man alone with a seven months and four year old. Maybe it's because Cass immediately flew into his arms when he stepped through the door, strange as that was, mainly because the last time he'd seen her was when she was still bald and in diapers, so he doubts she actually remembered his face. But it's not like he had any time to really mull it over because he'd been busy with paperwork and trying to absorb as much as he could from the world's fastest crash course in childcare the babysitter was trying to give him as she handed him the keys to his sister's flat.

He tried to suss it out on his way back, stuck in the back of a cab in evening traffic, but Cass didn’t really talk much, then or in the days after, and he still can't tell if she's just never been a talkative kid or if she just doesn't want to talk to him specifically. It's something he should know, he thinks, as he tucks her into bed now, like what she prefers to eat for breakfast or what makes her laugh or if she has a favorite bedtime story he should be reading to her, but even back when he first set foot into the flat all he knew was where he would crouch for cover if they were ambushed, or what damage that vase on the counter would do to a skull, or how many exfil points the building provides.

When he finally makes it back out into the living room half an hour later – still soaked, but with Cass asleep, tuckered out enough not to make her usual fuss about him leaving the room – it’s to find Ghost rummaging through the kitchen, inspecting every cabinet and expertly dodging the piles of dirty dishes and crusty takeout containers, scowling at expiration dates like they’re mission-critical intel.

Joey, miraculously, is peacefully asleep on his shoulder.

“How are ye doing that?” Soap asks, both fascinated and a fair bit offended because someone this good at taking people apart shouldn’t also get to be this good at cradling them in their arms, which is the exact moment Ghost turns to him and asks, in the same tone he uses with only the greenest of recruits,

“How are you out of bloody everythin’?”

“Uh,” Soap says because the actual answer is that he’s afraid to go down to the shops because every time he’s tried to go in the past three days he’s been met with a gaggle of old ladies silently judging him for the fact that Joey is wailing on his arm and Cass is attempting to open every single packet of crisps in the snack aisle, which he can’t really admit to a guy who’s seen him literally volunteer to go undercover in a drug den.

Ghost raises both eyebrows at him, which would usually make Soap squirm a bit, but is now undermined by how he hoists Joey a little higher onto his shoulder, one hand coming up to gently cradle his head. 

“Alright,” he says with a huff of breath when Soap just continues to stare. “You put the kids to bed, I’ll pop down to the shops.” He shifts the baby around again, holds him out to Soap who is immediately flooded with a deep sense of panic. Ghost, very attuned to what it looks like when Soap’s about to shit his pants, rolls his eyes at him. “Take the damn baby, Soap. Aint gonna bite you.”

“He bites me all the time.”

“That’s because he’s teething,” Ghost says, exasperated, as if that’s just something Soap should have known. “He’s about what? Eight months?”

“Seven,” Soap supplies and then because he feels like at this point Ghost has a right to know, “His name’s Joey– well Joseph, but everyone calls him Joey.”

Ghost’s eyes snap to him, something like alarm in them for a startling and very sharp second, but then he looks back down at the sleeping baby and it’s all wiped away in an instant, eyes crinkling around the edges instead. “Joey,” he repeats, smile obvious even beneath the mask, and it sounds so stupidly fond Soap feels momentarily dizzy with it. “Big lad. You got anything to help him with the pain?”

“Uh,” Soap says again.

“Right,” Ghost huffs, angling the baby back in his direction. “I’ll get something for that too then.”

“They’re my sister's,” Soap blurts before Ghost can simply pass Joey to him like a football. Then a bit quieter, ducking his head, “Were my sister’s.”

Ghost stills at that, looks at him for a long moment, but doesn’t say anything, doesn’t ask what happened, doesn’t offer condolences, just pulls Joey back against his shoulder, and for a brief moment Soap is so relieved he thinks he might finally cry.

“Just–” Soap starts, trying to nip that notion in the bud, just to, embarrassingly, feel his throat close up anyway. “Just tell Price I need another week, okay? I’ll– Their grandparents – father’s side – they're gonna take ‘em. He's Dutch– Was Dutch. They were there for the funeral but went back to sort things out, agreed it would be good to leave the kids in a known environment for as long as possible, and well legally they're–"

“They’re yours,” Ghost finishes for him when he falters again, throat closing, tasting blood.

Soap nods, can’t get himself to say it out loud. “Just one more week, alright?”

There’s another long moment where Ghost just looks at him, where if Soap squints he can nearly pretend they’re back in the field, can imagine that this is just him asking for permission to blow something up that wasn’t in the brief, and Ghost’s about to say no, but then something hardens in Ghost’s shoulders and softens in his eyes, and instead of telling him no, he says, “Alright. Let’s get on with it then.”

Soap frowns at him for a second, brain not catching up, but Ghost simply moves past him, their shoulders bumping in the narrow doorway, and Soap is forced to follow him into the bedroom like a lost pup. It only occurs to him as he watches Ghost gently lower Joey down into his crib –  wooden, handmade, a bit wonky, already pushed up right to the bed when he found it, close enough that Soap can watch him breathing at night without even sitting up – that he must have scoped the place out while Soap was busy with Cass, memorizing the layout, the best places to take cover, what objects to use as weapons, what exfil routes to take.

“Alright, Johnny?” Ghost asks, voice low, still standing at the crib, blending into the dark, and Soap realizes he must have been staring again, can’t tell how much time passed, if it was minutes or hours, just that he feels suddenly and utterly exhausted.

“Lt–” he says, and he doesn’t know why, because they’re not out in the field, they’re in his dead sister’s flat, in the bedroom that still smells like her, but he does know that it sounds like a plea, like he’s asking for permission, and that somehow Ghost understands.

“Get some sleep,” he says, moving back towards the door with one last look at the baby.

“I can’t,” Soap protest, because he’s gotta do the laundry, then the dishes, has to sort out the condolences cards that keep coming in, should really call Price before he also sends Gaz, or go through all the legal shite the notary send over–

“Johnny,” Ghost says again, and he’s right there now, hand on Soap’s shoulder, so warm and heavy he feels himself swaying under the touch. “Go sleep. I’ll get the groceries. We’ll figure the rest out tomorrow.”

Logically Soap’s aware he should probably protest again, probably tell him it’s not necessary, that he can handle this on his own, but he’s still soaked through and covered in glittery toothpaste, and he hasn’t showered in two days or seen a vegetable in five, and there is part of him that looks at Ghost and feels safe, that says he's got your six, that makes his eyelids drop, and bad knee go weak, and so all he actually does is nod and say, "Alright, okay."

BEFORE

They show him the body, before they hand him the kids, warn him as they pull her out of the cooling unit that it's not pretty, that it's okay if he needs a moment. He doesn't know how to tell them that he's probably seen worse, done worse, most likely, with his own hands. 

The funeral is three days later. It’s small, intimate. It makes him feel like a stranger. Borrowed suit and gun concealed below his jacket because he can't shake the feeling that he's under siege.

The priest tries to assure him, talks on and on about how it's all in God's design, but the only time Soap’s on his knees seeing God these days is when he has someone's cock shoved so far down his throat he's choking on it, so it doesn't really take. 

He remembers, as he stands there, in the first row, on the side of the family that’s just him, what it felt like standing at his mam’s funeral, biting back tears and the smell of copper trying to fight themselves up his throat. What it felt like holding his sister’s hand as they walked up to the casket, unable to imagine that a whole person could fit in such a small space, wondering if it was all fake.

He knows better now. He’s carried enough of them on his shoulders to be sure.  

WEDNESDAY, NOV 29 2023

That first night back at the flat it takes him nearly three hours just to get the kids to sleep.

He spends most of it sitting on the floor in front of Cass bed because she stirs and fusses anytime he moves to leave, cradling Joey against his chest the whole time, fingers going stiff in an effort not to hold him too tight, to press somewhere he shouldn’t. He tries to find something to compare it to, as he sits there just watching them breathe, any time in his life he felt like this, maybe his first night back in basic when their drill sergeant woke them up at three am to run laps in the rain, or that time they caught him faking his age to enter SAS selection, when he was sure they were gonna kick him out. But he comes up short in the end.

There’s nothing, he admits only to himself, at two am in the morning when Cass blindly reaches out to him and calls him mam, that ever made him feel this scared.

When he’s finally got Joey in his crib at two thirty he considers just floping down onto Claire’s bed – aching all over from trying to keep Makarov from blowing up that fucking dam in Verdansk – but he can still see the indent of her head on the pillow, can imagine her lying there, watching Joey breathe. It’s better anyway, he tells himself, to set up shop on the couch, that with how tense he still feels about Shepherd’s insistence to declare Makarov as KIA without POD, there’s no way he’ll sleep unless it’s with one eye open, putting himself between the door and the kids.

But then it hits him just as he’s about to doze off that back when Cass was a baby, the second and last time he saw her, Claire told him, laughing as if it was a funny bit about the weather, that babies could asphyxiate themselves in their sleep, and after trying and failing to get the crib into the living room, he finally gives in and takes the bed anyway, falling asleep to the smell of Clairs shampoo on the pillows, that god awful cheap shite their mother used to buy.

It’s still there, that faint scent of shampoo, even now, a week later, as he blinks awake to the sound of Joey fussing in his sleep, attuned by now to what kind of sniffling precedes a full-on screaming fit, but before he can as much as sit up he hears the door creak, footsteps quiet on the carpet, yet so familiar to his hindbrain that his body decides to nod back off again. 

He can make out the shape of Ghost above the crib, sees a flicker of the alarm clock showing three am, manages to ask, "Bottle?" barely audible, halfway smushed into the pillow.

"Already got it," Ghost says, a low rumble at his ear, just a whisper, then what feels like a squeeze to the back of his neck but he could be imagining it. "Go back to sleep, Johnny."

"Hrmpf," Soap says, and promptly does.

When he comes to a second time, it's to the clock showing eight am and the crib empty, which does briefly send him into a panic until he's hit again with the image of Ghost cradling Joey like he's never done anything else in his life, and then he dozes off for another five minutes until he's hit with the entirely different panic of Cass being late for school. 

He comes charging out into the living room to find Ghost at the dining table with the kids, and for a moment all he can do is stand in the doorway and stare, pants not fully done up and one arm only halfway wrestled into his sweater, because if he ever were to describe the picture in front of him to anyone back at base he’s sure they’d send him to psych.

