Unexpected Lover | S. 'Ghost' Riley

31.

The morphine made everything feel slow, not painless but distant. The ache in my shoulder had settled into a deep, relentless throb, spreading across my chest every time I breathed too deeply. The doctors had said the round went clean through. Lucky.

I didn't feel lucky, I felt angry. Just hours ago, I was checking on my stuff for the mission, trying to avoid contact with ghost after our night, then that one shot rang out from a rooftop across the compound.

One second.

That's all it took. The realization hurt almost as much as the bullet. I stared at the plain white ceiling, blinking away the haze as voices filtered through the hallway outside.

"...she'll recover."
"...still shouldn't be moving."

It was Price, then Soap. Someone muttered something about me being impossible to kill. I almost smiled. I bet that was Soap.

The curtain then shifted and the silence followed, not the comfortable kind, the kind that made the entire room hold its breath and make the hairs on the back of neck stand up. I didn't have to look, I'd know those footsteps anywhere.

I turned my head over and there he was, "...Simon." My voice barely carried. He was still wearing his vest, did he just come right after everything?

His rifle wasn't slung over his shoulder anymore, but everything else was untouched—his skull mask hid most of his face, yet somehow I could still see it.

The tightness in his jaw, exhaustion in his eyes but he also looked furious. Not at me but the world. His gaze swept over the bandages wrapped around my shoulder, the IV in my arm, the bruises already darkening beneath my skin.

"You should be briefing," I whispered. "I'm here.." He replied fast without hesitation, "I made time." As if there had never been another option but I knew him well enough now to hear what sat underneath his words.

Fear. Simon was never the type of person to let fear show, not unless you knew where to look. He pulled the chair closer but didn't sit instead, he stood over me, eyes fixed on the monitor tracking my heartbeat as though he needed proof it was still there.

"I ruined the mission"

"You didn't."

"I got shot before we even left the damn base."

"You got ambushed."

"I should've seen—"

"No." The word cracked through the room, sharper than I'd ever heard it. His eyes finally met mine. "You don't get to blame yourself for someone else's trigger."

I looked away, the medication made it impossible to keep my emotions buried.

"I hate this."

"I know."

"I hate feeling weak."

Something then shifted in him, he stepped closer until he was standing beside the bed close enough that if I reached out, I could touch him but instead, he reached for me first. His gloved hand carefully brushed a piece of my hair away from my face before resting against my temple.

"You are many things, Rose," his thumb barely moved against my skin, "Weak isn't one of them." The lump in my throat became impossible to swallow.

"I thought..." He stopped himself, the words caught somewhere behind the mask. I opened my eyes again and he was staring at me in a way I'd never seen before.

Not as a soldier, not as his teammate. Just...Me.

"When you hit the ground..." he said quietly, "...I couldn't hear anything else." I waited but he never continued. He didn't need to because I knew, because I'd seen him just before everything went completely black.

I then replayed when he was running and Ghost never ran. Simon Riley did. A tear shed unto my cheek before I could stop it.

The confession hung between us, "I've watched too many people die." His hand slid from my temple until our fingers intertwined on top of the blanket, "I was looking at you, thinking..." his jaw tightened once again, then he continued sounding somewhat choked up, "...thinking I was about to watch it happen again."

My chest ached for an entirely different reason, "I'm still here." I reached my hand up to his face, softly but weakly caressing his face. "I know." His grip tightened on mine, "But you almost weren't."

The room then fell silent. Outside the curtain I heard distant voices. Soap laughing too loudly, Gaz saying something I couldn't make out and someone's boots passing by. It seemed the team was giving him space.

Whether they knew the truth or not...they knew enough, I squeezed his hand weakly. He leaned down, resting his forehead gently against mine, it was the closest he'd ever come to kissing me where anyone could walk in.

"I need you to listen to me." His voice was barely above a whisper, "You don't get to scare me like that again."

Despite everything, I let out the smallest laugh, "I'll try." He then gave me eyes that seemed like he was about to tear, "No, promise me, Rose." I kept contact with him, the same eyes now searching mine with quiet desperation.

"I promise," I whispered. He lifted my hand to his mask and pressed a slow kiss against my knuckles, hidden from anyone who might glance through the curtain. "I love you," he murmured so quietly I almost thought I'd imagined it.

Then, before I could answer, footsteps echoed outside the med bay. Soap's unmistakable voice drifted closer, "Lieutenant? Price said we're wheels up in ten."

Simon straightened instantly. He released my hand, but his thumb lingered against my wrist for one final heartbeat before letting go. "I'll be back," he said in his usual gruff tone.

To anyone listening, it sounded like a lieutenant checking on an injured operator, but I caught the meaning beneath it

Come back to me.

And I silently promised that I would.