Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

0201 hours, Al Quatar District, Kharzari. Present day, 2023

When the dust clears, the blood starts to pulse from Ghost’s chest and all John can think is “not again.”

“Fuck me,” Ghost groans, writhing against the stairs that are no longer stairs.

To his left, Gaz staggers to his feet and shakes the debris from his head.

“You wish,” he says, then, “oh shit.”

It is enough to snap John from the momentary panic that grips him. Panic is a foreign feeling to him, one that he rarely parses, one that never lasts long enough for him to even register it as a blip on his internal radar, but after Soap- well John feels like a different man after Soap.

He is untethered, like a boat with no anchor. Steadily becoming more and more adrift in a sea of unfocused emotions that all seem to center on a whirlpool of anger that just wont seem to quit. He has been able to keep it under control so far, but he find himself more jumpy, less patient and fundamentally changed in some way that he hesitates to name.

To acknowledge it would to be to speak it’s truth.

He exercised earned vengeance in killing Shepherd, but he’s not quite ready to see the abyss staring back at him.

Ghost wheezes out a breath.

“I can’t fuckin’ breath.”

The stairwell is all but destroyed. John can hear shouting somewhere to the south. They need to move. He staggers over to Ghost. A dark bloody stain is growing on the left side of his chest.

It was a simple mission; find and extract the NATO asset from the safehouse. An intel runner with confirmed eyes on a chemical weapons transfer between the Barkov Group and a rogue General, Farouk Zaman. Simple. Easy. Even one man down. Honestly, John could have switched out the names and it wouldn’t have made a difference. Governments collapsed and corrupt men tried to fill the vacuum left behind. Things never changed. It seems surreal when he thinks about it for too long - especially after Soap, which is why he usually doesn’t think about it at all - but the world continues to turn and nothing ever changes. The world tries its best to sink itself into shit over and over, and men like him have to reach in and pull it out.

Every. Fucking. Time.

And the mission had been simple, right up until the point when the RPG had hit in the stairwell. Laswell had warned him the General was well supplied, but the intelligence hadn’t mentioned anti-armour or that they knew they were coming. Ghost had been first order so had borne the brunt of it. John bites down his anger. He focuses his attention on stabilizing Ghost instead.

“Hes been hit through the chest,” says Rains, unhelpfully. He is the asset they’d been sent to retrieve. A 20-something smuggler with deep set eyes and an vaguely eastern European accent. He is wounded too but the hard look in his eyes speaks of a man familiar with the varied sensations of warfare.

“Here,” John kneels down by Ghost’s side. He rips open his jacket to find the wound. The hole is jagged, barely a centimeter, just below his left nipple. The bleeding is not strong enough for Ghost to be in immediate danger of bleeding out, but John has heard enough collapsing lungs to know Ghost will be dead if they can’t get a Medvac. He reaches into his med pack as Ghost struggles to take in air. His breaths become more labored with every passing second. John rips the adhesive backing from the chest seal. He presses it to Ghost’s chest. His breath hitches and then relaxes ever so slightly.

“This will get bad quickly if we don’t get him help,” Rains says, his eyes hard and worried.

John wants to tell him to shut the fuck up.

Gaz is scouting what remains of the stairwell. He gestures toward the southern hallway, where they had just come from.

“Enemies approaching from the south side, sir,” he says, “sounds like multiple footsteps, maybe a squad. Sounds like they're on the street, about 200 meters, maybe closer."

John presses his push-to-talk.

"Command, this is Bravo-0-1. One urgent casualty - shrapnel to chest, compromised lung. Requesting MEDEVAC at grid two-five-niner, echo-november. Marking LZ with smoke. How copy?”

The radio crackles for half a second before Command responds.

"Bravo-0-1, this is Overwatch. Negative on MEDEVAC - airspace is red. Enemy AA active, no safe route inbound. Recommend ground evac or stabilize on-site. Say again, no bird inbound."

