Writers Note: Sorry about the wait, work and life have been crazy. Also, thank you? I can't believe you guys like what comes out of my brain. Again, if y'all haven't read Ghost's backstory and comic, please go read them.
TW: Mentions of sexual assault, Ghost has a trauma induced panic attack.
Ghost went to the door and opened it, not saying a word or making a sound. His eyes had dried immediately as soon as Kate had knocked on the door; tucking his memories back into wherever he hid them inside himself. Kate entered the room with a simple greeting to Ghost. I stood and watched her round the desk and take a seat in Ghost's chair.
"I'll leave you to it," Ghost said, turning to exit the office without looking me in the eye.
"No," I said before he could leave the room, "stay."
He turned and flicked his eyes between Laswell and me. I could see he was still recovering from whatever was going on in his head before Laswell had arrived, but he was relieved that I had asked him to stay. "It's alright Lieutenant."
"Are Price and Gaz with you?" I asked her, trying to stop myself from being intimidated by her presence filling the room. Confidence and pure feminine power seemed to waft around her like an invisible aura, drenching the air with a silent command to respect her.
"No, Gaz has been put on medical leave, Price is working," she answered. I didn't appreciate how fast she wanted to get this conversation over with, although I knew that she was on a time limit here with these missiles. I couldn't imagine the anxiety that went along with being the chief on an international terrorism investigation. It had to be weighing on her shoulders. I understood little ol' me was the least of her concerns and I was making a mess of her schedule. But Philip's comment was the straw that broke the camel's back, I could no longer sit in the dark of what I wasn't being told.
"What is this about?" Laswell asked, tone formal. I couldn't believe that she was standing in front of me after being kidnapped and possibly tortured by a terrorist organization. She didn't have time to rest or settle herself after that trauma, she had missiles to find and people to save.
"I want the truth," I said, putting my hands on my hips. I heard Ghost move around behind me, leaning around the office bookcase that was empty on the left side of the room. "All of it."
"I am not sure what you mean?" Laswell did not seem to be playing dumb, but she was also keeping that one piece of this situation under wraps. She wasn't going to reveal anything unless I asked it directly. "Can you be more specific?"
"I want to know who I am to this team, and I want to know why I am being used the way that I am," my words weren't commanding, but I was making it clear that I was done being lied to, I was done being kept in the dark. "I would also like to know how Philip Graves personally knows my assaulter."
"What?" I heard Ghost say from the side of the room. He was being genuine, there was surprise in his tone. My eyes went to the man leaning with his arms crossed over his chest.
"When I told him off about making the deal without discussing it with you first," I took a deep breath, "he told me that Oswald warned him about me."
"He threatened you?" Ghost's hands went to his sides, and I saw his hand twitch. He had completely forgotten about the story of my nephew; he was in his darkness now. Pitch Black.
"Not a threat, it was intentional intimidation," I answered. Ghost seemed to shake with fury as I let what happened roll off my shoulders. I saw movement in his eyes that told me that he was even more distrusting of Graves than he was before.
"Jamie, I am sorry I don't know how Graves knows Master Sergeant Oswald, but I will look into it," her voice was sincere, and I believed that she was telling the truth. Her eyes went to Ghost and nodded to him, "as for your place on this team..."
"I want to know why Shepard approved of me without even meeting me and why I haven't been used for any of the purposes that I was originally recruited for," I said. My frustration was growing with each of the unanswered questions. "I've been kept in the dark for two months now, and in that time, I have kept my mouth shut but the jig is up."
Kate's eyes kept going back and forth between Ghost and me, then she filled her lungs with as much air as she could and released all of it, "if I tell you, I cannot release you and send you back to Washington D.C."
I swallowed and I felt my blood drain from my face. My eyes went to Ghost whose eyes were looking at me with narrowed ferocity. I furrowed my eyebrows at him with confusion, why was he getting so angry?
I turned my attention back to Kate and noticed that her lip was slightly purple and puffy, and I felt a pang in my chest. I didn't like that a fellow woman had been hurt, even though I knew how strong she was, I knew what she could go through and still hold her head up in power. I wanted to be like her, I wanted to not have the fear and the disgust that I had for myself every time I looked in the mirror or when I looked down at my hands that felt dirty, even when they were freshly cleaned. "My father used to tell me that trust is earned, not supplied..." I sat in the office chair, taking a similar stance as Kate who sat across from me.