“Morning, sunshine,” Ghost says from where he’s reclined in one of the chairs, long legs sprawled out in front, and Soap can’t even focus on how he’s clearly taking the piss right now, because Cass is perched on the chair to his left, holding a bright red marker, her brows furrowed in deep concentration as she colors in his tattoos. 

It takes him a full three seconds to even notice Joey, strapped into the little baby rocking chair at Ghost’s feet, peacefully gnawing at what looks like a blue plastic ring while Ghost keeps rocking him back and forth with his heel.

“What in the–” he gets out, because he thinks he might be having a stroke, and then the last detail hits him so hard it genuinely knocks the air out of his lungs.

Ghost’s not wearing a mask. 

He’s in fucking sweats and a tee that’s really more gray than black from how threadbare it is, no cap, blonde hair sticking up in odd directions with how it curls, and fuck, he’s smiling at him, that sly little uptick of his lips that Soap somehow knows means he's being made fun of without ever having seen it.

And it’s not like that’s an issue, it isn’t, except that it is, because he’s seen him without the mask once, one bloody fucking time, in that safehouse in Las Almas when he was delirious with blood loss and sleep deprivation and high on ketamine, and he remembers that Ghost wasn’t lying when he told him quite the opposite, but he doesn’t remember him being so fit that it makes the back of his neck prickle like he’s standing too close to an explosion, and that feels like an issue, one he does not have time for right now because–

“School,” he snaps and resists the urge to full on slap himself out of his own thoughts. Ghost, the bastard, makes a sound at the back of his throat that sounds suspiciously like a snort. “Cass, lass, we’re late for school.”

"Wil nie," Cass pouts with furrowed brows and wrinkled nose, which Soap has learned is her version of telling him to fuck off. "Am not done."

"Ye can finish later," Soap says, as if that's a promise he can make. He rushes to the door, grabs her jacket, and shakes it at her like that’s gonna do anything. "We gotta go."

Cass shoots him another look, then looks back up at Ghost, marker still clutched in her hand, eyes very serious. "Ye have ta promise not ta wash it off," she commands.

Ghost raises both hands as if he's surrendering to a four-year-old. "I won't," he says, just as serious, then holds out his pinky for her to wrap her tiny hand around and adds, "Promise."

Soap, pants still not fully up, very briefly considers signing himself over to psych on his own accord.

He thinks about it the whole way to school, and the whole way through dodging Ms. Mackenzie’s advances while he apologizes for the late drop-off, and then again the whole way back to the flat – how serious Ghost looked when he made that promise, how easy he offered to look after Joey while Soap went to drop Cass off, how it only occurred to him halfway to the car that all he had to actually do that morning was help Cass into her boots and coat because she’d already been fully dressed, unruly brown curls pinned up in neat braids, how she didn’t complain about being hungry because the table was set with toast and butter and jam.

He thinks about it still as he finds the flat empty save for a sticky note left on the now clean table that simply reads at gym, took the baby, take a shower you reek and then thinks about it some more when he goes to do the dishes just to realize the kitchen is already spotless, and then even harder when the laundry is fucking done and folded too, and then he suddenly gets hit with a flash of laughter so hysterical he has to sit down in the middle of the bathroom because he can’t breathe.

And he doesn’t even know why, if it’s just the lingering exhaustion crashing down on him, or if it’s the absurdity of it all, if maybe his mind finally snapped, unable to comprehend the dichotomy the Ghost he knows out in the field, a vision of smoke and blood and death, and the Ghost he’s just seen make a pinky promise, but he laughs and laughs until his throat burns and his chest hurts and his cheeks are wet, and all he can do is sink down further to press his burning face into the cool tiles and take quick heaving breaths as he stares at a spot of glittery toothpaste Ghost must have missed on his cleaning spree.

By some divine mercy, he has enough time to pick himself up from the floor and take an actual shower before Ghost comes back home. 

He’s just in the process of making himself a bowl of cereal, nearly pouring the milk all over the counter as he’s trying to simultaneously shoot off a text to Price that’s just all caps I’M SOLID DO NOT SEND GAZ, when Ghost walks through the door, Joey strapped to his chest in a dusty pink baby carrier Soap had no idea was in the house.

“Alright, Johnny?” he greets when he catches him staring, face obscured again by cap and mask, but not any less expressive now that that bloody smile is burned into Soap’s mind like ground zero.

Soap, very aware of how his eyes are still itching even though he dowsed his head in cold water for a full five minutes, opts to turn back around and finish pouring his cereal. “Did ye actually work out like that?” he asks when Ghost shuffles past him to get a glass of water, pulling off the mask as he goes as if it was nothing.

“Nah,” he says, dead serious, once he downed the glass in one go, one hand coming to rest above Joey’s stomach as he starts kicking his little feet in delight or frustration, Soap can’t tell. “Stuffed him in one of the lockers, picked ‘im up after.”

“Ye joking,” Soap says around a spoonful of cereal because he’s pretty sure he is but it’s not a hundred percent. Ghost just gives him a flat stare. Soap snorts, throat still raw. "Oh the ladies must ‘ave loved that."

"They did,” Ghost confirms on a huff of breath, lips twitching in a half smile.

Soap grins, shoveling another spoonful of cereal into his mouth. If he squints he can nearly imagine they’re back at base, in that old run-down kitchen, unable to sleep at four am, shooting the shit over early breakfast. "Got any numbers?"

Ghost tilts his head at him, raises one eyebrow in that way that would mean are you fucking stupid if they were out in the field. "Not really my cup of tea, Johnny," he says.

Soap blinks, catches the meaning. Feels his neck burn like ground zero. "Right," he says because he doesn’t really know what to do with that other than start laughing again.

Ghost holds his gaze for a moment longer, bouncing Joey slightly as he kicks his feet, all handsome scarred face and gentle calloused hands, then says, a strange sort of peace offering, “Aren’t you supposed to pick up the other one in twenty minutes?”

“Steaming Jesus,” Soap swears and bolts, chucking the half-eaten cereal into the sink.

The thing is – it's not like he's never thought about it. 

When they're in the gym and he sees a sliver of Ghost’s hip bone where his shirt rides up as he lifts weights, that sudden flash of heat that has nothing to do with his own workout, feeling faint like he’s some Victorian maiden, or those times where Ghost grabs him by the scruff of his neck to keep him in line when he’s a million miles away during some training exercise and he feels something in his knees go weak at the way his gloves scratch through his hair. 

But he's never actually considered it, never allowed himself to look past a quick fantasy, never let himself look too closely at those moments in between, the things that are not adrenaline-fueled touches and banter, all the stuff they're not saying in the come down.

There was that one time after Chicago, when he hauled himself down those stairs unwilling to set foot into another elevator, legs shaking as he got to that last step, slipping only to be caught by Ghost, miraculously already there even though they’d been buildings apart not a moment ago. That time Ghost pushed him up against the wall in that stairwell, holding what felt like all of Soap’s weight, and leaned their foreheads together, the shouting of the first responders outside all swimming together, drowned out as they stood there, just breathing, until their radios went off in unison with Price calling them back.

But this isn't that, isn’t one of those fucking Hallmark movies Gaz made him watch last December when he tried to imbue him with some sense of Christmas cheer because he'd found out that Soap had requested assignment over the holidays for the past five years. No, this is one mate helping out another, brothers in arms and all that, something they’ll joke about in a year or two, if they’ll live that long.

And so he puts it all to the side, doesn’t let it get past the prickle at the back of his neck, focuses on the things that are actually important, like how Ghost is apparently quite a passable cook, in comparison to Soap who burned one of the pans so bad he had to throw it out with the food still inside, or how it’s all easier somehow now, not just the making dinner and the keeping Cass from throwing half of it across the room, or the getting the kids to bed, but the everything of it, Joey happily chewing away at what Soap learned is essentially a tiny little ice pack, and Cass much less inclined to throw a fit when asked to go to sleep. He wonders, absentmindedly if it has anything to do with how he felt some semblance of calm the second Ghost stepped into the flat, if somehow up until then they could smell his fear on him, like little rabid dogs.

“Where did ye learn how to do all of that?” Soap asks, as they’re cleaning up after dinner, both arms elbow-deep in dirty dishwater. “Got a secret family stashed away somewhere?”

“Learn what?” Ghost asks from where he’s putting away one of the pots he’s just dried, shirt riding up over his stomach, just above the baby monitor he has clipped to his waistband like it’s a radio. “Not to burn down half the kitchen when I’m makin’ dinner?”

“Ah, piss off,” Soap says and flicks some of the dirty dishwater at him. It lands him a nasty glare as Ghost pulls away his arm just fast enough not to get any of it on the now brightly colored tattoo sleeve. Soap nods his head at it, huffs, “Ye know what I mean.”

Ghost is quiet for a moment, just wiping down the pan Soap hands him with the same sort of focus he cleans his rifle with. “Left the military for a while,” he says eventually, putting the pan away with a clink to accept a cutting board instead. There's something in his voice Soap doesn’t think he’s ever heard before, an odd sort of melancholy, both bitter and fond. “A year or so after I joined the SAS.”

“A while?” Soap asks and it comes out too quiet, like he’s just crossed enemy lines.

Ghost puts the cutting board away, picks the knife out of Soap’s hands instead, blade first. “Three years, give or take.”

“Three years?”

“Family stuff,” Ghost hums, flipping the knife, and for a moment Soap expects that to be that, because he knows that there’s a blank space beside that little box on Ghost’s file that reads next of kin, knows that whatever life Simon Riley led before he became a myth isn’t there anymore to return him to. But then Ghost takes the spatula Soap’s offering him and says, with the same sort of casualness he took the mask off with earlier that day, “Dad was a piece of shit. Was bad growing up, but got well worse while I was gone. Kicked him out, realized I had to stay around if I wanted to make it stick. Helped my brother get clean while I was at it.”

“Brother?” Soap asks, still quiet, heart suddenly racing. He catches the smile pulling at Ghost’s lips, the sharp twitch, like it’s an instinct, entirely involuntary. 

“Little brother,” he says. “Tommy. Met a woman while he did AA, Beth. Got married soon after, had a kid. A boy.” His eyes go distant for a moment, just standing there, rubbing at a spot of the spatula that’s been long dry. ”Moved in with them for a little while, back then. Beth got hit with a bad bout of postpartum, Tommy hadn’t been clean for that long, was strugglin’. Just made sense. Had to read a lot of them parenting guides, but we made due.” 