“Fuck.” Gaz kicks a pane of glass and it shatters over his boot.

“Steady,” John warns, he presses his push-to-talk. "Copy that. We'll stabilize and move on foot. Inform -”

The radio goes static and then silent. John switches channels but there is nothing.

“Comms are dead,” he says, “no MEDVAC, we’re on our own.”

Anger flares up again from a point deep in his chest.

“I have a car,” Rains says quickly, and its the first helpful thing he’s said since John met him. “Its in the alley out back.”

John nods. He kneels down beside Ghost. He will work out where to go once they get to the car.

"Ghost, you with me?” he says, “Stay with me, mate. We’re getting you out."

Ghost grits his teeth. He nods weakly.

"Next time, I want a heads-up before the fireworks sir,” he croaks out.

“Command must be having a bad day,” Gaz replies. He peers cautiously toward the stairwell entrance and glances at John. "Enemies closing fast Sir - multiple hostiles moving in from the south side. They sound about one minute out, maybe less."

Rains leans against the cracked concrete wall, eyes sharp, weapon raised.

"We need to move,” he says, ”that RPG blast probably gave our position away."

John stares at him for a moment, then he looks over toward the exit.

"Alright. Gaz, you cover the rear -” he says, “I want eyes on the south side. Rains, help me lift Ghost. We move fast, no stops."

Gaz nods grimly, taking position near the stairwell mouth, scanning the shadows.

"Got it. I’ll hold them off if they push."

John ducks underneath Ghost’s arm and carefully lifts him onto his feet. Even with Rain’s help it is an effort after the impact of the RPG. Ghost’s breaths come harsh and ragged.

“Can you take him,” John asks, holding Rain’s gaze. The man nods and there is certainty in his eyes. John nods back and transfers Ghost’s full weight to him. Rains lets out a low huff, knees bending as he hitches up Ghost’s mass, but he does not waver. John readies his rifle and takes the lead down the stairwell.

Kharzari is a small city state on the northern Urzikstan border. Teetering on the knife edge of outright civil war, it is hardly influential. But it is strategically placed along the Caspian sea. The safehouse is an old warehouse, down near the docks. Not particularly safe in John’s opinion but Rains had apparently been hiding out successfully for months. Given the number of warren-like hallways he’s beginning to understand how.

“To the left,” Rains huffs from behind him.

John presses his back to the corner wall, his rifle tight against his chest. The shouts are steadily getting louder, echoing down the corridors behind them. He raises his clenched fist.

He waits half a second, dips low, quick and precise, muzzle leading. He steps forward and sweep the angle with a fluid half-step scanning tight - high, mid, low. Nothing.

“Clear left,” he says, just loud enough for the others to hear. “Stack right.”

The three men fall in behind him.

He turns to Ghost. His face is pale, his eyes drawn but he is still breathing. Barely.

"Almost there mate, just a few more steps to the alley.” He nods at Rains to move forward. “We’re getting you out."

The hallway tightens as they round the corner, boots brushing against the concrete in a careful rhythm. At the end is a heavy metal door, half-shadowed by a flickering ceiling light.

He raises his fist again.

The team halts instantly, weapons raised. There is no sound except for the shouts behind them and the faint creak of settling walls.

He angles his head, studying the door. No movement, no light. He creeps forward, a gloved hand settling on the peeling handle. Gently, he tests it. Unlocked. The latch gives way with a quiet click as he eases it open, just enough to peek through. Cool, sea air whispers in from the early morning outside. The alley is narrow, trash lining the cobble and dirt. He opens it the rest of the way, smooth and slow. No noise.

“Clear,” he says, “move.”

They file out one by one. John first, then Rains and Ghost, finally Gaz pulling rear. The alley is dark, boxed in by brick walls, a busted sodium lamp casts a sick yellow glow.