My father. I might not ever get to see him again if I told her that I wanted to stay, I may never get to see my mother, or David, or little Parker Hendricks again. But the flashes of getting the team out of that compound, piloting a helicopter again, being useful, and saving lives. Being a member of this team had given me a newfound sense of pride and power that I thought was gone for the rest of my life. I had been so scared to go into that compound because I knew men were going to be touching me, but I knew what my body was capable of, I knew what I could do with it. That was my body, it had been my choice.
Then there was Ghost, Simon, Bravo 0-7. I had grown an outward attachment to him that I knew was neither healthy or affectionate in the slightest, yet I didn't know how I could walk back to the life I once had knowing he had saved my life and I had saved his, I had allowed him to crawl under my skin and heal me from my past with a darkness that I knew I was going to rue letting in one day. That darkness made me evil, impulsive, violent, and disobedient but it felt like heaven to wrap around myself anytime that I needed it. It gave me something to believe in. It made me believe in myself.
I was going to fight for my family, fight for my teammates, fight for the safety of the world and I was going to do it alongside Simon and Johnny and Kyle and John. I was going to be strong like Laswell, take back what was taken from me three years ago. I wasn't going to fade and disappear. The only person that was going to win was me, and me only.
Ghost was telling me something with his eyes, but I couldn't read it. He was angry though; agitation was rippling around that stonelike body of his. "I'm not going anywhere; I want to be a part of this team." I announced.
Laswell nodded and smirked at Ghost and then back at me, "well then."
"Now I want the full story, all of it," I commanded.
"Second drawer, last file," Ghost said, he picked himself off the wall and rounded the back of the room to hand Laswell a set of keys to the desk. He stood behind her as she rummaged through several files, before pulling out a burgundy folder that had a name on it that I did not recognize. 'Alex Keller.' The folder was thick and messy, papers sticking out on all sides like it had been flipped through several times, sorted and unsorted.
She flipped through the file and pulled out a picture of a man. He had the look of a soldier, buff upper body with a tattooed sleeve. A thick mustache and thin beard dawned his face with blond hair that spiked up a little more in the front. He had kind blue eyes and bushy eyebrows that needed a good plucking. "You were in Afghanistan four years ago; you did six medical evacuations on that tour."
I nodded and remembered the numerous helicopter support missions Jackie and I had done together. I remembered the blood on the floor of my helicopter that we had cleaned for hours. I shook my head to get the images out of my head. There was another man that we had saved that day, an American soldier in the back of that helicopter with his shoulder in a sling and a bandage on his head. He had a mustache, I remembered that, and he had tattoos on his arm. "I recognize him," I confirmed. "I picked him up along with a British soldier, they were both pretty banged up. British soldier was a casualty."
Ghost and Laswell exchanged looks; I had confirmed something for both of them.
"His name is Alex Keller, we thought he died in a chemical facility explosion at the beginning of 2019," Laswell continued on. I looked at the picture a little longer, taking my time to remember the man in the back of the helicopter that day. Yes, that was him. "Until you picked him up twelve weeks later."
"I am failing to see how this makes me special to the team besides basic coincidence," I said, lifting my eyes from the picture and leaning back on the chair.
"You were the last person to see him alive," Ghost said. Laswell snapped her head to give him a look of death. "We had been searching for you for a long time, but there was no record of you in the system anymore- "
"You knew about all of this?" I snapped at him. His eyes narrowed at me with unified distrust, but I didn't give into his intimidation. I kept my eyes on him and pursed my lips. I guess Jackie was right, I couldn't trust him.
"We didn't know who the helicopter pilot was until Ghost brought your CAC Card to me and confirmed it," she said, she kept her eyes on Ghost who crossed his arms over his chest and cocked his head to the right. Causing the joints in his neck to crack and pop. "We wanted to keep this a secret until you were more integrated into the system of the team."
"I'm sorry, I'm still missing some of the context here," I questioned with confusion, "am I being held responsible for his death?"
Laswell and Ghost exchanged looks and then focused back on me, "No, we believe that he's still alive."