He puts the spatula away, eyes still somewhere far away, and Soap can’t help but think about leaning in the doorway of Cass's room earlier that evening, watching as Ghost sat on the floor by her bed, reading her a story, doing all the voices. Can’t help but remember how he wondered, something in his chest aching he wasn’t even fully sure was there anymore, if it was possible to grieve something you’ve never had.

“What was your nephew's name?” he asks, before he can help himself, feels the past tense of the question as a bitter aftertaste on his tongue.

Ghost looks up, holds Soap’s gaze with so much expression in the lines of his face that Soap suddenly understands why he wears that mask. “Joseph,” he says, and Soap, very briefly, feels like he might throw up.

He shuts off the water, drains the sink, stands there in the middle of the kitchen with his hands wrinkled and wet, feels his eyes itch like they did this afternoon, unable to rub at them.

“You don’t–” he starts, and gets interrupted by the last bit of water gurgling down the drain so loud he’s worried it’ll wake the baby. He waits, tries again, says, “You don’t have to be here, you know. If it’s too–”

Too much, too painful, too bothersome, he wants to say, but it all just makes him feel like he’s about to lie back down on the bathroom floor, and he knows a hundred different ways to defuse a bomb but not what he’s supposed to do about that.

Ghost just looks at him for a long while, holding that dishtowel like he’s about to ward off a knife. Then he says, so earnest that it makes Soap feel like crumbling to the floor anyway, “Where else would I be?”

Soap doesn’t know what to do about that either, so he goes to bed.

He dreams of Las Almas that night, for the first time in months.

It used to be a common occurrence in the weeks after Chicago, nearly calming in how predictable it became – always when it rained, and most nights after he had a drink too many down at the local pub, when the drum of scotch in his veins would turn the route back to base into something foreign, vision swimming at the edges, and then sometimes, just rarely, on those days where Ghost would scold him out in the field to speak english mactavish.

It’s always streets running red, boots slipping on cobblestone, pain sharp, images fuzzy, a knife in his hand, ice cold, heavy, pulling him down, rain drumming drumming drumming as he moves forward through building after building, door after door, over body after body, nothing to keep him company but static in his ear, more damning than any of the blood he can feel dripping down his skin, just walking and walking and walking, building after building, door after door, over bodies and bodies and bodies, their eyes unseeing, until they’re suddenly not, until they’re suddenly blue, stark amidst a face framed in brown curls, looking up at him, her arms reaching out, smile still familiar even in death, his boots slipping slipping slipping in all the red as he tries to reach back, that knife still in hand, unsure suddenly if he’d been holding it the whole time, or if he’d just pulled it out of her chest, if he was the one to–

The door opens, snags on the carpet like it does every night.

He startles awake, entirely silent, entirely still, blinks his eyes open to see light spill in from the hallway, that small lamp by the couch. It’s snuffed out by the shape of Ghost in the doorway, the rabbit beat of Soap’s heart cushioned by the familiar fall of his feet against the floor.

“Bottle?” Soap asks, halfway smushed into the pillow, breathing in Claire’s shampoo. 

“Go back to sleep,” Ghost says, so he does.

THURSDAY, NOV 30 2023

Soap still remembers what it felt like enlisting at sixteen, knuckles bloody, leaving streaks of red on the paperwork, remembers all the shite he never managed to leave at that door, the rage of youth, and the kind of trauma that never really let him sleep easy, that made him accidentally punch his drill sergeant square in the face the first time he got screamed at during roll call. All that stuff that stuck to him well after basic, the red ink on top of his file that spelled out tardy and aggressive and issues with authority like a sign stuck to a picket fence telling people beware of dog.

It’s a reputation that follows him all the way to the SAS, that he works on ironing out so hard it earns him the record for youngest recruit to ever pass selection, the title of perpetual FNG, and a tiny note in barely legible handwriting left by psych at the bottom of the file that reads assess for ocd that no one ever seems to follow up on. He takes pride in it, the hours spent pouring over schematics, memorizing chemical compounds, studying advanced physics, the nights spend at the gym, and how it trips up his commanding officers every time they spot him out on the tarmac, first one there, smiling, mission ready, even if it means setting one too many alarms, skipping breakfast, or dowsing himself in ice cold water.

Admittedly none of that seems to really be applicable here, where for the past week every time he tried to take a cold shower Cass nearly burned the flat down in his absence, but he heard once that today is the first day of the rest of your life or something like that, so he is determined not to repeat yesterday's mistakes, Cass fed, dressed and all bundled up at the door ready to go with ten minutes left to spare– Which is of course when his phone chimes with the reminder that he has to go see the fucking notary right after he drops her off.

He should be done around the time he needs to pick her back up but he can't be sure, not with midday traffic in a city he doesn’t really know his way around anymore, with what looks like a bloody blizzard on the horizon, and anyway–

“Fuckin’ shite,” he swears before his brain can catch up to the fact that he’s currently on his knees in front of a four-year-old, helping her put on her shoes.

“Shite,” Cass echoes, twice as loud, kicking her feet.

“Need help with the velcro, Johnny?” Ghost says from where he’s drinking his morning cup of tea across the room, Joey happily gnawing on his teething ring perched on his lap.

Soap, with unparalleled self-control forged in the most dangerous of active war zones, barely resists the urge to flip him off. “Notary,” he says, sticking and unsticking the velcro with a loud crackle just to be petty. “Forgot I got an appointment till noon, gotta figure out how to get back in time for pick up.”

Ghost raises an eyebrow at him like he’s being stupid. “I’ll pick her up then,” he says, and Soap gets momentarily distracted by how the scar on his cheek twitches with the movement. “It’s just around the corner, innit?”

“Aye, but–” 

Ghost raises the second eyebrow at him, wiggling Joey on his lap as if to say do you really trust me with the baby but not the toddler and Soap doesn’t really feel in the mood to confess that he trusts Ghost with them about a million times more than he trusts himself so he just hangs his head and says, “Sure, fine.”

“Cass, luv,” Ghost says, taking a sip from his tea as he waits for her to turn around. “What do we say when someone does you a favor?”

“Dankjewel!" Cass chimes, then puts her hands on her hips to glare up at Soap, oddly intimidating in her pink puffy coat. “You need to say thank you, Uncle Johnny.”

“Thank you,” Soap smiles, then turns Cass around towards the door so he can flip Ghost off behind her back. Ghost raises his mug towards him in salute, hiding his grin with another sip.

"Drive safe,” he calls after them when they’re already halfway out the door, just about to be late again. “'s slippery as shit out."

Soap leans back in, rolls his eyes, says, "Yeah, yeah, I'll be so safe," but then catches Ghost's eyes, sees that flicker of something earnest in them again, genuinely worried, and amends, something tucking at his chest, "I'll be careful, promise."

It only occurs to him when he’s trying to find a comfortable position in the godawful chairs at the notary office, trying to focus on all the legal talk he doesn’t fully understand, that Ghost must have looked up what happened to Claire, must have somehow gotten hold of the police report, read about the car and the ice and the tree. 

He feels briefly nauseous with the thought – the idea that even for just a moment he must have worried about Soap in a way that feels so entirely mundane, the way friends and siblings and partners worry about each other, car accidents and heart attacks and colds, not grenades and bullets and tanks – and then he’s pulled back into assets frozen in estates, and inheritance split by arbitrary numbers, and him trying his best to impress on them that he doesn’t want any of it, that it should all just go directly towards the kids, trying to make it clear that where he’s going he doesn’t have any use for it.

His head is spinning by the time he makes it out, knee aching and fingers itching for a smoke or the familiar pull of a trigger, and for a moment all he can do is sit in the car – Claire’s car, because he doesn’t even own one, like he doesn’t own a flat, and because it has the kids seats and drives weirdly steady for a beat-up toyota corolla with its engine light always on – with his hands on the wheel, staring out at nothing, memories drumming against his mind like the rain drumming down on Las Almas. 

Those two weeks after it had suddenly been just him and Claire in that kitchen, back when he could still feel the blood on his hands, no matter how often he washed them. He remembers adults in drab blazers telling them it would be alright, that they’d find a new home, remembers one of them saying when they thought he was asleep will be hard to keep ‘em together, ain't nobody want a lad like him.

His phone lights up with Ghost’s caller ID just when he’s about to light a cigarette anyways – self-inflicted sobriety and child safety be damned – and for a split second his pulse spikes so high his chest hurts, eyes catching on the ten unread messages he must have missed somehow as he scrambles to pick up, something at the back of his mind screaming at him that they’re gone, you fucked it up again, they’re gone.

“The kids are fine,” Ghost says the second the call connects, the same way he says coast’s clear, all enemies down. “We’re all fine. Take a breath.”

Soap does, lets out the breath he wasn’t aware he’d been holding, then takes a long one back in, feels some of the world come back into focus, hears the faint sound of kids laughing in the background, and Joey’s telltale babbling. 

“You with me, Johnny?”

Another breath, the phantom sensation of a heavy hand on his shoulder, keeping him steady. “Solid, Lt.”

“Good,” Ghost says, and then, in that tone Soap knows means he’s trying and failing to be patient, he adds, “Because I need you to call the school and tell them I’m not trying to kidnap your niece.”

The only thing calling the school actually does is inform him that getting someone on the approved pick-up list involves a direct request from an already approved guardian and a two-week vetting process, so he ends up legging it there anyway, car parked diagonally over two spots, nearly slipping on the steps as he sprints up to the main gate.

He finds Ghost in front of Cass' classroom, Joey strapped to his chest again in that damn pink baby carrier, both hands hooked into the straps like it’s a tactical vest. The cap and mask are back, expression unreadable underneath not because Soap doesn’t know what to look for but because Ghost is keeping his face deliberately blank, eyes hooded in that way they only get when he’s twenty seconds away from biting a recruit's head off. 

“A’m here,” Soap calls, still halfway across the hall, dragging sludge all over, dripping like a wet dog. Something lurches in his chest when Ghost’s eyes snap to him, right hand twitching towards a non-existent gun at his hip.

“Uncle Johnny!” Cass shouts with something that’s neither excitement nor worry but some secret third thing that has her bouncing on her heels, seemingly only held back from attaching herself to Ghost’s leg like a monkey by Ms. Mackenzie’s hand on her shoulder.