10 meters to the north sits a white Toyota Corolla. Rains nods in its direction. They move low and fast, weapons close, boots silent over cobble. Somewhere to the north a dog starks barking.
"Keep your eyes up.” He says. “They’ll be sniffin’ this way soon."

Rains passes Ghost to him before fumbling around with the door locks. Ghosts skin is clammy and pale, John can feel his thready, elevated pulse though the vein on his wrist.

“Captain,” Ghost murmurs, “I can’t-.”

“We’ve got you mate,” John says, “just hang on alright.”

He glances over at Gaz who is covering their exit. He looks worried, but focused on his task. Rains finally yanks the back car door open and rushes forward to help John set Ghost down on the back seat.

Ghost coughs as he hits the peeling vinyl, his eyes clamped shut in pain.

He moves to take the driver side seat but Rains is already half in it.

“I know a place we can go,” he says before slamming the door in John’s face. John scowls for half a second. He doesn’t trust the man, but the shouts are getting louder and louder and the hostiles are closing in. Rains revs the car to life and the voices pause for a moment before John can hear the telltale clatter of hostiles moving toward a now-known target.

“We gotta go Sir,” Gaz says, glancing at him with a question in his eyes.

John nods and hops over to the passenger side. He slides in just as Gaz closes the backseat door.

Rains barely waits for the doors to close before he accelerates forward, past the warehouse exit and speeds toward the end of the alleyway.

“You sure about this place?” John asks.

“Its a clinic,” Rains says breathless as he yanks the jeep out into the street with a sharp screech, “north-northwest, outskirts of a village called Al-Hafir. About 15 minutes if we keep moving.”

He glances back at Ghost in the backseat.

“Hes got about that by the looks of him.”

John gives him a dubious look as they race through the streets. Rains is a chaotic driver but he appears to be putting ample space between them and the hostiles.

“Gaz, keep an eye out the rear. “ John says, scanning the streets ahead. “They might come hunting.”

He turns to Rains.

“I doubt some village clinic can help him,” he says. He starts shuffling through channels on his comms. It’s still dark. He give the black plastic a frustrated whack which does nothing and just make him angrier.

Ghost wheezes.

“Its MSF,” Rains insists, “one of their primary health clinics, couple of doctors, I’ve went there when I had this.”

He takes one hand off the steering wheel and pulls up the bottom edge of his t-shit to reveal a gnarly looking scar. A knife wound by the looks of it and a fresh one. The car veers to the right nearly hitting a parked pickup as Rains fumbles to pull his shirt back down.

John steadies it with a sharp yank on the steering wheel.

“Focus,” he grinds out.

“It might be the only option,” Gaz chimes in from the back seat.

John glances back. Gaz is pressing down on Ghost’s unnaturally pale chest with one hand. The other hand is white-knuckled gripped around his rifle.

“We’re not typically welcome at not-for-profit outfits,” John says, running through other possible options. Any Medvac is uncertain if the airspace is hot, besides the comms are still down. Laswell had warned him about this happening. He is still annoyed about the surprise RPG, but in retrospect it’s not that much of a surprise. He glances to the side as they speed under a bridge. He doesn’t think they’re being pursued, but he also didn’t think the were about to get blown up.

“They’re doctors without borders,” Rains continues, as if using English will convince him, “medical neutrality. Besides, if we go in quiet less chance of Zaman retaliating.”

It crosses John’s mind that Rains’ motivation may be less about saving Ghost’s life and more about saving his own hind. He turns sharply to catch the man’s gaze.

“Besides Doc Purcell’s ex-military, she won’t turn you away.”

John’s brain blanks for just a moment. It is as rare an occurrence as the sensation of panic, but the name seems so improbable in that particular moment. Yet, its attached to both the words ‘doctors without borders’ and ‘ex-military’ so its too much of a coincidence for it not to be who he thinks it is. He wonders for a moment how in hell she ended up out here, smack bang in the middle of a semi-active warzone, but then he remembers it’s Kelli Purcell he’s thinking about and it just kind of makes sense.

