Callsign: Princess // Ghost x Reader/oc

25

"Commander Graves and Kate Laswell are arriving at 1700 hours." Price glances up from his iPad only briefly as he delivers the news to us all. "There's been a development. Must be a pretty big one for them to be coming in person."

Alejandro and I share a dark look. Laswell. Maybe I'm paranoid. Maybe, like Ghost said when I tried to apologise for my actions on the plane, I'm looking for someone to blame. But I knew as soon as the plane went down that our intel was horseshit.

And nobody else has thought to even look into it. To even ask her the question.

"As you know, the Commander likes us to put on a bit of a show," Price continues, like he's holding back a sigh. "There'll be a formal dinner. He's bringing his own men for sentry duty. You're all off the hook for the night. They leave again tomorrow morning."

"A night to let our hair down?" Soap asks with a smirk.

"Don't count on it," Ghost replies darkly. "I wouldn't go attracting attention from Graves unless necessary."

"Worried you'll get a poor performance review?" Soap teases.

Price grunts. "As it'll be on my head if you lot act up, I want you on your best behaviour. Alright? Gaz, that means no sneaking the women from admin block into your bunk."

Gaz has the grace to pretend to look outraged, while Alejandro laughs easily. I'm too distracted to feel strongly one way or another about the Commander's visit. Ghost hasn't looked within ten degrees of my general direction all day, and while usually I'd kill for him to leave me the hell alone, I'm finding it strangely lonely. I can still feel the lurch in my gut when the guy at the bar grabbed my arm. The brief moment's relief when I avoided a panic attack. And then Ghost's fist laying into him.

He knows how it feels to be damaged, too. He's been to hell and back, far worse than I have. I feel like a cockroach in a sea of mammals, inherently dirty and different and about to be found out at any moment. I wonder if that's why Ghost wears his mask. To feel a little less obvious about it. He's become a sort of comfort. Someone else here who could be one of my kind—more than that, could have paved the way before me—and now he's acting like I don't exist.

He's still Ghost, I remind myself fiercely. Sure, he may have redeemed himself lately by being the only person I can relax around. By understanding not to treat me like I'm made of glass, and not letting me quit. But he's still the asshole Lieutenant who'll boss me around just for something to do, and tries to act like he's my superior.

I find I'm lacking my usual surge of anger at the thought.

Alejandro corners me once we're all dismissed, and for a moment I fear the worst—that he might see through me and know what this is about. But once everyone's cleared off, and he's speaking in hushed whispers, I relax a little that he's not here to talk about Ghost.

"Laswell's coming. You still think we should suspect her?"

"I don't know." I press a hand to my forehead. "I'm bound to be biased, right? It was my plane that went down. It's only natural I'm searching for someone else to blame."

Alejandro blinks slowly. "Princesa, the intelligence was mier...coles." He shakes his head, glancing around us. "We should at least look into it, no?"

"Look into it how?" I ask in a whisper. "Do we interrogate her over pork chops, or break into the Commander's room and search for clues?" At the thoughtful look on Alejandro's face, I hit him lightly on the arm. "Im not being serious, Vaquero."

"No," he agrees, though his eyes still shine as he lingers in deep thought. "No, but that has given me ideas..."

"You're insane," I tell him, once he's divulged his ideas. "You're crazy." He blinks. "I'm not doing it," I say, folding my arms across my chest. He raises his eyebrows. "No way," I finish.