Soap rushes the rest of the way over to scoop her up into his arms, that lurching thing settling again when she slaps her hands against his face in what he assumes is a mix of greeting and reprimand for being late in the first place. Ghost shifts beside him, suddenly so close their shoulders are brushing. Soap feels himself lean back, automatic, looking up for one last check, gaze meeting like it would just before they’re dropping from the back of a plane, one final unspoken i’m with you, no matter what’s next.

“So sorry for the hassle, Ma’am,” Soap says with a smile he hopes is disarming. “Forgot about that pick-up policy, a’m afraid. Still new to this.”

“All good now,” Ms. MacKenzie smiles back, that sticky sweet thing she’s been greeting him with every morning for the past week, usually with a hand on his arm, squeezing too tight to be reassuring. She shoots him a wink, says, “A think we just got a wee bit surprised seeing more handsome military men walking around our halls, is all.”

“Ha,” Soap says, because he’s having a hard time forcing an actual laugh, suddenly regretting the fact that he hasn’t yet mustered up the balls to tell her that it's no use flirting with him, that best she could hope for is a call from Price telling her he's bit the bullet.

Her expression shifts a bit, smile softening into something scratching on pity. "A know it must have been hard," she adds. "Offer still stands, if there's anything you need–" The rest stays unspoken, conveyed instead by a hand on his arm, too tight, too close to Cass for comfort.

"Thank ye," Soap says, feels the smile on his lips strain, tries not to think about adults in drab blazers. Beside him, Ghost shifts again, barely perceptible, just a distribution of weight, the way Soap knows he shuffles his feet to brace for impact. "Appreciate the offer."

"Maybe I can talk to the dean for you, at least," MacKenzie pushes, smile still sticky sweet, hand still on Soap's arm. "See if we could make an exception for your–" She trails off, looking expectantly up at Ghost, who Soap realizes probably never even introduced himself.

"Uh," he says intelligently, though in his defense there isn't really anything he can say, because saying any variation of Simon Riley feels like it's probably a death sentence, and calling him his commanding officer feels like a red flag, even here, and friend feels wrong in a way he can not think about right now, and–

"Partner," Ghost says, voice pitched low, no-nonsense. "We’re partners. Can we go now?"

"Oh," Ms. MacKenzie says, blinking as she processes that piece of information, before she says, “Of course.” which is the exact moment Soap processes that piece of information, and all its implications, and promptly feels that same type of insanity threatening to unravel him that he felt when he saw Ghost at that kitchen table, smiling at him, the one that makes his neck prickle like he's just been doused in steaming hot water.

"Sorry," Ghost says when they're in the car, Soap sitting ramrod straight in the driver's seat, both hands on the wheel, momentarily unsure how he got there in the first place. 

"Hm?" he asks a bit belated, looking back to where Ghost just got done strapping Joey into his maxi-cosi. “What for?”

"Calling us partners," Ghost clarifies as he slips into the passenger seat and Soap can't decide if it stings more to hear him say it again or that he’s apologizing for saying it in the first place. "Just thought it would be easier. We're partners in the field, figured it was close enough."

Soap looks over at him, catches his own eyes in the mirror for a second, a bit too wide. There's something tense in Ghost's shoulders, something achingly close to uncertainty, as imperceptibly as that shift of his feet was a minute ago, only glimpsed because Soap has memorized even the way he laces his boots each morning.

"Right," he says, "Good thinking," and then, drawing a blank and spurred on by Cass kicking her feet into the back of his seat with a force more befitting to an elephant, he shuts up and drives them the two streets home, mindful of the icy roads.

He dreams of Las Almas again that night.

Streets running red, slipping on cobblestone, knife in hand, rain drumming drumming drumming as he moves over body after body after body, static crawling down his back as he walks and walks and walks, building after building, passing through an alleyway now, shapes shifting in the shadows as the church looms in the back, looking so familiar, roof slanted like the one he kneeled in as a kid, further, further, knife tightening in his grip as the shadows shift into men, slipping slipping slipping as he stabs the blade forward, meets flesh and bone, blood running hot over his hands, looking up to find blue eyes staring back at him, stark amidst a face framed in brown curls, her arms reaching out, smile still familiar even in death, knife still stuck in her chest, his fingers wrapped around the hilt–

“Johnny,” Ghost says above him, voice low, chasing away the static. “‘s alright. ‘s just a dream.”

"Clai–" Soap starts, blinking awake, catches himself at the last second, says "Cass," instead, then, "Joey?"

"Safe," Ghost assures him from where he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, a heavy hand on Soap’s shoulder. "It’s four am. They're asleep."

“Right, okay,” Soap nods, trying to roll on his back to catch a glimpse of Joey anyway. His eyes catch on Ghost instead, on the way his curls stick up in odd directions, head framed in a halo of the light spilling through the door. Ghost’s hand shifts with the movement, comes to sit over his collarbone instead, fingers curling around his throat like he’s trying to measure his pulse. It’s racing, Soap knows, can feel it ricocheting in his chest, tearing him apart.

“Just a dream,” Ghost says again, callused thumb dragging across his skin, and Soap remembers suddenly how lately Ghost always asks him to spar on the days when it rains, powering him out enough to send him into a dreamless sleep, and how he started coming down to the pub with them a while back, so he could walk Soap home, one arm hooked around his, keeping him steady, and how he stopped complaining about the tirades of Scottish profanities months ago, as if he'd take time out his day to memorized one of those gaudy phrasebooks.

He remembers those ten unread messages from this morning and how they were all just pictures of Joey, and how Ghost said partners like it was an indisputable fact, and how Cass asked them over dinner if they were mad at each other because Ghost had been sleeping on the couch. 

And he can't bear the thought of watching Ghost walk back out of the room suddenly, thinks with a violent sort of urgency that he can’t survive being left behind like that, feels like he's gonna suffocate here, alone, breathing in Claire's shampoo, and so he reaches up to wrap a hand around Ghost's wrist and asks, before he can really make sense of it himself, “Stay?”

He holds his breath as Ghost blinks, tendons flexing beneath Soap's palm, as he hesitates, is about to take it back, or try to argue that it's not like they haven't done this before, anyway, not like they haven't been piled on top of each other on missions, trying to catch a couple hours of sleep, and what is this if not a mission, really, but all he actually says in the end is, “Please,” so low he wouldn’t even be sure Ghost heard it if it wasn’t for how he falters at the word, how he folds.

“Fucking hell,” he says, just as low, and it should sound mad, or frustrated at least, but instead, when he gets up to shut off the light, Soap catches that same slanted fondness in his eyes he looks at the kids with. “Move over,” he grunts as he shuffles back in, feet loud on the carpet, no doubt on purpose, lifting the covers and nudging Soap to the side with one knee.

“Oi,” Soap protests, suddenly squished against the cold side of the mattress. “‘s fuckin’ freezin’.”

“Come ‘ere then,” Ghost says, reaching out to pull him closer, that fondness bleeding into his voice, and so Soap does.

FRIDAY, DEC 1 2023

There was that other time, maybe half a year after Chicago, when Ghost walked him home from the pub after he had too much whiskey on an empty stomach, and he slipped on a curb stumbling forward with enough momentum that they both went tumbling into some bins, Ghost with a grunt and Soap laughing so hard he nearly threw up. He had tried to wipe coffee sud off Ghost’s balaclava, still laughing, when he realized that Ghost’s hands were on his hips, belatedly clued into the fact that they landed right on top of each other, that they were pressed so close he could feel Ghost’s breath on his cheek, even through the fabric of the mask, close enough that he could pick out all the shades of brown in his eyes, the ember, the green, that one speck of gray.

He doesn’t remember much of what happened after, just that he’d wondered at that moment what it would be like to kiss him, mask and all, and that he had dreamed of him that night, pressed even closer, hands against his hips, a gentle pressure. 

That’s how he blinks awake now, with Ghost’s hand on his hip, fingers slipping past the hem of his shirt, palm halfway splayed out over his stomach, skin sleep warm.

He’s awake, just looking at Soap, hair still sticking up in odd directions, a mess where it’s squished into the pillow. There’s light fighting itself through the blinds, just one singular strip cutting sharp over the line of his jaw, catching on one of the scars, otherworldly and beautiful in a way that makes something in Soap’s chest give a sharp tug.

“Mornin’, sunshine,” Ghost says, voice rough with sleep, barely a whisper. Soap has the sudden, overwhelming, and nauseating urge to kiss him, that tug in his chest bursting into an ache. 

He would too, he realizes, feeling a wee bit insane at the thought. Would pull him closer just to see what happens. Would risk the knife Ghost would undoubtedly put between his ribs for that sort of indiscretion, if it wasn’t for the fact that there’s a toddler currently curled up between them, snoring idly, Cass having apparently found her way into bed with them somewhere during the night.

She shifts in her sleep, kicking one of her little legs square into Soap’s stomach, eliciting an amused huff from Ghost before she turns and kicks him too. Soap snorts, too loud, and the hand on his hip tightens, then pinches him in retaliation. 

It’s still strange, Soap muses as the moment passes and the ache in his chest shifts into something dull, something gentler, seeing Ghost like this, soft muscle under soft sheets, to feel his shin knock into Soap’s, their legs tangling, warm and real, to have his thumb drag over that spot he just pinched. Strange to just get to look at him like this, to get to see the smile lingering on his lips, to reconcile it all with the mask and the myth and the knives, except that maybe it isn’t all that strange after all, because this isn’t just Ghost, never has been, really, this is Simon, not a myth, just a man, one that cracks jokes to keep him calm when he’s bleeding out and keeps snacks in his tac vest for when Soap’s getting hangry.

This is Simon who helps Soap get the kids ready, who bounces Joey on one arm as he grabs Cass's jacket to hand it to Soap with the other, Simon who carries Joey strapped to his chest as they walk Cass to school, each of her hands in one of theirs so they can help make her fly off the sidewalk with every step, Simon who shoos him out of the kitchen with a knife when Soap nearly burns the rice, Simon who reads to Cass at night, hulking frame tucked into her tiny bed, glaring at Soap until he relents and helps him do the voices.

Simon who doesn’t make him beg again when they make their way to bed that night, who just puts a knee on the edge of the mattress after he tucks Joey into his crib, who waits patiently until Soap finally lifts the covers to let him crawl under.