“Kelli Purcell?” Gaz says behind them.

Rains nods.

“You know her,” he says, surprised, glancing back and looking hopeful, as if this is a good thing, which really, it is because Ghost is sounding more dead by the moment.

“The one that got away.”

Ghost’s laugh is wet and wheezing and John wants to smack him over the head.

“Save your breath,” he snaps before turning back to peer out at the road ahead of them. They are still under active threat and he doesn't need the distractions. He can feel Rains glancing at him.

When he says nothing Gaz fills the silence.

“An old colleague of the Captains,” he explains.

Rains is wise enough to simply nod and not ask the questions that John knows for certain he wants to ask. Gaz is mercifully too professional to say anything else and Ghost is still recovering from his earlier quote-unquote joke.

Ghost is wrong anyway.

Kelli Purcell is certainly not the one that got away. That would imply there was something there to begin with, but he knows the lads have always been curious about that particular relationship, ever since Soap spilled the beans on Zanzibar, and Ghost is dying so he gives him a pass.

It crosses his mind that she might not want to see him again, but its the only option he's got, and if anyone can save Ghost’s life it’s her.

He turns to looks at Rains again.

“You get us there, we’ll owe you one. Screw it up, we’ll all go under.”

Chapter Text

RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire. United Kingdom. 2005

The hangar is freezing his balls off, but John refuses to shiver. He quietly readjusts his mask. It's only been 10 minutes on the O2, but he already feels the double-edged clarity that comes with it. The air is dry and cool as he breathes evenly. He counts the breaths as they come.

He is a little nervous, and the pure oxygen heightens both his anxiety and his senses.

The tight rubber of the mask feels claustrophobic. The stillness of the hangar oppresses him as everyone sits quietly, unable to talk with the masks on. The glare of the red countdown clock as it ticks steadily toward to launch.

It's his second training HALO. The first had gone textbook - 15,000 feet of pure perfection- but there's something about the air this time that puts him ill at ease. Call it an instinct.

The briefing had been business as usual, though the Captain, Whitaker, had seemed a bit off. A bit jumpy. A bit impatient. He's not John’s typical CO, but things had been rearranged recently. From what John knows, he’s not Special Forces-trained, but got seconded to an airborne command position to tick a box for promotion. A real careerist and a hard-ass: anal about metrics, thinks he’s top-shit, little experience in the field. John might only be 19, but he’s been serving for 3 years and he thinks that he probably has more field experience than the 32-year-old Captain.

Another gust of wind buffets the hangar. Strong crosswinds had been forecast, and John doesn't need to be Jumpmaster to know that complicates things. Despite the forecast, Whitaker seems insistent they proceed. John’s not about to question a CO directly, but it tips off his anxiety in a way that he knows he had to get under control.

If he can’t trust Whitaker, he has to at least be able to trust himself.

Beside him, Lewis fidgets with the valve on his altimeter.

They make eye contact through the masks, and John gives him a questioning thumbs up.

Lewis nods, returning the gesture.

Even after 3 years, John’s still not made his mind up about Lewis.

They enlisted at the same time, but Lewis is jumpier than John would prefer in a buddy. He knows that the mental game is what really matters for advancement. Anyone can lift weights and do weighted marches. Lewis is strong, but in the past 3 years, he has demonstrated consistently that he does not quite have that game. Still, he's a nice guy and doesn't try to get John to talk too much - not like some of the others - so John appreciates the company. He knows that eventually they will part ways. Until then, at least he has someone to go to the pub with and ogle girls.

Across from them, the second drop starts filing into the hangar.

John frowns beneath the mask.

Whitaker’s assignment brought along a selection of commissioned officers, private school kids like him who think they’re hot shit. John's commissioned but he spent more time on the field than in the classroom at John Colet - much to his mother's dismay - and so the only school he's really been hot shit at is Sandhurst. Suits him fine. Military's in his blood. It's where he's meant to be.

