"Your case will be submitted to the Joint Chiefs. A hearing is set in two weeks. You're suspended from service until then. I'm sorry."
She should've seen it coming. It doesn't make it sting less. Richardson's voice carries an undercurrent of somber, veiled by the rigid professionalism she always puts forward. There's no place for personal relationships in the NSA, not even with the woman that was responsible for keeping her alive for most of her career.
The line goes dead, leaving her standing in Ghost's bedroom with heavy legs. She's supposed to carry the satellite phone with her at all times, in case the NSA tries to reach her. The day that's behind her almost made her forget that her livelihood is hanging on a thin silk string. It was all so easy up until now.
Boarding the plane, falling asleep in his car, waking up in his bed. Washing dishes alongside him was exciting, even though she's always fucking hated washing dishes. Now she has to go back out there and tell him that she's too incompetent to do her job.
The hearing is probably a formality. Fucking up on the second time she's on probation in five years will surely put her out of the race. She's never met any of her colleagues, only ever read about them on paper. One of them has to pick up her slack now. It feels sickening.
Familiar anger rises within her. It emerges out of the heavy sadness, clawing its way through her until she vibrates. A set jaw makes it hard to bite out the words when she sets foot into the living room again. "Got suspended." is all she manages.
Ghost is still sitting by the fireside, sharp steel spread out before him. Hard eyes turn soft with a twist of his head. He doesn't stop polishing the knife in his hand, he's done it so many times, he doesn't need to look at what he's doing. Only when she doesn't move from her spot in the doorway does he put the rag and knife down on the floor.
The anger flares higher as embarrassment fans it. His look is knowing. Like he's stripping away her layers, revealing her insides that are twisting. She feels like throwing up when he speaks.
"For what?"
His voice edges on impassive. This is one of the moments she wishes he would show a little more of himself on the outside. Or maybe he really doesn't care. It's hard to tell sometimes with Ghost.
She swallows around a bunch of words. Yes, for what exactly? Disobeying direct orders? Circumventing rules of engagement? A combination of missteps in the last two years that ended up with her being handed over to the 141 when Laswell came knocking? The memory of her shattered tableware strewn around her kitchen after she had gotten the call for reassignment is clear as day to her. Now she feels sorry for all the plates and cups she had to replace, seeing as being reassigned took her on one of the most exciting rides of her life.
"I don't wanna talk about it."
Not because she doesn't know how to explain it all to him, or because she's not sure she can keep tears at bay if she tells him that she'd been alongside him as a punishment that turned into so much more. She really doesn't want to. Keep the little bubble she and Ghost have been in for the last 24 hours intact a little longer.
Thankfully, he doesn't prod. Just motions her over to sit back down next to him. Every step feels lined with led, heavy feet thud over the floor. "See, you want to hold it like this." he casually says as he holds up the whetstone and glides a blade over it.
Her eyes can't seem to catch onto the demonstration before her. The grinding noise of steel over the stone is agitating to a point where it hurts. Instead they focus on his blonde head of hair. A soft shade of warm golden hues, shaved at the sides from when she last saw him. He looks younger like this, the hairstyle almost too playful for the type of person she came to know him as. A scar on his scalp just over his ear breaks up the neatly trimmed hair, but on what part of his body doesn't this man have scars.
Her lack of attention for what Ghost is doing doesn't go unnoticed. His features shift through a few things while they just look at each other, the only noise breaking the silence being the cracking firewood next to them. They stay fairly neutral as his hand comes up to stroke over her hair. "You'll be fine, love." he says.
It doesn't process while her head whirrs with things that are currently falling in on themselves. Money is in there, her dad, the apartment in Baltimore. For all the focus she can muster during deployment, she's horrible at fishing out the important things when she's home. Confusion flashes over his face when she doesn't react. She catches it too late, trying to twist her face into something that doesn't reflect the storm raging inside her. The knife goes to the floor for the second time, his body shifting closer to hers. Conflict about whether to invite him or flee goes through her with a twitch, her body not sure in which direction to pull. He ignores it, choosing to just sit beside her. Bourbon underlines his natural scent, a wash of oak and something dark coming over her.
In spite of her earlier conflict, she leans towards him with almost pavlovian conditioning, not a single muscle needing a conscious thought formed to move it. Fabric softener mixes alongside his scent at the border of skin and the collar of his shirt, another unconscious move turns her head towards him after coming down on his shoulder.
"I've been suspended before." he calmly says as his hand searches for hers. It's not really as comforting as he intends it to be.
