The Bullet's Mark (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Fanfiction)

Chapter 7

    "Roach?" I almost dropped the rifle situated in my right hand. "Roach! Y-You're alive?"
    He stepped closer, rain dripping off the edge of his nose. "I've been looking everywhere for anyone!"
    I stood frozen as he scooped me into a hug. Feeling his heartbeat against my own was, without a doubt, a relief and a jaw-dropping experience. I slowly hugged him back, squeezing as tightly as I could. Alive. He was alive and here right in front of me. He wasn't dead. I wanted to ask so many questions but currently the hug was enough. Hell, it was almost too much to believe.
    Roach let out a breath of comfort, his biceps flexing harder just before he released me.
    "How are you here? Why?"
    "Soap always mentioned a safehouse here," Roach breathed, pulling up his hood to avoid getting more wet than he needed. "It was set up so if things got hairy, we'd be able to protect ourselves. Were you there?"
    "I was," I nodded.
    His hazel eyes studied me. My parka and the rifle, my hair and my muddy boots. "You look like you're leaving."
    "I am," I cleared my throat.
    "What?"
    "I can't afford to have a team anymore Roach," my throat tightened when I said the words aloud. "I'm better off a lone wolf."
    His eyes narrowed from their surprised position. The over-grown scruff on his face twitched as he understood my words more clearly.
    "We need you!" he shook me, pleading like I'd never seen. "Sam, you can't do this. We need everyone we can get to hunt down Makarov."
    Didn't surprise me he was joining the hunt; I just didn't know how much he was caught up on things that had gone on. Roach was an amazing soldier—that fainter, deeper English accent would get him places, people, and information real quick—and he was smart. He had to know more than he let on.
    "I'm hunting my own way."
    Roach's hopeful gaze dimmed and he slowly nodded. "Right. Can you at least point me in the direction of the safehouse?"
    "Follow the road out of town and take the first split left. The second split will show a more abandoned road. That's the one."
    "Thank you," Roach swallowed. "I'm alive because of you, you know that right?"
    All the more reason for me to leave now. Your life won't be risked twice.
    "You saved yourself."
    Roach fell silent as he watched me push past him, pulling my hood up, and get back on the path to reaching Makarov. I glanced over my shoulder as I put distance between us.
    "Good luck on your hunt Roach."
    I walked a solid three steps before his voice stopped me in my tracks.
    "If you won't do it for the living, then do it for Ghost." He noticed my pause and cleared his throat. "You're still a part of the One-Four-One and always will be. Just think about what Ghost would say if he were here. He'd want you to be fighting alongside your comrades, your family."
    The rain was loud on my hood as I stood there a moment longer. My eyes were downcast to where the raindrops were slamming into the puddles nearby. When I raised my eyes, they were burning with tears that I loathed every ounce of.
    "Ghost is dead. There is no One-Four-One. Stop living in the past or it will get you killed."
    I continued through the sloppy ground, leaving Roach with those final words.

"....We were like one big family, a big pack. They are the reason why I swore to never join another group. I'll never find something like that again."
    "What if you did?"
    "Then I wouldn't let it be ruined like the last one."
    Ghost and I had been walking in the hallway after I'd almost resigned from the Task Force. It was a moment of reflection and opening up about my past. He'd been the one to try and stop me after all.
    "Don't limit yourself," Ghost nudged me. "Every group has a chance to be the best."
    I huffed and squeezed his shoulder. "Thank you Ghost."
    The memory was clearer now than ever. His painted mask, faded and worn down from all of it's use, had almost always covered Ghost's facial expressions. Yet anyone could tell how he was feeling.
    His face was also so incredibly clear when I remembered the day he'd assigned me a nickname. Fox. Deceptive, sly...and cute according to Roach. The name had stuck through the next mission, the same day as Ghost's death.
    The same day he'd saved my life from a Russian who'd gained the upper hand.
    That was too close, mate.
    It was Ghost, I realized now as I sat on an embankment just outside of the town, who had been the one trying to sober me up. I'd been so stuck in the past and certain there would never be another team like the one I'd let slip through my fingers. Ghost made it possible for me to see that another bond like that was right in front of my damn face.
    It was also my fault he'd died. If I had spoken up sooner, reacted quicker...he didn't have to die. Not like that. Shepherd's cheap shot was just that...cheap. Cowardly.
    I watched the ocean, angry underneath the storm clouds, as it swept around. Not too far behind me I'd found a phone to use for contacting Makarov. I threw around the idea many ways.     Bringing him here would threaten the safehouse. He would question everything. Also bringing him here would mean I'd get away, which meant leaving the men in the forest miles back. To give myself a moment to decide, I'd sat on the edge of a hill, hugging my knees.
    Ghost had come up through thinking about how Roach, shockingly alive, had mentioned the fallen soldier. From there it blew up into a mental exploration of memories, of hints at direction.
    Don't forget who you are.
    It was something Ghost had said when I was doubting the lone mission to potentially kill Makarov. The mission had been a failure.
    You are very similar to your mother. She also had a soft heart for apologizing...
    Shepherd's words left me bitter and I bit the inside of my cheek at the memory of our awkward meeting when I'd first joined the Task Force. He always slammed my mother, calling her weaknesses my own.
    Perhaps he was right. That I did have a softer side to my heart. That's why the betrayal with Blackjack was so heartbreaking. Why Ghost dying had shattered me, Roach's supposed death really completing that feeling. That feeling of being alone...that emptiness...it's what being a lone wolf was and what shielded me from being too soft.
    I raised my gaze up from where I fiddled with a rock. "A lone wolf."
    Was it really what I wanted? Would it really get me anywhere?
    Every group has the chance to be the best...
    I stood and chucked the rock as hard as I could down the hill, watching it bounce into a puddle below. The rain covered up the bothered water as it continued to pour from the sky. I wiped the tip of my nose and then faced the outline of the town, eyes traveling past it to where a safehouse sat in the trees.
    I'd been in denial for so long. I'd thought there were never going to be comrades like Joey and Bruce and Jon...how wrong that was. Some of the best comrades I'd ever had were back at the safehouse planning to take down a very dangerous man together.
    The man I'd convinced myself was gone like others, one who I silently loved, was back there too. An older soldier who had not abandoned me, but searched for me that day in Afghanistan was with Soap. Roach, the bubbly younger man who we all thought had been dead, was there too. Even Yuri, someone I didn't know or trust, was there planning with the team.
    I was stupid to leave.
    The Task Force 141 was still very much alive. However, it was better to call it...disavowed. The soldiers in it were out for blood. It was up to them to end what they'd been a part of since the beginning. That ending meant going after Makarov.
    Just think about what Ghost would say if he were here.
    The right thing. He'd say to do the right thing and to remember who I was: Samantha 'Fox' Hall. A soldier of the Task Force 141 and a comrade to those in it.