Home - COD Simon Ghost Riley X Female OC

Chapter 33

Simon was out for a couple hours, the nightmares he faced mercifully familiar. He shook them off like he always did as he rose and changed, taking his antibiotics as he'd been instructed. He knew that if the exchange hadn't gone sideways, they would already be out of there. He would be able to go and find somewhere to hole up for a bit and face what had happened, but instead he'd been stripped of that and so it was all coming up to the surface now and bubbling over. He didn't typically allow himself to be seen this way, even after a particularly hard deployment. Whatever he faced while out, he kept tightly bottled up until he found a safe place to let it out slowly and with care. His bottle was full and he had nowhere to go.

His anger was gone, both toward himself and anyone else involved. It had stayed long enough to make him feel just outside of control, and then it left. He felt weak and tired in its wake, but glad it was gone. He always had some incredible, daunting task to hold his focus. Having to direct it himself, having a choice, left him feeling small and loose. It left him feeling like a boy again, fighting to always make the right one or face god awful consequences. His anxiety could usually be soothed by the chaos of a situation he had been directed to gain control of, but he had no authority here.

He walked through the halls quickly, realizing he wasn't familiar enough with the base to find anything but the kitchen and the medical wing. A few people met his eyes as he passed, most of them just kept their heads down. He barely noticed. He was okay, Price hadn't booted him, he wasn't taking away his life. The man was on the outside looking in and he was doing this for both of them, he knew better than Simon did what running would do to him. Simon had trouble thinking about things like that. The future. Mostly his mind was just in the now and stuck to whatever piece of the past that refused to let him go.

He relieved Soap and took his place in the chair by Mariana's bed. The sergeant said no one had been in, and nothing had changed. Simon thanked him, laying a hand on his shoulder, so maybe somehow he would know that he was glad Soap was alive. That he would do anything for him. Soap nodded and walked out, understanding that anything Ghost did was calculated and meaningful, even if the words couldn't find him.

Simon didn't get to sit in peace for long before Leanne came in. He stood to greet her. His face was covered, as always, but she could see that he looked a little better. Like maybe he had rested. She had seen a lot of soldiers unable to admit just how difficult the prospect of losing another person was, even in the midst of constant death. He was struggling, and it made him so very human. So did his resilience.

He stood back out of her way as she checked on things and emptied a syringe in Mariana's IV.

"She'll be going for a CT scan soon." She turned and looked at him. He was less tense than the previous day. She wondered if it was numbness or acceptance. Or hope.

He nodded. "I'll stay out of the way."

She looked back down at Mariana's hands. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

His eyes softened a bit. "Tell me when she'll wake up."

"I wish I could. She's holding steady though." She spoke softly. She recognized that he needed that.

"Which could be proven or disproven by a CT scan."

She walked past him, patting him on a folded arm. "You're too smart for your own good sometimes, Riley."

When they came back for her, he stepped out into the hall and watched them roll away with her, feeling no better off than he had been the night before. She had survived surgery, made it through the night, but this would be the most telling. They would know if it worked. Rossi had told him she was holding steady, there hadn't been a drop in blood pressure or elevated heart rate to indicate more bleeding but this would be a little more indicative of success. He asked how long before they knew anything, before she returned. They told him it could be a half hour, maybe more.