Simon who puts a hand on his hip, who settles beside him with such ease Soap can’t even start to wonder about any of it before he’s already being lulled to sleep by the steady thrum of his heartbeat from where he’s holding onto him in turn.

He wakes to a harsh intake of breath, then the mattress shifting beside him as Simon shoots up straight, legs swinging out to connect with the floor before Soap can fully grasp what’s happening.

“Bad dream?” he asks, still half asleep, voice rough, trying to roll a bit closer, hand hovering at the edge of Simon’s thigh, unsure if he’s allowed to touch.

“Hm,” Simon grunts, and for a long while Soap’s just left staring at the fuzzy outline of his back, heaving with slow and controlled breaths, only illuminated by the faint blue glow of the alarm clock. He nearly drifts back off, already halfway under when Simon reaches down to squeeze his hand, just once, before he gets up and shuffles out of the room on silent feet.

Soap untangles himself to pad after him, has the sudden feeling that this is important, would find it impossible to just let him wander off on his own even if it wasn’t. He finds him in Cass’ room, tucking her blanket back over her shoulders from where she must have kicked it off in her sleep, just kneeling there for a long moment on the floor beside her bed, watching her breathe.

He doesn't say anything when he notices Soap in the doorway, just takes a deep breath, like he has to remind himself how, then gets up to repeat the process at Joey’s crib, just standing there for that same long moment, watching him sleep.

Soap holds vigil with him at the side of the crib, eyes catching on that god-awful blanket draped over the chair by the bed, the one that used to be bright red back when his mam first bought it to swaddle him in. It’s pink now, washed out with age and use, fabric slowly unraveling, patched over more than once, images of unicorns fraying at the edges, looking more grotesque than cute. There are two letters stitched into the corner, a wonky J, and a much more neat C, added later.

He reaches out, runs his fingers over the fabric, tracing the letters, remembers how he used to carry it with him everywhere, before his mam stitched that C in, how he made such a fuss when she tried to coax him into giving it up for his sister, kicking his feet as he sat on her lap, barely able to fit with how round her belly had been. He remembers desperately trying to scrub blood out of the fabric years later, tucked away in the bathroom, his father banging on the door, his nose still dripping on the white sink, staining the water pink.

He can’t fathom, here at two am in the morning, half asleep, why Claire kept it all those years. 

“Hey,” Simon says from beside him, so close Soap can feel the heat radiating off his skin. Soap looks up at him, can’t help the way his throat feels suddenly tight, can’t help how he has to swallow against the taste of copper on his tongue. He tries to read his face in that low light of the alarm clock, feels like a drowning man at sea, searching for a lighthouse on the horizon.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and doesn’t know what for.

“It’s alright,” Simon says, regardless, and then, even closer as he gently nudges Soap forward with one shoulder, “Come back to bed.” 

Soap doesn’t know what else to do, so he does.

SATURDAY, DEC 2 2023

“You weren’t close,” Simon says from where he’s sitting on the park bench beside Soap, legs kicked out in front of him, one hand on the handle of Joey’s buggy, idly bouncing it up and down. “You and your sister.”

It snowed overnight, nearly twenty centimeters, an early Christmas miracle, the city covered in a layer of white that had Cass pressing her face up to the window demanding they take her out to build a snowman. They’re watching her dash across the playground now, chasing some of the other kids with an armful of snow, hat askew, and cheeks red, grinning ear to ear.

“Why you think that?” Soap asks, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

Simon shoots him a look, says, not unking, “You’re in none of the pictures.” He looks back out at Cass, adds, “And we spent the last couple holidays on assignment together.”

Soap remembers – Easter in Laos, tracking through the jungle, running a fever concerning enough for Ghost to carry him on his back for a stretch of it; Christmas in the Caspian Sea, watching coast lights flicker on the horizon from atop an oil rig on the morning of the twenty-fifth, wind biting at their skin, threatening to blow out the one dry cigarette they’ve been passing back and forth between them, their legs dangling from the platform, blood drying tacky on Soap’s face.

"Not anymore, no,” Soap sighs, resigned, watching as Cass tackles one of her playmates to the floor, squealing. “As kids, yes. Had to be. Dad had a temper. Needed to make sure I always annoyed him first."

Much worse than that, but Simon knows that, knows what it’s like, had said dad was a piece of shit in that same casual sort of way. He’s being quiet now, just rocking that buggy, watching Cass, waiting for Soap to continue, and Soap both loves and hates him for it. 

“Ma tried to get away from ‘im when I was twelve and Claire eight,” he says on a long breath, then fast, like ripping off a bandaid, “He found us a couple months later, shot her right in front of us. Barely managed to take a cast iron to his head before he could get to Claire. No other family, so we got put in foster care. Tried to keep us together but well–” He shrugs, looks over to find Simon already looking back, tastes blood. “Figured out very fast that nobody wants the kid that bludgeoned his own father.”

Simon just looks at him for a long moment, that same way he looks at him whenever Soap’s pushing to change aspects of their mission plan that’s not just blowing more shit up – patient, attentive, considering every word. “So you took yourself out of the equation,” he says finally, matter of fact. “Made sure she’d get picked up.”

Soap nods, swallows against the copper, bitter on his tongue. “Ran off for a bit, then enlisted, yeah,” he says. “Send money when I could, gifts when I remembered. Tried to come back a couple times but I–” He huffs out a laugh, watches as his breath escapes in white bursts of fog. “Guess I just wasn’t as good at staying as you. Couldn’t imagine I’d be more use to her here than I was out in the field, you know?” 

In front of them Cass plops herself headfirst down into the snow without a care for any possible injury or reprimand, kicking her feet and legs to shape her silhouette into angel wings. One of the other kids joins in, a little boy with a bright green ninja turtle hat, the mom on the bench across from them rising to her feet as if trying to stop him, before giving up and sinking back down with an exasperated sight the second he hits the floor beside Cass.

Soap takes a deep breath, feels the air burn down his lungs. “Not like I could’ve made it up to her, either way,” he says. “Don’t think she needed me, to be honest.”

“Maybe,” Simon hums, then goes quiet for a moment, just rocking the buggy, contemplating his words until finally he says, casual like he just remembered, “Though – there is one picture of you in the flat.”

Soap snorts out a laugh, feels it drag wet against his throat. “That fuckin’ service portrait she keeps in the hallway? Don’t even know how she got that bloody thing.”

Simon nods, hums again. “You know why she keeps it there?”

Soap turns to him, frowns. “Do you?”

Simon raises his eyebrows at him below the cap, nearly smug. “Sure,” he says. “Cass told me.”

“Spit it out then.”

Something in Simon’s gaze shifts, not quite serious, not quite soft, that strange mix of hope and sorrow he looked at Joey with, that first night in the kitchen. “Because she showed it to Cass whenever she had a nightmare,” he says. “Whenever she got scared. Told her that whatever happened, her uncle would always come and save her, like he saved her mum.”

Soap just stares at him, tries to process the words, feels the air rattle through his lungs. 

Thinks about how it takes two weeks for the school to approve anyone for pickup, and how he’d already been on the list first time he showed up for the kids, and how Claire took her husband's name but decided to keep MacTavish for Cass and Joey, and how back when she found out she was pregnant for the first time, barley twenty, alone in a bathroom, he was the first person she called, keeping him on the line with increasingly ridiculous questions while he sat in some swamp in Louisiana training with a particular obnoxious bunch of SEALs.

Thinks about Claire’s hand in his when they were kids, laughing, making snow angels, and about holding her hand at their mam’s funeral, and about taking her hand in that morgue, for the very last time, and suddenly he feels like he’s gonna split in two, throat burning and chest hurting like it did when he was crumbling down laughing, heaving breaths against the bathroom tiles, because he knows a hundred different ways to disassemble a rifle, but not how to deal with any of this.

"I was supposed to protect her," he says, and only realizes he’s crying as he watches his tears burn holes into the fresh snow. "I was supposed to keep her safe,” and then on a sob that hits him so sudden and violently that that mom across the playground shoots them a sharp look, “I’m sorry– I couldn’t– I didn’t– I–”

“It’s alright,” Simon says, not absolving, just stating, letting go of the buggy to pull him against his side, to hold him together. Uncaring of the world around them. “It’s okay, get it out. It’s alright.”

“I’m so sorry,” Soap tries again, means all of it – his mother, his father, Claire, making Simon sit through his mental breakdown on a Saturday in the middle of the fucking playground, the general shittiness of all the things they had to survive to be here in the first place – and then any coherent speech leaves him, and all he can do is letting himself be held, leaning into the way Simon tucks him beneath his chin, into that stark contrast of the warmth of him and the cold of the world.

He doesn’t know how long they sit there, loses track of time, seconds, minutes, hours all reduced to the way Simon’s hand is splayed against the back of his neck, thumb rubbing soothing circles into his skin, to how he zipped open his windbreaker so Soap could cry into the soft fabric of his hoodie instead. To how he smells like metal and sulfur and the raspberry jam Cass had for breakfast. It’s only when tiny feet step onto his boots that he blinks back to himself, Cass trying to make herself taller so she can reach up to him.

“Don’t be sad, Uncle Johnny,” she says as he scoops her up so she can wipe the tears from his cheeks with her tiny snow-covered gloves. “Simon and I can make ye some hot chocolate. And then ye’ll feel better.”

“Oh?” he says, voice still a bit rough, huffing out a laugh at her enthusiasm. Can’t help but feel lighter for it, can't help but love her so much in that moment that it hurts a little, regardless. “Ye think that’ll work?”

“Aye!” Cass exclaims, giggling as he bounces her up and down on his knee. He looks up at Simon, finds him tilting his head, eyes crinkling beneath the mask, so stupidly fond. He feels lighter for that too, dizzy with it. 

“Aye,” he says. “Let’s go home then.”

They let the kids fall asleep on the couch that night, Cass curled up between them, halfway slung over Soap's lap, while Simon has Joey peacefully sleeping against his chest, wrapped up in pink grotesque-looking unicorns. 