"Still alive?"
"We thought he was dead for the last three years. But chatter picked up around three months ago has given us reason to believe that General Gorbani, Hassan's superior that we executed, may have traded Alex as a POW as payment for one of the missiles," Laswell expressed.
"Traded with who?"
"The Russians," she answered, "that's why we were searching for Russians crossing the border in Kootenai two months ago."
"I thought you were scouting for helicopters that were moving missiles, not people?" I asked, cocking my head a little more at Laswell.
"They are moving everything. Drugs, guns, missiles, illegal booze, people," Laswell kept going as she stated the intel that had been gathered over some time. Russians were making a network of floating anything that could make them money into America.
I picked up the file that was laying on the table again, looking at the face of Alex Keller once more. He had kind eyes, the kind of eyes that my father had, the kind of eyes that made ladies swoon if he stared at you too long. "That doesn't make sense, the missiles are American. Where would Russians get American missiles from?"
"That's what we are trying to find out," Ghost said. "When you brought up the fact that Shepard shot down Soap's question to Hassan last week, I brought it to Price and Kate. They've been investigating since the first missile was found."
Then things seem to all make sense all at once. I was an AWOL American helicopter pilot, with an understandable reason to be angry at the U.S. military, on the border of Canada where known Russian activity was happening, while I was the last person to see a special forces POW who was being held by the same Russians. I was the perfect suspect.
I slammed the folder down and tossed my hands out at the two of them, who were staring at me such focus I was afraid one of them might turn to stone. "So, you think it's me then?"
"We did," Laswell said, "Price and Ghost advised me to have you imprisoned." I remembered Ghost saying something along the lines of that during our conversation in the desert not long ago. He had said Laswell was the one who let me be a part of the team, "I thought we should see where you led us."
"So why release me if you think I'm the mole?" I asked, I was serious this time. I cut the attitude in my voice and let my heart do the talking for me. I was scared, being AWOL was bad enough, being investigated for treason was much worse. But there had to be a reason that they were telling me this instead of putting me in handcuffs. Ghost had said Laswell had approved my release from 141, there had to be more to this. "Why not keep me here to keep an eye on me like you have been doing this entire time?'
"After we hacked Hassan's phone, we conducted an investigation looking for any communication or mention of you, we found none. There was also an internal investigation into your time at Kootenai, the only things that were found were wildlife analytics submitted to the USDA through David Wilson," Kate then turned to Ghost who had turned his eyes to the ground. "Lieutenant Riley, Sergeant MacTavish, and Captain Price also expressed how impressed they were with your effectiveness in team cooperation, skill in combat, and ability to adapt and navigate high risk situations. Showing no threatening or treasonous behavior."
My eyes might as well have popped out of my head and rolled around on the floor in front of me. I nearly began laughing, biting into my bottom lip slightly to stop myself from letting the chuckle loose. Ghost really was a comedian like Soap had said, there was no way that he would say that about me. "Lieutenant Riley said that you saved his life before the Mexican Army attacked you on your mission to extract Hassan," Laswell stated, bringing my focus back to the conversation at hand.
My eyes went to Ghost who was looking at me with those dark eyes again, but this time he wasn't sharing darkness with me he was looking at me with a mixture of unkempt emotions that I had never seen him had before. Admiration. Anger. Lust. My hips rolled ever so slightly forward as I looked into his eyes, and I saw his chest rise and fall. I looked back to Laswell, hoping that the conversation was coming to an end soon so I could escape the room, run to my shower, and try to think about anything but Ghost's hands on my body. "But I am still your lead on Alex?"
"Yes, but the missiles are our main priority. We were going to pick up his investigation once this problem was solved," Kate was beginning to get tired of the conversation too. There were plot holes to all of this, and she wanted to get back to filling them. There were still investigations to do, people to interrogate, a missile to find and destroy. "We were going to have you and Jackie both kept in D.C. until then."
"Jackie has no part in this," I said immediately, my attitude back in full swing. I was protective over her; she didn't need to be pulled into any of this.
"Jackie was your co-pilot the night Alex went missing," Ghost said, his tone Icey. It seemed that he was just as protective over Alex as I was Jackie.
