Howl [COD Simon Ghost Riley & John Soap Mactavish AU]

Pure as a Wedding Dress

They drove the rest of the way back to the base in silence. Price mentioned that a couple of others would be meeting them, moving with them. One was Kate Laswell, an American he'd worked with before. The meeting was solemn. Simon tapped his foot impatiently, trying to keep from rising and leaving on his own. He knew where to go, he knew what he would have to do to get in. Or, he had. He'd thought himself an invaluable asset to them but he'd apparently served his purpose if they'd left him for dead. Unless...

"This may be a trap." He spoke out loud, not waiting for an opening. The other eyes in the room turned to him. "They left me for dead, supposedly, after expressing how their entire operation won't work without me. They're expecting that I survived and that I'm bringing others."

Price shrugged. "So they expect us. That doesn't change the plan, really. We are operating under the impression that they don't have a lot of firepower and that we can hit them at an unexpected time."

Kate nodded to him. "They may be expecting you to come with backup, but they don't know we're coming."

Simon didn't believe that was going to save them but he didn't feel the urge to waste more time by arguing. They were planning to go in that night. They had to. The Coalition would have to prepare Soap in order to turn him. The process, if they were doing it the same as before, required a few days. If he wasn't gravely injured in the accident, then he was probably still fine. Physically. God knows what they were doing to him otherwise. And if they were preparing him for the turn, then Simon hoped they had come further in their sedation techniques. The preparation had been the most painful part for him. For all he had done to try and forget the experience, he hadn't forgotten that.

Price motioned for him to step closer. "The entrance is here. We'll start by looking for other ways in. Even if they're taking precautions, they'll need a backdoor."

"We create a diversion, then?"

"Yeah. At the front door. We'll send you in the back."

"If there isn't a back door?"

"We'll just all go in the front, then." Price was serious, and he didn't meet Simon's eyes.

Simon eyed the others again, just for a moment, before looking back at the blueprints. "We are playing with something none of you have experienced. They said they've killed off all of their experiments but they had one drinking from me when I was there a few days ago. They lie about everything." He chose his words carefully. Anything he accused their manmade soldiers of, he accused himself of. "If they have an army of them waiting for us, it's not worth the fight."

Price straightened. He knew Simon wasn't suggesting giving it up, or waiting. He wouldn't leave Soap.

"Alright. What do we do then?"

"I'll go."

"Alone." Price raised his brows.

"Yeah." He stared the other man down.

There wasn't a good argument against it. Everyone in the room knew they'd do what they could to keep that from being a necessity.

Simon went back to his room. His nerves were shot, but his adrenaline made it impossible to rest, even for a moment. All of them knew they really knew nothing. They weren't truly aware of what they were walking into except for the information he himself had gathered but most of that had been wrong.

They shouldn't have spent the night in that room. His self indulgence, once again, was at the cost of others. At the cost of someone he truly cared about. He bit the guilt in the bud. He could deal with that later. He needed to replace it with focus.