Whitaker's kids are mostly in the second drop, so he's not overly concerned, but one of them has been on his radar all night. The loudest, of course. John thinks his name is something like Morris, or Milton. Some Eton-adjacent name to match the toff accent. Prick suits him just fine in John’s mind. He’s been eying any woman - uniformed or not - that has the misfortune to cross his path for the entire day. Right from the briefing and now during set-up. John thinks his own appetite for women is pretty typical, but that level of randiness just seems exhausting. John would wonder if he just has zero social skills, but realistically it's most likely that he has zero respect.

The Prick saunters past, making a beeline for the female CMT who is prepping the new O2 lines. John’s been vaguely aware of her too. Not because he thinks she's hot, though he does - she's got these huge blue eyes and thick powerful thighs. No, it’s because she looks so fucking familiar, and he can’t quite place her.

John can see her lips purse as the Prick stops next to her.

“You sure you can handle a drop zone, love?” The Prick asks, leaning over her, a lecherous pull to the corner of his mouth.

She looks up at him and raises an eyebrow. Her eyes are blue, cold, and sharp.

“I don’t know,” she says, in a lilting Welsh accent. “Are you sure you can handle the drop?”

Suddenly, John realizes who she is.

She turns away from the Prick to haul the oxygen tank over to the hangar wall. The tank is massive, but she hauls it along with little trouble, the muscles in her forearm flexing. She might be a medic, but he can tell that the field-work has left her no slouch. It helps that she’s tall for a woman, only a few inches shorter than the Prick.

The Prick follows her like a cat stalking its prey.

It crosses John’s mind to intervene; the Prick isn’t in his squad, but the CMT is Kelli Purcell.

The same Kelli Purcell whose father shot himself in the head 2 weeks ago.

Rumor is Kelli was the one to find him.

But that’s not why John knows who she is.

He knows who she is because her father, Warrant Officer Robert Purcell, had offered to recommend him for an early SAS application. Almost unheard of for a 19-year-old, and John was still unconvinced about it, but Purcell had insisted he consider it. During training, he had mentioned several times that he had a daughter, the same age, in training over at Harrogate. John had never met her, but the resemblance is uncanny.

The same blue eyes, the same nose, the same sheep-shagging accent.

John is struck by a sudden wave of sadness. Robert was a tough but fair man, and he didn’t deserve to blow his own head off.

He had been so clearly proud of his daughter too.

John remembers envying Kelli for that. His own father was fine, the typical military father, and not as bad as some of his peers, but he’d never said anything close to ‘I’m proud of you.’ Seeing the stars in Purcell’s eyes the day Kelli had passed her first phase had hit John in a way that had surprised him.

He wonders how Kelli is able to stand and look someone like this Prick in the eyes 2 weeks after what happened.

“I got something you could handle,” the Prick says in a low voice.

It's as impressive as it is fucking bullshit.

He cracks a gap in his O2 mask.

“Oi Milton,” John calls from across the bay.

Kelli and the Prick turn to look at him. She looks somewhere between disgusted and sad, and he kind of wants to kick the Prick in the balls for that. He can’t do that though, so he just says, “Let the medic do her job, yeah? You want her distracted while she’s checking your oxygen?”

The Prick turns to face him with the typical bravado of a green Rupert with less sense than ego.

“My name’s Morris,” he says, incredulously.

John stays seated as Morris waltzes over to him, sizing him up. John reckons they are about the same height, but he’s not about to try and size himself up against the guy. He finds it pathetic, really. He may not have said he was proud of him, but if there was one thing his father had instilled in him, it was a healthy disdain for peacocks.

“Confidence is quiet, Jonathan. Let the cock crow.”

“Close enough,” John says, before readjusting his mask back into place. He raises his brows at Morris, who is still staring down at him. He opens his mouth once or twice as if he can’t quite believe it.

