Ghosts

Missing

Ghost's pov
Song inspo strangers by bmth

She wasn't there when I came home. Most of me was expecting it, but part of me was hoping I'd be wrong.

We got Graves and I beat him bloody while I had the chance. Not just to get information out of him but because he told me what he did to her, made her do to him. I would have killed him if Price hadn't been in the room with us, though I knew he was furious too, he was just better at hiding it.

I still didn't know what Senna remembered from Urzikstan, I wasn't going to ask Price, but after learning what Graves had done, I understood why she felt like she had to walk away.

It wasn't that she was too weak to go on, keep putting herself in situations where that might happen again, she just had the strength to know she deserved better. Or at least that's how I saw it.

It was still hard to come home and find all of her things gone, no pictures on the wall, none of her clothes in the closet or dresser. She'd erased any trace that she had ever been there at all.

And she'd done it so fast. It only took us a few days to find Graves, another few to torture him and then we handed him off to Laswell, cleaning our hands of him. It was Laswell's mission, not ours.

Part of me wished it could have gone on longer, I didn't want to come home if she wasn't going to be there.

Price knew where she was, or where she was headed, but he would be tight lipped. I couldn't bring myself to ask anyways, I couldn't betray her like that even though I desperately wanted her back.

Everything we'd been through, everything I did to get her back just for her to walk away from it all. It stung. I let myself wallow in it for a few days, missing her, talking myself out of going and finding her. This is what she wanted, what she needed and I had to respect that. This was the reason we should have never gotten involved with one another. At some point one of us was bound to break the other. I just never knew it would be her breaking me because she was broken herself.

If I managed to sleep at all I dreamt of her, the sound of her laugh, her fingertips tracing my scars, the look on her face when I slipped inside her.

I never stopped thinking about her. Thinking about how I'm another life, I would have really liked just doing laundry and taxed with her.

But we weren't normal people, and this was the life we were given.

I went on, as always. Simon faded away once more and I became no one else but Ghost.

I pushed the memory of her away, locked it with the rest of the people I once cared about. At least she was easier, she wasn't dead, she just wasn't here.

I focused on work and weeks passed by, then months.

Another step in front of the other. Another job well done.

Soap kept his mouth shut, which I knew was hard for him, but I knew he was doing it for me. He missed her too, but talking about her just made it worse. I would see her every now and then, auburn hair in a crowd, I saw her in Soap and the things he'd learned for her. I saw her in myself, the scars I'd gotten on missions we were on together.

She never really went away, I just made it look like she did.

I didn't want to give myself false hope, that maybe one day she'd decide to come back. Maybe one day we'd pass each other by. The world was small enough that we'd managed to meet in the first place.

There was no one else. There would be no one else. It was her, or nothing at all.

Maybe I would never see her again, and that was okay too, as long as she was happy with the choice she made. As long as she was out there doing whatever she wanted. She could forget me, move on, I didn't care. Just knowing she was out there somewhere was enough to keep me moving.

I'd continue to get my hands dirty so hers could stay clean.

---notes
This one and the next may be short, but filled with feels. 💜