Their fingers intertwine and she squeezes, knowing she's a second away from breaking the dam. It doesn't feel as big and scary the first time it happened. But there was also a substantially weaker connection between them and she left half of the truth out. A thing she won't be able to do now, not with the strong hand stroking her forearm with slow and steady movements. "Maybe it's for the better. I'm pretty fucking tired." she sighs.
It hits her harder every single time she comes home. A raw and heavy type of tiredness that sits in your chest and bones, sluggishly sloshing around in your body as you move. "If I knew that all I would get is a bad back and PTSD I would've never enlisted." she says, making Ghost chuckle.
The dam is cracking. She's close to overflowing and it's not something she wants to burden him with. Angry tears already sting at the corners of her eyes. Anger at herself mostly. But also the NSA and Richardson for ordering her to shoot unarmed people and simultaneously yelling at her for actually doing so to people with their finger over the big red launch button. "You signed up for this." is what Richardson would say to her, the pressed tone of her voice clearly audible right now. She did sign up for this. But the hand that put down the signature doesn't feel like her own anymore. Too much has happened. One of those things is currently sitting beside her.
"Why did you enlist?" he asks. It's a relief, steering her away from all the things thumping in her head. So the answer comes quick.
"Just didn't wanna go to college."
"Really?" he asks again, genuine curiosity in his voice. It's her turn to smile. All this talk is giving her a way out of tackling the real thing.
"Got a degree in computer science during my service, funnily enough. Just before I commissioned to the MARSOC."
That sentence makes him turn his head down towards her.
"You're special forces Gloss?" he questions. The inquiry flies over her head at first, another thought currently occupying her mind fully.
"Maybe we've seen each other before, we used to train with the SAS at Lejeune." she muses. Although Ghost would've been fairly hard to miss, with or without the mask. Her brain tries to follow the line of thought. What if they would've met all those years back then?
"I don't think so love, could never forget your pretty face." he murmurs. "But you've never told me you're special forces." he follows up again, turning his body to face her.
"All of us, I mean all the cells are, it's-" she breaks off with a hand over her mouth. All the anger over her impending unemployment but her head still shuts off when she breaches secrecy. "I-, I shouldn't tell you this. The last thing I need is to be indicted for treason."
His face falls a little at that, it hurts even more on top of everything. The fact that they're holed up in this house could very well be more potential for trouble. More tears sting at the realization, she was so enamored with Ghost and everything around him that the possibility of such a thing didn't even occur to her. He sees the wet sheen over her eyes now and it's his stupid fucking face turning soft that gets her. She's not wailing, all her hiccups completely silent, but wet spots form on her sleeves nonetheless when she wipes her eyes. Everything is over quickly thankfully, a few thoughts dedicated to the day she had up until the phone call manage to turn her around from the edge pretty swiftly. Ghost disappears somewhere, leaving her to sit beside the pile of knives and the dying fire. A cold glass is pressed into her hand when he returns. Amber liquid sloshes around in it, the familiar scent of whisky emanating from it. It's all she ever sees him drink. Well that and tea, but that's a given with him.
He holds a glass of his own, coming back down right beside her. They're still sitting on the floor, it feels right though. He clinks his glass with hers in a playful manner.
"Always helps me when I'm down. Go on, s'the finest shit I own."
It doesn't burn as much on the way down as she's anticipated. Not her favorite, but it warms her and by the second sip something fuzzy settles at the base of her skull.
"You can worry about all that shit tomorrow." he tells her. "What matters is that you're here. Safe. With me." his words get quieter with every inch lost between them, the last one disappears on her lips with a chaste but firm kiss from him. The whisky laced press of his lips quiets her mind for a moment, giving her an opportunity to shove everything to the side, to be dealt with later. Ghost's words themselves stir up a whole bunch of other things though. He's not a big speaker, everyone knows that. She likes that about him. But they carry something with them, something that she's not even sure Ghost himself knows how to handle. All the dirty shit he says when they have sex comes easy, because it's just that, dirty shit said in the heat of the moment. Framed and within the bounds of intimacy. That's not heavy. What's heavy is the stolen looks, the warm palm of his hand in hers when he led her through the woods this morning and the food he cooks for her.
She knows that to become present also carries the risk of absence, and she's fine with that. Whether Ghost is too remains to be seen.
Words sit in the back of her throat, sharp and potentially destructive they cut her sensitive skin. But is it more damage if she piles it on now? It'll just mix with everything else, what does it matter, really.
Her hand clasps around Ghost's neck, keeping him close to her. This has to be close, with as little space between them as possible for all the words to find their target.
"If you'll let me Simon, I'll stay forever."