“Who the fuck-” he starts.

“If I hear one more sound that’s not you morons breathing in your O2, I’m going to kick you off the ramp,” barks the Jumpmaster, marching into the hangar. Whitaker is in close step behind him.

Morris jumps and quickly takes his seat over near where Kelli had been setting up the next tank. John makes eye contact with her for a short moment. Her eyes are unreadable, but there is something grateful in them he thinks. She nods just slightly, a silent acknowledgment that bolsters John’s sense that he made the right decision.

-----------------------------

The drop goes badly, and John knows the second he hears the pop that his arm is fucked.

The turbulence at 15,000 had been unreal. The air was freezing. The crosswinds were strong enough that even the Jumpmaster had seemed unsettled. Whitaker had insisted though, like all good morons do. On the ascent, John had decided that, at the very least, missions in real life were never going to be perfect, so he resolves to treat it as a challenge.

Lewis is not convinced of his reasoning at all.

“What’s Whitaker thinking,” he mutters in John’s earpiece. John isn’t sure if he remembers that everyone else can hear him.

“Breathe, Lewis,” he says. “You know your training, just follow it.”

The Jumpmaster nods at him appreciatively. He fixes Lewis with a steady stare.

“No room for nerves up here, son,” he says. “Just the jump. You’re ready.”

Lewis stares at them both.

It doesn't seem to help.

By the time they reach 15,000, Lewis’ knee has been bouncing non-stop for 5 minutes. John is 3rd in the order, right before Lewis.

The first two jump, then it’s his turn.

“Price! You’re up!” barks the Jumpmaster. “Kit check’s good, go on green!”

John breathes in deeply, hyper-aware of the fluorescent red light just above the exit.

In his ear, the Jumpmaster says, “Keep an eye on Lewis out there.”

John nods; he resists the urge to glance back at the guy.

“Yes, Sir.”

The red light switches to green, and he moves his weight forward.

“Green! Move, move, move!”

John falls. He arches his back and holds his arms out. His body tenses as he hits the open air, and he has to force himself to relax.

Head up.

Eyes forward.

Belly to earth.

The roar of the air is loud, but it's like static in his ears. His muscles work overtime to stabilize his position.

It is so dark, but the stars are bright.

He kind of loves it.

Then the crosswind hits.

He instinctively reaches out to steady himself, but the force hyperextends his shoulder. A sharp, searing pain shoots through his arm. There is a pop, and he knows it’s fucked.

He fights to keep control. He doesn't really fancy dying tonight. Certainly not in such a stupid way. He grits his teeth and keeps falling. The pain is a searing, contrasting with the freezing air. He wants to glance at his wrist, to check the altimeter, but he knows he needs that arm to remain stable. He’s got at most 2 minutes to get this sorted. Plenty of time. If he has to abort, he has to abort, he doesn’t give a shit what Whitaker might think. The AAD will deploy regardless - he just needs to get stable.

Through the pain and the roaring wind, movement catches his attention. About 20 meters to his left, Lewis is in free-fall, cartwheeling like a clown at a kid’s fucking birthday party. John grits his teeth and maneuvers towards him. As he gets closer, he tries to find an opening. The last thing he needs is Lewis kicking him into free-fall too.

1 minute.

He takes a deep breath.

He reaches out with his bad arm and grabs Lewis’ harness. His shoulder screams at him. The pain is so intense that the edges of his vision go dark. He holds on and pulls Lewis into a safer body position. Lewis’ eyes are wide as he stares at John like he is God. John tries to gesture for Lewis to arch his back. For a moment, Lewis is too much in shock or just too stupid to understand. Then, after a second, something switches in his eyes, and he spreads his arms wide. The turbulence lessens.

John lets out a breath.

His shoulder grinds against his clavicle with nausea-inducing pain. John peers at the altimeter on Lewis’ wrist.

3,000 AGL.

They need to deploy now.