"I was with her the entire night, we did casualty clean up, we went back to the barracks, we slept," I tried to think back to the night we had done the medevac. There was nothing out of the ordinary that night, no one was acting strange besides the usual heartbreak that came with losing a comrade. Watkins had been one of many that came with medevac, we never saw the people we got out of warzones after they went to the infirmary. I wouldn't have known if one of them went missing.
"Well, we have more investigating to do," Kate said, picking up the file and rounding the table once more. "I'll find out more about Master Sergeant Oswald and Philip's relationship, I was unaware that there was one."
"Thank you," I said, lifting myself from the chair and reaching out my hand. Laswell took it with a smile and then reached into her back pocket for something that had been jingling around before.
"These belong to you," she said, holding out a pair of brand-new dog tags. "As of right now, your title and rank have been reinstated. Your medical insurance and benefits as well as pay will be transferred by the end of the week. When you have down time, you'll be able to have dependents put on your medical insurance as well if you would like that."
I took the dog tags from her hand, but my eyes went to Ghost who gave me a questioning look. I did not feel like explaining what she meant by that right now, and I didn't feel like getting into my family any more than I already had with him today. Not when he reacted the way that he reacted. "Captain Price will have the final say on becoming a 141 member, but as of now you are a special forces operator. Do you have any other questions?
"Who else knows about all of this?"
"All of us knew you were the helicopter pilot we were looking for, but only myself, Price, Shepard, and Ghost are aware that Alex is alive and being held by the Russian. It was what convinced them to give you chance on them when I recruited you. I don't know what Shepard has told Philip." Perfect, another reason not to trust the bastard. Why this guy wasn't in handcuffs was beyond me.
I shook my head in response. Laswell picked up her folders and placed them back in the file drawer of Ghosts desk, "we have work to do. Conference room at 0700 tomorrow morning. Riley, I want a full report on Valeria's intel."
"Yes, Ma'am."
Laswell swung around me and headed for the exit, giving myself and Ghost a farewell. But Ghost and I stared at one another as the door swung closed and we were left alone in his office once again. He seemed to relax once Kate was gone and her footsteps faded away, but I could see thoughts turning in his head that would have made even the darkness he shared with me seem like a beach day. I couldn't read him, one second, he was looking at me like he was going the ravage me, the next like he was going to wring my neck.
"I suppose you're tired," I said, lifting my injured wrist again and playing with the fabric of the ACE wrap. "Must be hard work keeping track of all the secrets that you keep about me," I shot the first bullet, so I wasn't surprised when he shot back.
"You should have gone back to D.C." He spat, my heart dropped, and I felt my breath catch. "You should have never been recruited to this team."
"According to Laswell, you thought otherwise," I said, crossing my hands over my chest. He leaned over the desk and sighed, letting his head drop and his eyes go to the floor. "If I had known my significance to Alex I would have- "
"I am tired," Ghost confirmed, interrupting me. Lifting his head again to look at me, I could have sworn he was on the verge of tears again. "I haven't slept in three days. I don't feel like fighting with you about intel I was commanded to keep confidential. So do me a favor and get out of my office." His words hurt, striking me deeply and causing something to crack just below my sternum. But I stayed silent, blinking at his eyes that were so bloodshot and hazy.
I looked down at the dog tags in my hand and then stood at attention. My rank meant I had to follow the protocols of American military salutations now. I lifted my hand to my forehand, saluting my superior, staring straight ahead. "Lieutenant," I said, finally. Before turning and exiting the room. Not waiting for him to salute me back.
Ghost POV
After she had left the room, his knees buckled. Sliding down next to his chair, onto the floor next to his desk. He was used to being tired, he was used to being awake for days at a time and still being expected to run operations. But his mind had been reeling for days, which brought him to a new level of exhaustion. Philip Graves was an issue, intimidation was necessary in this line of work, but using the memories of sexual assault was a violation he wouldn't allow. He would know. If it was not for General Shepard's protection over Graves, Ghost would have put a knife between his eyes already. His behavior or command was childlike and annoying to say the least, but the fact that he was using his relationship with the general to take command made things complicated. Confronting Graves wasn't Ghost's concern, it was the possible retaliation on his team that made his skin crawl. There was so much to be done, and all he could think about was Jamie and what had happened in this very room.
