A Collection of Short Stories | Simon Riley "Ghost" x Reader

a ghost's promise: chapter 4

⚠️⚠️ MW3 SPOILERS ⚠️⚠️ PROCEED WITH CAUTION! ⚠️⚠️

The hospital room was a stark island in a sea of activity, a place of forced stillness where Simon lay in contemplation, adrift in his own sea of introspection.

His body, a living testament to the day's violence, was a map of bruises and bandages, each one a landmark of his survival.

The rhythmic beep of the heart monitor was a metronome to his thoughts, a reminder of life's persistence.

Lying there, his mind cycled through the gritty details of the mission, replaying the moment when the world exploded into noise and fire.

Simon dissected each second, searching for a sign he might have missed, a decision he could have made differently.

The sterile scent of the hospital mingled with the phantom smells of gunpowder and earth, a sensory echo that made his stomach clench with a soldier's regret.

With each pulse of ache from his wounds, guilt washed over him in waves.

He had been meant to protect, to serve, to come back unscathed. Instead, his injury had summoned the specter of fear and grief into your life once more.

The thought of you receiving the news, the image of your face creased with worry, was a blade twisting in his gut.

As Simon lay in the quietude of his hospital bed, the steady beeps of the monitor a metronome to his thoughts, he found himself grappling with the decision that had brought him here — the decision to retire.

The fabric of his soldier's identity was woven with threads of duty and danger, but now, those threads were fraying, unraveling in the face of a newfound vulnerability.

The prospect of leaving the military, of shedding the skin of the soldier, was a complex one.

It was not the fear of missing the adrenaline or the camaraderie that haunted him; it was the terror that gripped him at the thought of putting you through the torturous ordeal of loss once more.

The pain that had etched itself into your being with Johnny's passing was not a pain he could willingly risk invoking again.

Lying there, reflecting on the mission, a chilling realization crept in — had he grown too comfortable in the shadow of danger?

There was a routine to the chaos, a familiarity in the rush that came with each deployment.

But this time, comfort had led to complacency, and complacency had nearly cost him everything.

The fine line he had walked between life and death had never seemed so thin, and the thought left him cold.

He had danced with fate, and the dance had almost ended in a way that would have irreparably shattered the world he was so desperate to come home to — your world.

The terror of that closeness, the brush with a finality that he was all too ready to leave behind, settled like a stone in his chest.

It was a sign, a final nudge towards the life that awaited him beyond the uniform, a life with you.

As he lay there, waiting for the warmth of your hand in his, Simon knew that every breath was a promise to the future, a future where the only battles he'd face would be the ones worth fighting for — a quiet life, a safe home, and a heart shared with you, unthreatened by the specter of war.

Yet beneath the layers of self-reproach, there was a quiet, immutable sense of gratitude.

Gratitude that his breath still fogged the glass, that his heart still beat strong and sure — a percussion of defiance against the whisper of mortality that had come so close.