It's a tight fit, even with both of them on opposite ends of the couch, one of Simon’s legs propped up on the floor to make space for Cass, the other pressed up right against Soap’s, calf resting against his thigh, long toes poking into his side. Soap’s hand’s resting on his knee, for lack of anywhere else to put it, soft worn-out fabric under his palms. There are three sets of mugs still littered around the coffee table, little pieces of chocolate stuck to the bottom, bits of salt and caramel, and the tiny marshmallows they picked up on their way home. The whole thing pushed against the wall to make room for where Simon had picked Cass up to fly her around the room like a plane just before dinner.

The TV’s still on but they’re not really watching, some quiz show washing over them in ever-shifting colors, and Soap can feel his eyes grow tired, still burning, just a little. He can’t remember the last time he cried, actually, but he can remember the last time he’s been shot, and the last time he put a knife through someone's throat, and the last time he thought, casually, like he was merely considering tomorrow’s weather, that he won’t make it past thirty-five. He can’t remember ever wanting to, really, couldn’t ever fathom living past the age his mam died, felt, maybe deep down, he didn’t deserve to.

There's an anger inside him he can't contain, always has been, even before it all went to shit, but Simon looks at him now, drooling baby on his chest, and asks, "Alright, Johnny?" and it doesn't make it go away but it makes it go quiet, that rage and hurt, just embers instead of raging flames, and he thinks that maybe if he can have this once in a while – Simon looking at him like that, like he isn't bothered staring directly into the fire – he'll be alright.

That maybe there’s a version of this, out there somewhere, where they make it, after all.

"You'd be a good father," Soap says, without thinking, something in his chest that feels dangerously close to want.

Simon smiles at him, says, soft and hopeful and full of sorrow, "I was a good uncle." 

SUNDAY, DEC 3 2023

“We need to figure out what to do about Sinterklaas,” Soap says the next evening as they’re cleaning up the kids’ toys from the living room floor, both of them already tucked into bed, sound asleep. “Dutch Santa. Arrives the fifth. Way I understood it he comes by boat? From Spain? Brings presents in a big burlap sack, so at least that’s similar.”

He’d been researching it the past two days, ever since Cass got all quiet on the way to school that Friday until she finally admitted to him, just before he dropped her off, quiet and reluctant to look him in the eyes as she grabbed onto his hand with both of hers, that she was worried that he wouldn’t stop by this year. He’d texted her grandparents in a panic right after, tried to get the rundown right from the source, got a voice message back from them explaining it all in a way that made little sense, but sounded weirdly relieved, as if Cass being worried about the potential absence of a made up man and his boat was preferable to the worry of the absence of her parents.

“Ruby said they can bring one,” he continues, snatching up some of the many Pixi books Cass left all over the carpet. “Might be a bit tight with presents, but if we divide and conquer we can probably get it done tomorrow morning? And then we do proper Christmas on the twenty-fifth, what do ye reckon?” 

He chucks the books into the little green plastic bin by the TV, looks over at Simon, expectant. Finds him standing in the middle of the room, one of Cass’ little toy sharks held in too big hands, calloused palms against soft fur, a look in his eyes that says he’s somewhere far away, someplace deep in his mind impossible for Soap to reach.

“Sure,” he says, as Soap takes a step towards him, but it sounds off, like he’s saying it through clenched teeth, like he has to force it past his lips. “We’ll do that.”

Except that they won’t, Soap realizes with such sudden clarity it feels like someone shoved their hand down his throat to rip out his lungs.

Because their Grandparents come by on the fifth – they discussed that this morning, over breakfast, Soap pouring Simon his cup of tea while he was busy helping Cass put jam on her toast – and they’ll bring the burlap sack, and they’ll celebrate Sinterklaas, one last time, here in Scotland, before they take them back with them, the night after. Before it all goes back to normal, no more school runs, or bottles, or bedtime stories, no hot chocolates and nights falling asleep in front of the TV, just him and Ghost spending Christmas getting shot at, chasing that bullet with their names on it.

He feels nauseous with the thought, just as sudden, air punched from his lungs, panicked, scared in the same way he was back when he was twelve watching his father kick in the door, knowing with absolute clarity that this is the end. 

But he can’t admit that, not really, doesn’t have the words, doesn’t know how to say please god let me have this, because he hasn’t prayed in years, and because until this very second he wasn’t even aware he wanted it, and that’s just as terrifying, and so instead he does what he always does, he smiles, says, voice too rough for the joke to land, “What? Getting cold feet?”

Simon hangs his head for a moment, still holding that damn shark, then huffs out a laugh. It sounds wet, absolutely wrecked. “Quite the opposite,” he says, and when he finally looks up, everything else about him looks wrecked too, like he’s barely keeping himself from falling apart.

Soap loves him so much in that moment that he's choking on it, seeing God. 

"Fuck," he says, because really, what else is there, and then, reaching out, "Come ‘ere,” and “Please,” and “Simon–"

But Simon is already there, is already pulling him close, is already kissing him like it's the last thing he'll ever do. Soap grabs onto him with such desperation he nearly slips on one of those damn Pixi books, but Simon catches him, uses the momentum to tumble them backwards onto the couch, lips never leaving Soap’s.

For a moment all he can do is hold on, hands scrambling for purchase, arms wrapping tight around Simon’s shoulders to pull him closer, feeling oddly like they’re in freefall, sharing one parachute, even as Simon’s weight on top of him nearly knocks all the air out his lungs again. He’s all-encompassing when they break apart for air, blocking out the light as he pulls away, cocooning them in, eyes just a little wide, pupils blown, looking down at Soap like he can’t really believe this is happening. So beautiful Soap aches with it.

Soap pulls him back down, presses a kiss against his jaw, and his temple and his forehead and his cheek, open-mouthed, reverent, all of him burning like ground zero. “Simon–” he breathes and then immediately forgets what else he wanted to say because Simon kisses him again, makes a sound against his lips like a man starved, ravenous as he gets his hands on Soap’s hips, under his shirt–

Something buzzes somewhere at his thigh, making him jerk up enough for both of them to gasp with the way it grinds their hips together, before Soap realizes in his haze that it’s his phone vibrating, forgotten somewhere on the couch. He pulls it out, glances at the screen fully intending to just throw it across the room, sees that it’s Gaz, hesitates. 

“Johnny,” Simon warns, biting at his jaw, and he has half a mind to ignore it anyway, but Gaz never calls, always texts, and even with most of his brain focused on the way Simon is splaying his hand across his chest, pushing him back down into the cushions, that still makes alarm bells go off in his head.

“Gaz,” he says, picking up on the last ring, trying for casual and failing miserably when Simon gets his other hand down his pants, because he’s so painfully hard he thinks he might come from that little bit of friction alone. “Not a good time, mate.”

"Are you in Glasgow?" Gaz asks without as much as a hello, in that tone that says shut up, listen. That says danger close. 

Soap’s eyes snap up, catching Simon’s, and there’s maybe half a second where time seems to stand still, where they still exist here, between toys and bedtime stories and Christmas plans, and then Soap pulls the phone from his ear and puts it on speaker. "Aye, why?"

"We got movement on a Konni cell,” Gaz says, voice a little wobbly through the speaker. “Near some apartment block in the city."

"Konni?” Soap frowns, sitting up as Simon pulls back enough so they’ve both got room. “Here?"

"Yes,” Gaz confirms, then, fast and angry in that way that makes his voice grow strained, “Markarov’s alive. MI6 picked up his call sign in some dark web traffic, rerouted it to Laswell. We're pretty sure he's planning something in London, probably knows we split up–"

"So he sent someone to Glasgow to keep it that way."

"Yes. Soap–” Gaz pauses, and Soap can practically see him rubbing his hand across his face, hesitating. “We can't reach Ghost."

Of course, Soap wants to say, his phone is charging by the door because Cass watched about a million episodes of Bluey on it. He doesn’t, he looks at Simon instead, lips still red from where he kissed him not thirty seconds ago, feels oddly like all the times he’s been caught setting things on fire he shouldn’t. But Simon gives him a nod, curt and decisive, like he’s already back in full gear, like he didn’t just have his hand down Soap’s pants, and says, looking directly at him, "I'm here."

If Gaz is surprised he takes it in stride. "Great," he says, more exasperated than shocked. "One worry less."

"How far are they out?" Simon asks, getting up to take a careful peek out the window down the street, shaking his head at Soap before he goes to check the peephole at the door. 

"Hard to say,” Gaz says. “Price says to just get out, regroup at base."

Simon shakes his head at Soap from the door, crosses back to him in two long strides. "You get the kids," he says. "I'll get the rest."

"Kids?" Gaz says from the other end of the line.

"Copy," Soap says, pushing the phone into Simon's hand, already moving.

They meet back in the kitchen, no windows, counter between them and the door if they need to take cover, Simon loading formula and bottles into a diaper bag, pulling Joey onto his shoulder as Soap passes him over so he can put a yawning Cass on the counter beside him. The blinds are already drawn, the kids' jackets laid out for Simon to wrap them up, Soap’s boots lined up at the counter so all he has to do is slip into them before he can snatch the baby carrier from the hook by the door, shooting one glance out into the hallway.

“Still clear,” he says as he comes back around, holding out one of the loops of the carrier for Simon to slip into. For a moment he thinks Simon’s gonna argue with him, tell him to take the kids instead, but he must see the brief moment of panic in Soap’s eyes at his hesitation, because he just wordlessly hands Soap the unicorn blanket and straps Joey against his chest.

“Where are we goin’?” Cass asks from the counter, still half asleep but starting to kick her feet a little, getting nervous. Soap wraps the blanket around her, presses a kiss to her forehead as he pulls it over her head like a hood.

“Just a little trip,” he says, smiling his best smile, heart hammering in his chest in a way it doesn’t ever do out in the field. “Gonna meet some more friends of mine.”

“Like Simon?”

“Aye,” he nods, scooping her up to pass her into Simon’s waiting arms, who immediately tucks her in beside Joey, holding her close, a soothing hand held over her head. “Even nicer. And much funnier.”

Cass frowns, doubtful. Simon shoots him a look, fondness breaking through even as his eyes say piss off. “But you have to be quiet for us now,” he tells Cass, hushed like he’s showing her how. “Don’t want to wake any of the neighbors, do we?”

Soap’s phone buzzes against the counter, one text, all caps – GET OUT NOW

He grabs the diaper bag, straps it across his back, pulls a knife from the wooden block on the counter, flips it once, testing its weight. They might not have any guns – Simon insisted on storing them back in a locker at the gym when he started sleeping on the couch, too aware of Cass’ curiosity – but Soap’s been lethal with a pan, he'll make due with a kitchen knife. One last look, one last check, one final unspoken i’m with you, no matter what’s next.