Laswell's arrival, Valeria's interrogations, Philip Grave... they were basic stressors compared to the mega monster strain of what he and she had done in this room. He had felt a strange, bittersweet sense of relief when Laswell had approved her being released now that the internal investigation had come to an affirmative conclusion. But now she was staying on her own volition and that made him want to cry for joy and fear at the same time. How could he conduct his job or stay in control when the heat of her flame was consuming him every time, she looked at him with those fucking eyes.
He was thankful for Laswell's arrival, because he wouldn't have been able to make it through the interrogation with Valeria. He had felt her confidence pass him like the trail of perfume when she had entered that container. It had him nearly frothing at the mouth. Her legs had been opened wide; hands clasped between her thighs. The same way she looked when she was piloting a helicopter.
He shook his head to get the vision out of his mind, but it was only replaced by much more painful visions. He had not thought about Joseph in a long time. It was too painful to think about his nephew, he had been around the same age as Jamie's nephew when he was murdered in cold blood. A flash image of a toy airplane that Simon had given him at Christmas pinged in his mind, and Ghost was pushed to the side to make room for Simon.
The mask was off now, as Simon came to the surface of his skin. Goosebumps rippled over his body as he laid on his side and brought his knees to his chest. The memories would come like this every so often, and they were unstoppable, so he learned to subject himself to them. He let the numerous panic attacks come and go as each of the memories replayed in his mind like an old silent film.
"You're holding your mother's skull..."
"He'll break eventually..."
"Put him back in the box...."
"Are you going to Rape her?"
"I have respect for the English but little patience..."
"Give me a kiss..."
Simon brought his hands up to his head and covered his ears, trying to stop it, trying to free himself.
"Go easy on your uncle, Joseph!"
"You are my son, Simon. My boy."
"How could I do better than you and Beth?"
He brought his hands to his eyes that were streaming tears down his face, making his cam cream blotch all over his cheeks. He let out a sob, and it felt good to do so.
Then the most amazing thing happened that had never happened to him during one of these episodes of hearing voices and seeing visions. A flash of a flame in blue eyes, the feeling of lips on his, the sound of a woman's voice he had come to enjoy so much "I want you, Simon." She had said she had wanted him even with how terrifying and brutal he was. She would not want him if she knew everything that he went through; she would run if she saw him like this. Curled up on the floor, crying, too tired to stand anymore. He remembered how she looked in the bathroom of her dorm room. It was similar to the way he was now.
His breathing slowed as he pictured her on his desk, eyes like bonfires, dressed in that skimpy dress and covered in blood that had come from a man that had nearly taken what belonged to Simon. Gods, he hated her and loved her at the same time. He could wring her neck for making him lose control like that. She had made him lose control when she had been right about him being trigger happy as well... He would have had a home run of recklessness if he had let her unzip his jeans. Not only did he not fully trust her, but there was the problem that he was her superior, even if informally. Fraternization was not a realm Ghost could dive down, it caused reckless behavior and unnecessary risks to the team. Just look at Valeria and Alejandro, he could not manage a simple conversation with her.
So why was he hearing her voice and picturing her fingers in his mouth and envisioning her eyes as he pulled himself off the floor? After putting his mask back on, he went to the exit of the room, hearing her voice saying his name over and over his head as he walked across the base in the mid-morning heat. He had completely forgotten about the memories of broken bones and blood and his mother's face in a pool of blood as he walked up the stairs at the entrance of the men's dorms.
Soap was awake when he entered the room, playing some kind of game on his phone in the darkness. "Lt," he said as Ghost three down his pack and landed face first in his bed.
"We have a briefing at 0700," Ghost said as his face nuzzled the pillow.
"Valeria gave up the missiles," Soap confirmed. "Philip has coordinates, I had him send them to you. He put up a fight about it."
"Thank you," Ghost said with a huff, not moving a muscle as sleep began to overtake his body. "Laswell is here."
"Steaming hell," Soap said, putting his phone to his chest and looking over at his lieutenant who was nearly asleep at this point. "That means we got work to do."
"Mhm." Ghost was asleep before Johnny could ask another question.