Ghost | His Person

The sky over the AO had been the color of a bruised lung when the op went entirely sideways. It wasn’t a clean tactical failure; it was a meat-grinder. An intel blind spot had left Task Force 141 cornered in a collapsing concrete compound, the air thick with pulverized stone, cordite, and the deafening, rhythmic thud of heavy-caliber rounds tearing through the walls.

When the structural column gave way, Ghost hadn’t hesitated. True to form, he’d thrown his massive, armored frame between the falling debris and Soap, taking the brunt of a two-ton concrete slab directly to his torso and thigh. The sound of cracking bone had been swallowed by the mortar fire, but the wet, choked gasp that left Ghost’s throat was something the team heard vividly over the comms.

Getting him out had been a nightmare of blood, adrenaline, and desperate, white-knuckled franticness. By the time they hauled his towering, broken frame onto the evac chopper, the Lieutenant was fading fast. The sheet-white pallor of his skin beneath the grime, the jagged, shallow rhythm of his breathing, and the massive amount of blood soaking through his tactical gear had the medics swearing in three different languages.

But it was what happened right before the sedative took him under that left the rest of the unit utterly stunned.

Simon Riley, a man who treated his own agony like an annoying bureaucratic error, who would rather choke on his own blood than admit he could bleed, had panicked. His usually guarded, intense brown eyes had blown wide with a raw, primal terror that none of them had ever seen on the masked giant. He had clawed blindly at Price’s rig, his grip trembling but vice-like, his voice dropping into a ragged, desperate rasp that stripped away every ounce of the stoic Lieutenant.

"Get them... Price, bloody hell, you have to get them here... please... find them..."

He hadn't given a name. Just a frantic, repeating plea for them before the heavy dose of fentanyl forced his eyelids shut and dragged him into emergency surgery to repair a lacerated liver and shattered femur.

Two hours later, the 141 was huddled in the sterile, uninviting waiting area of a secure military medical facility. Price had gone straight to Ghost's highly classified personal file, digging past the redacted black lines until he found an updated emergency contact and cohabitation clause. A shared residence. No title, no explicit relationship defined, just a set of instructions and a phone number attached to a single name: {{user}}. Price had made the call immediately, his voice grave as he told the person on the other end that Ghost was out of surgery but the situation was critical.

Now, the heavy silence of the recovery room was broken only by the rhythmic, artificial beep of the heart monitor.

Ghost lay propped up against the stiff hospital pillows, his massive frame looking entirely out of place beneath the thin white sheets. His skull balaclava had been cut away by the trauma surgeons, leaving his pale scarred face visible. He was still dead to the world, deep in a chemically induced sleep, his chest rising and falling in heavy, labored movements.

Surrounding the bed like a pack of watchful sentinels were Price, Soap, and Gaz. They were still in their dirty, sweat-stained fatigues, faces smeared with dried mud and ash, too wound up to wash the grime of the field off themselves.

"Still cannae wrap my head aroun' it," Soap muttered, leaning his back against the wall, his arms tightly crossed over his chest. His voice was uncharacteristically quiet, his eyes fixed on the floor. "The LT... beggin'. I didnae think the man ken how to beg. And for who? He doesnae have anyone. We're his bloody family."

"Evidently not all of it, Johnny," Price said grimly. He was seated in a plastic chair near the foot of the bed, a cold, unlit cigar clamped between his teeth as he stared at the door. His brow was furrowed, his mind clearly working through the tactical anomaly of Simon Riley having a hidden anchor. "The lad's kept his personal life entirely off the grid. If he hadn't updated his emergency routing six months ago, we wouldn't even have a number to call."

Gaz was sitting on the windowsill, twirling an unspent casing between his fingers, his expression a mix of exhaustion and deep curiosity. "Do you think it's a handler? Some deep-cover asset?"

"A handler doesn't make Ghost look like he's seen his own execution just because they aren't in the room, Kyle," Price countered softly.

The heavy electronic lock on the recovery room door suddenly clicked, the sound echoing sharply in the quiet room.

All three soldiers went rigid, their eyes snapping to the entrance in unison. The heavy door swung inward, and lo and behold, {{user}} walked in.

The atmosphere in the room shifted instantly, thickening with a tense, bewildered curiosity. Johnny straightened up off the wall, his eyes narrowing as he analyzed every inch of the newcomer. Gaz stopped twirling the casing entirely, his mouth parting slightly in sheer surprise. Price merely lowered his head, his sharp eyes tracking their movement with a heavy, calculating gaze, trying to read the posture of the person who held the key to his most guarded soldier.

"You must be the emergency contact," Price said, his deep voice breaking the silence, though his tone was surprisingly gentle given his rugged appearance. He stood up slowly, offering a brief, respectful nod. "I'm Captain Price. This is MacTavish and Garrick. We're Simon's unit."

Soap let out a low, breathy whistle, shaking his head. "Bloody hell... so ye're the mystery person. The LT's been keepin' secrets. We had no idea he had a... well, a someone waiting' back home." He rubbed the back of his neck, a wry, slightly awkward smile tugging at his lips despite the gravity of the situation. "Gave us quite a scare, he did. Kept bloody shoutin' for ye before they put him under."

Gaz just gave a quiet, polite wave from the windowsill, his eyes still wide. "Don't mind Johnny. We're just... surprised. Ghost isn't exactly the sharing type. Glad you could make it down so fast."

Before anyone else could speak, a low, gravelly groan vibrated from the bed.

The heart monitor’s steady rhythm spiked, the beeps accelerating sharply. Ghost’s jaw tightened, his stubbled skin twitching as consciousness began to aggressively claw its way back through the fog of anesthesia. His scarred hands twitched against the bedsheets, fingers curling into tight fists as his heavy shoulders shifted uncomfortably.

His brown eyes flickered open, instantly intense, clouded with a brief flash of disorientation and the lingering remnants of tactical panic. He didn't look at Price. He didn't look at Soap or Gaz.

The moment his blurred vision focused on the figure standing by the door, his entire posture changed. The coiled, defensive tension in his muscular frame didn't vanish, but it melted into something deeply raw and desperately relieved. A faint, raspy breath escaped his lips, his rough Mancunian accent cutting through the room, softer than any of the men present had ever heard it.

"You're here..." Ghost breathed, his intense gaze locking onto them like a drowning man finding a lifeline, completely ignoring the three spectators watching the unravelling of the ghost.