Then Soap’s out the door.

He runs into the first Konni one floor down, still on the stairs, takes him down with the element of surprise and a knife to his neck, mindful of sidestepping the blood spray. Very grateful that it’s a Sunday night, the only thing keeping him company in the hallway the ever-flickering lights. It gets easier after that, mainly due to the silenced pistols he picks up, dispatching three more before they make it down to the parking garage, Simon catching up to him just as he can see Claire’s car come into view, both of them pressed up behind a column. 

By the time they have the kids strapped into their seats – car checked for IEDs and trackers, phones crushed beneath their boots, Soap squished in the back with them, gun resting between his knees, Simon flooring the gas pedal out of the city, gun tucked under the diaper bag on the passenger seat – there are four more dead Konni littered around the garage.

MONDAY, DEC 4 2023

It’s still dark when they arrive at Credenhill, sun barely peeking past the horizon.

They drove the night through, only stopping once for gas and a six-pack of Red Bull as Soap switched to driving the rest of the way. Cass fussed the first hour until Simon eventually resorted to lulling her under with one of her favorite bedtime stories, somehow managing to recite it pretty much verbatim, voice drifting through the cabin calm and even, nearly sending Soap to sleep with her. 

The helo is already idling when they pull up, tarmac bursting with activity, Gaz and Price right in the middle of it, already suited up, cap and bonnie hat and all, Laswell at their side, barking orders. Soap feels both anticipation and dread, can’t wait to hold a rifle and strap on a vest, to feel less exposed, to get his knuckles bloody, all mixed up with that new and fragile part of him that feels terrified at the thought of putting the kids into someone else’s care, at the possibility of not being there to take that bullet for them. 

He shoots a look back in the rearview mirror, catches a glimpse of the split image that is Ghost and Simon, anticipation in the tight set of his shoulders, ready to spring into action, fear in the slant of his lips and glint of his eyes. He stops the car, kills the engine, takes one last breath of diapers and takeout bags and Claire’s shampoo, one last look back–

“Simon,” he realizes with a start, something sharp about the fact that it took him until this second to notice. “Yer not wearing a mask.”

“It’s fine,” Simon says, looking away to start strapping the kids out of their seats, but Soap knows what it sounds like when he’s lying, can see him grind his teeth.

“‘ere,” Cass says, pulling the little unicorn blanket from where she had it wrapped around her to hand it to him, movements a bit clumsy, still half asleep. “Ye can use this. Like a cowboy.”

Simon takes it from her, careful like he understands the gravity of the gift, folds it into a triangle to tie it around his nose and mouth like he’s staring in some old western flick. “Thanks, love,” he says, tapping her on the nose, unicorns wiggling as his face scrunches up into a smile at her giggles. He catches Soap’s gaze, dichotomy of Ghost and Simon all snapping into one. “You with me, Johnny?”

Soap grins, feels his heart ache, his fingers itch with anticipation as he kicks open the door. “You know it, Lt.”

“Makarov’s in London,” Price says as they’re walking up – Soap with a still asleep Joey in his maxi-cosi, Ghost with Cass on his arm, hiding away, fingers clutched tightly into his shirt – ignoring the way half of the base seems to be staring, or that Simon's face is covered by a baby blanket, and that Soap's got a diaper bag strapped to his chest like it's a tac vest, either out of tact or because he genuinely doesn’t give two shits. “Gears in the helo, Laswell’ take the kids, let’s move.”

“He’s gonna need a bottle in about an hour,” Soap says as he passes Joey over to the Sergeant standing guard at Laswell’s side, shooting the woman a sharp look he hopes conveys i am going to find and gut you if he has as much as a dirty diaper when we come back. “There are snacks for Cass in that bag as well, don’t let her have any of that shite from the mess.”

“And make sure you test the temperature on the inside of your wrist before you give Joey his bottle,” Simon adds, in that same tone he impresses on recruits to always keep the safety on. “You have to–”

“Alright, settle down,” Laswell says as she takes the diaper bag to pass it to the Sergeant, one hand up to slow him down, just a hint of amusement breaking through the gravity of the situation. “I got seven nieces back home, I know how to feed a baby.”

“Seven-month-old,” Simon says, looking doubtful, like he’s the only one qualified to even hold Joey in a ten-kilometer radius, which would be funny if it wasn’t for Price tapping him on the shoulder, nodding towards the helo, urging them on. 

“Wil nie,” Cass mumbles when Simon tries to pass her over to Laswell, so quiet it’s nearly lost in the sound of the helo. Soap puts a soothing hand on her back as Simon tries to get her to look up, gently hiking her higher on his hip only for her to bury her face into his shoulder. 

“Cass, lass,” Soap says, ducking down to look at her. “Kate here is gonna take care of you and Joey. Simon and I gotta go help out our friends for a bit. Protect some people from some very bad men.”

“But a dinnae want ye to go,” she says, on a hiccup that threatens to become a sob, and then, breaking Soap’s heart into a million pieces, “When mam and pa went away they didnae come back.”

“He’ll come back,” Simon says before Soap can find some sort of child-friendly way to tell her about the horrors of war and how it’s much more likely that he won't. “You remember what your ma told you, yeah? Your uncle Johnny’s always gonna come back for you.”

She furrows her brows at him for a moment, then straightens up a bit, sniffling but somehow more determined. “You’ll come back too?” she asks, too serious for her age.

“Promise,” Simon nods, just as solemn, holding out his pinky finger for her to take, waiting patiently as she wraps her tiny hand around it.

“How’d you get her to trust you like that?” Soap asks when they’re up in the helo, putting on their gear in the back.

Simon looks up from where he’s pulling on his jacket, and Soap catches one last glimpse of the tattoo running up his arm, still covered in faint marker stains, red and blue and green and yellow. “Told her I was your friend,” he shrugs. “Back when she found me in the kitchen that first mornin’.”

Soap huffs out a laugh, punctuated by the stick of velcro from his vest. “And she bought that?”

“Yeah,” Simon says, strapping on his own vest, leaning over to tug at Soap’s, making sure it’s tight, before he sinks to one knee to fasten the knee brace around Soap’s left leg. “Only asked if I was here to protect you, like you were there to protect her.”

Soap looks down at him – the skeleton gloves, the eye black, the pink unicorns, the knives – follows his gaze back up as he stands, blocking out the light, cocooning them in, just the two of them for a moment longer. Remembers what it felt like to kiss him, not eight hours ago, tangled up on that couch, and how he laughed so hard two nights ago when Cass slipped and poured orange juice all over Soap’s crotch that he spit out his tea. 

“What did you say?” he asks, checking over Simon’s vest in turn, just for an excuse to touch him.

Simon steps closer, pulls the blanket from his face to put on his mask instead, rolling it up small enough to fit in one of the pockets at the side of his belt. He leans down, presses their foreheads together for a split second, so fast anyone looking would think they’d got knocked together by turbulence. “Said that I’d protect you with my life,” he says, then steps away to grab his rifle.

It only really hits Soap when they’re all geared up, barely five minutes out from London, what they’re about to do, who they are, who they’ve always been. How the past two weeks are the exception to the rule. How that’s a good thing. How that’s what will keep the kids safe, in the end.

How neither of them will make it past thirty-five.

"If anything happens to me," he says, because he knows keeping each other safe is a promise neither of them really get to make. "Protect them for me?"

Simon holds his gaze, nods, says, "With my life."

It all goes to shit the second they split up, the second Soap says that bastard won't go down easy as he watches Simon disappear down the other end of the tunnel.

Well neither will we, Price tells him, calls him sunshine like it isn’t a bad omen. Fifteen minutes later Makarov shoots him first in the back, then in the shoulder, all while Soap’s still holding that fucking red wire, trying to defuse that damn bomb.

At least the kids are far enough away, he thinks in the split second as he goes down, maybe Simon too, they’ve got gas masks packed, he’ll make it out. 

Then he watches Price get shot in the chest. 

There’s not much thought after that, just instinct – get up, grab that knife, ram it through Makarov’s throat. He slips, can’t get enough grip with the way the muscles in his shoulder must be shredded, can’t do anything other than grit his teeth against the pain as Makarov twists his arm around hard enough to white out his vision, the cold metal of a muzzle pressed against his temple, then two shots ringing out in quick succession, bang bang, a rifle, then a pistol.

He feels the pain only as a distant sort of sensation, mostly feels the heat of the muzzle, the heat of the blood as it runs down his cheek, pools warm beneath his head.

There’s someone reaching for him, someone saying his name, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, and as he fights to blink the world back into focus for a moment all he can see is blue eyes staring back at him, stark amidst a face framed in brown curls, Claire’s smile still familiar even in death–

“Johnny,” Simon says above him. “Stay with me. Stay awake–”

Soap blinks harder, tries to obey, catches a flash of something pink, Simon pulling that damn baby blanket from his belt to press it against his shoulder, trying to stop the bleeding. We’ll never wash that out again, he thinks, remembers how he tried and tried back in that bathroom, door rattling behind him, remembers how Claire didn’t give a shit anyway, how she wrapped Cass and Joey in it every night as if it mattered that Soap had snuck it back to her that same night all those years ago, that he sat watch at her bed till morning.

“Johnny,” Simon says, and he sees Claire smile at him, remembers how his jumper scratched over fresh bruises as their mother rushed them out the door, and how that casket felt too small to hold her, and how Cass likes butter and jam on toast, and what Joey’s babbling sounds like when he’s happy, and how Simon’s teeth feel against his lips.

He forces the world back into focus, sees Ghost above him, keeping him alive with steady hands, and Simon behind the mask, looking scared.

“Hey, Lt,” he says, smiling, throat closing, tasting blood. “Let’s go home.”

Then he’s out.

TUESDAY, DEC 5 2023

The first thing he notices when he wakes up is that he isn't dead.

Which is odd, to say the least, because he remembers Makarov putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger, and head wounds, especially close range, are usually well– deadly.

The second is that he’s laid out on a hospital bed, so many tubes and cables stuck in and to him that he looks like he’s come out of some sci-fi flick. Nothing really hurts, but nothing really moves either, and for a while all he can do is just lie there and float on whatever meds they have pumping through his system, drifting in and out for what could be seconds, minutes, hours.

When he manages to keep his eyes open long enough to attempt to turn his head, it’s to find Simon slumped over in a worn-out looking hospital chair, fast asleep, still in half of his gear, cargo pants, and boots, only his jacket switched for one of those gray jumpers he works out in around base, Joey just as deep asleep on his shoulder.

“Simon,” Soap tries to say, because he doesn't know what day it is but he does remember Simon telling him that you should never ever fall asleep with a baby on your chest, but all that comes out is a pathetic gurgling sound, throat raw from where they must have had him intubated. It seems to be enough regardless, because Simon’s eyes snap open, the rest of him entirely still as he keeps hold of Joey, just staring for a long moment, blinking as if to make sure he’s actually awake.

Soap tries to reach out towards him, finds his hand unwilling to move more than an inch, fingers twitching a bit helplessly, so Simon comes to him instead, takes his hand, says, “Johnny,” with such relief Soap thinks he might cry.

“Hey,” he tries again, still just a gurgle until Simon gets him some water to sip through a straw, waiting patiently until he can manage a rough, “Cass?”

“Safe,” Simon nods to the couch behind him, stepping aside so Soap can see her curled up under two sets of blankets. He lets out a breath he wasn’t even really aware he was holding, feels something settle in his chest, quiet down.

“Makarov?”

“Dead,” Simon says, pulling the chair closer to settle back in, shifting Joey around a bit to get him more comfortable when he starts kicking his little feet. “Put a bullet right through his head. Made sure this time.”

Soap nods, feels some of the pain finally bleed in, pulling at his shoulder, drumming against his temple. He can still feel that heat, the muzzle, the blood. He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes for just a moment. “Not that I’m complaining,” he says, head tilting back to look at Simon. “But how am I not–”

“Got lucky,” Simon says before he can finish that sentence. “Just a graze. Barrel got dislodged when I shot ‘im. Shoulder was more critical, bled like shit.”   

“The blanket?” Soap remembers.

Simon pulls a face. “They incinerated that I think.”

Soap snorts out a laugh, ribs aching. “Good riddance. Cursed thing.” He feels himself start to drift under again, eyelids heavy, fights it best he can. “How long was I out?”

“Not that long,” Simon says, pitching his voice lower like he wants to get him to pass out faster, the bastard. “Thirty-six hours or so.”

“‘kay,” Soap hums, eyes already halfway closed, then, jolting awake again with a sudden sense of immense panic, “Hells fuckin’ bells, Sinterklaas, we didn’t manage to get–”

“It’s alright,” Simon soothes with a huff of laughter. “Laswell managed to get a hold of the Grandparents, rerouted ‘em here. They spun her some tale of how he got stuck in Spain. Gaz got them down in the cafeteria now, getting coffee.”

Soap blinks at him, heart beating so fast he’s worried for a moment it’ll alert one of the nurses, processing the words through his drug-induced haze, but awake enough again to remember why Laswell had to reroute them in the first place, how they were here to pick up the kids, how that was the last thing they discussed back at the flat, how everything after went unspoken.

“Right,” he says, and then fast, ripping off that bandaid, because he must have made his decision back when he was bleeding out and there is no scenario where he can imagine ever taking it back, even if it means the end of the only thing he was sure he’d be for the rest of his life, “I’m gonna retire. I’m gonna take the kids. I– I thought I could do it, up in the helo. Just walk away. But I– I gotta stay. I need to stick this out.”

He’s out of breath by the end of it, feeling dizzy, enough for Simon to look mildly concerned. He watches him shift Joey higher on his shoulder, then reach back out to take Soap’s hand, just holding on until Soap’s breath comes easy again.  

“Okay,” is all he says, then.

“Right,” Soap says again, feeling his breath catch again, because he remembers what he thought, always, that they won’t make it past thirty-five, and Simon’s thirty-four and a half, and Soap will make due, he will, he’ll read every parenting book under the sun, he’ll memorize every story and go to every school play, but the thought of doing it all without ever getting to look at Simon across the couch makes him feel like he’s just got shot all over again. “You could–” he starts, breaks off, feeling stupid in a way he hasn’t since basic. “I know it’s a lot to ask but maybe– maybe you could visit? From time to time, when you got leave–”

“Johnny,” Simon says, a bit exasperated, squeezing his hand, maybe a bit too hard. “Okay as in– okay, we’ll retire.”

Soap blinks again, frowns. "We’ll– what."

"We'll retire,” Simon says again, slow like he’s being stupid. “I’ll come with you. Technically don't exist. Not like they can stop me."

"But you– I– just like that?"

"Why not?"

"It's only been a week,” Soap protests, distantly aware he’s trying to talk him out of something he wants so desperately he feels nauseous with it, unable to stop regardless. “You don't know if you'll like it."

You don't know if you like me, he doesn't say.

“Johnny,” Simon says again, exasperated. “I don't give a shit. A week's enough,” and then a bit quieter, getting up to sit at the edge of the bed, still holding Soap’s hand, “Loved you for much longer than that.”

“Oh,” Soap says, suddenly exhausted again, floating. “Really?”

Simon huffs out a laugh, careful not to jostle Joey, shakes his head, hair sticking up in odd directions, framed by the godawful hospital light. “Fuckin’ hell,” he says, so fond Soap feels dizzy with it. “Idiot. Thought that was obvious.”

“Awa' an' bile yer heid,” Soap huffs, then a lot more urgent, fighting with the IV to try and pull him down into a kiss, “Come ‘ere.”

Simon does.

VOICE RECORDING, RETRIEVED FROM THE WILL OF CLAIRE MACTAVISH-VAN HOUT

<< hey little big brother. a’m kinda hoping ye never have to hear this, but we both know that’s not always how the world works so uhm– i know we don’t talk much, and this is a lot to ask from you, taking the kids, but when mar and i were talking about what to do if we’d be– ye know– unable to take care of ‘em– well the thing is it’s not like i don’t like his parents, love ‘em actually, so sweet, but i kept thinking about that time mam took us on the train, how she made ye promise to protect me, and that wasn’t fair on you, back then, i know that now, but you did it anyways, always, even when you left, and i just– i want that, for cass and joey. i want them to feel safe the way ye made me feel safe. loved. happy. i think maybe you want that too. being happy. little cabin up in the highlands like you kept telling me about every time we were hiding under the bed. you’re allowed to have that, if you want. a life. a family. there’s no debt or some shite you gotta be paying. none of this was ever your fault, alright? just– just had to tell you that. probably already know. ye’ve always been the clever one. anyway– just rambling now so– i love you johnny. and i know you’ll keep em safe. and i hope you’ll find someone who loves ye like that too. and i– i love you so much. we love you so much. >>

MONDAY, DEC 25 2023

“Kate sends her regards,” Price says as he hands Soap a bottle of Kentucky bourbon and shuffles past him through the door, Gaz right on his heels. “And a very Merry Christmas.”

Soap steps to the side trying to make space for them in their little crowded hallway, already stuffed full with all their shoes and winter coats, the one-bedroom apartment too small really to hold them and their guests. They’ve been here for about two weeks, already itching to get back out – a little safehouse down in Manchester that Laswell assigned them, familiar territory to Simon, yet obscure enough to allow them to set foot outside, keeping them tucked away until Soap’s recovered and the rest of Konni dealt with.

It’s not really a home, temporary as it is, but it’s cozy enough, Cass's drawings littered around the kitchen table, some of Soap’s mixed in from all the times he’s gotten frustrated with just sitting around, ordered to rest, needing to do something with his hands. Joey’s little rocking chair at the foot of the old discolored couch, just close enough for Simon to rock it back and forth with his foot as he drinks his morning tea, trying to pretend he isn’t laughing at Soap’s attempts to spread butter on Cass toast with one hand in a sling. Flowers on the kitchen counter that Cass insisted they buy because they used to be Claire’s favorites. Three sets of sheets in the bed, one never used because Cass keeps crawling under theirs, Joey’s travel crib pulled right up to Simon’s side.

The smell of turkey and roasted potatoes as they step through to the living room, Simon grunting his hello at them before he takes the bourbon to instead pass Joey into Soap’s arms, hurrying to the kitchen so he can take the potatoes out of the oven.

“You sure you won’t get bored, mate?” Gaz asks him after dinner when Soap hands him a beer in the kitchen, and it’s a joke, just a bit of banter after he witnessed Cass nearly crawl across the whole table to steal a potato from Price's plate because it looked “too funny” for him to eat, but there’s something worried buried below, and in the curve of his brows.

Soap can see a fresh bruise peeking out from under his sweater where it rides up over his wrist, undoubtedly from one of the encounters he and Price had with Konni the past two weeks while he and Simon were out, can see the way he favors his right leg. Can still feel the heat of the muzzle against his own temple, can feel his fingers itch with the need to wrap them around the hilt of a rifle, with the urge to rip the world apart, tear into flesh.

They haven’t talked about it yet, not really, about who they want to be for the rest of their lives, past thirty-five, but a week ago he caught Simon hurling insults at his phone as he was trying to grasp the basic concept of the dutch language, telling him, frustrated, i don’ understand why i have to appease that fuckin’ owl to understand my kid, and two days later, when Soap showed him a little house up north, open kitchen, three bedrooms and a lot of work still to be done, he’d sighed, kissed Soap senseless and told him i aint carrying you over that fuckin’ threshold, which Soap figured was approval enough.

And they haven’t really made much off a plan besides keeping the kids warm and fed and happy, either, but yesterday Simon had found him in the bathroom after they finally managed to get Cass to sleep, and had pushed him up against the door, burying his face into Soap’s neck to whisper i love you, i love you, i love you over and over and over again into his skin as if he was trying to make up for all the times he hadn’t said it, and this morning when they watched Cass tear into her presents from the couch, Soap had put his arms around him, fingers gliding below his shirt, skin still sleep warm, just because he could, and that felt just as monumental, somehow.

He catches Simon’s eyes across the room now, where he’s talking with Price, bouncing Joey up and down to get him to burp, watches him tilt his head in that way that means, Alright, Johnny?

Soap smiles, feels that heat quiet into something softer, embers instead of raging flame. He curves his fingers into a silent okay, means it.

“Aye,” he tells Gaz, taking a sip of his beer. “I think we’ll be alright.”