He catches Lewis’ gaze and glances pointedly at his ripcord. He hopes he gets the message.

Lewis nods.

Price releases his arm and maneuvers sideways. There is a rush of the chute, and Lewis deploys, the ram-air exploding above him. John reaches down with his good hand and fumbles with his ripcord.

The altimeter vibrates on his wrist.

Deploy. Now.

He pulls the cord. The harness yanks against his legs and shoulders, pulling against his shoulder again. John is pretty sure he blacks out for a moment because when he comes to, it is to stillness. Darkness stretches out beneath him, save for the lights of the airstrip in the distance and the drop zone to the west. He tries to steer toward it with just one arm, but he knows he’s going to be off course.

Floating high in the sky, he laughs.

He can just imagine the look on Whitaker's face.

The landing is rough. He lands hard and fast, which is not a shock. But he had thought he had felt all the pain his shoulder had to offer him. The impact he makes with the ground puts all of these to shame as he stumbles and falls onto his bad side. He hisses out a breath and swallows down the nausea.

The wind is still buffeting.

He can feel it drag the canopy behind him. He needs to stabilize and secure, then orient and regroup.

He rolls onto his good side and searches around for the collapse line. The pressure pulling him along jolts as soon as he releases the canopy.

Detaching from his harness proves almost impossible with one hand. He has to use his teeth to hold the straps taut before he can release them.

Standing, he regains a sense of where he is. He needs to regroup. The drop was only the first part of the mission. They still need to infiltrate. He scans the immediate terrain. He’s landed on the edge of the tree line. A detached canopy flutters in the distance, about 50 meters away. He can see the dark figure of one of his team staggering parallel to him, heading towards the recon point. He’s not sure who it is, but John estimates they’re both about 400 meters off. Better than he expected given the circumstances.

He was lucky.

He scans the sky for any signs of Lewis.

He’ll be landing soon. He might have already.

John half-wishes he didn’t have to see his face again so soon. The tension of the situation had diffused any other emotions, but now he just feels angry. Lewis just couldn’t get himself under control. The shoulder hadn’t been his fault, but the dangerously low deployment had.

John scowls to himself and checks for his canopy. It is stuck against one of the trees. He stashes it, one-handed, behind the undergrowth. By the time he is done, he spots what he thinks could be Lewis landing about 100 meters away. He breathes in deeply and sighs.

Mission always.

His instinct is correct, and the jumper is Lewis.

He is dazed and struggling to untangle himself from his chute.

“I really fucked this one up,” he says desperately, as John kneels to help detach his harness.

"You broken?” John says, ignoring his statement.

Lewis shakes his head, shaky.

“Good,” John says, “on your feet. We’ve got ground to cover.”

He hauls Lewis up, trying not to let the pain show on his face. He wonders if Lewis even realizes. It is unimportant.

They start heading west to catch up with the team.

By the time he starts hearing hushed voices, the chill of the morning has reduced his shoulder to a dull ache. He is grateful for that.

The others are milling around the recon point. A quick head count tells him that they are not all there. His gaze is immediately drawn to the medics on the left. The senior CMT is examining another soldier, a lieutenant named Riggs, who appears to be bleeding from a gash on his forehead.

John’s eyes catch on Kelli, who is standing on alert. She takes one look at his shoulder, and instantly he knows she’s clocked him. He shoves Lewis forward, trying to put him in between her and him. Trying to get away from the others. He knows the smart thing is to get treatment, but it’s so fucking embarrassing.

Written off on his second drop. He needs to complete the mission. He thinks of that letter of recommendation. If he did want to get into SAS, a failed drop would look bad.

Maybe he cares about metrics after all.

“Stop hiding,” he hears her call as she pushes Lewis out of the way. “I can see you’re injured, Lieutenant Price.”

He grunts and waves his good hand.

“I’m fine.”

Kelli gives him a look that would wither most men.

John is not most men.

She grasps his good arm and drags him to the side. He tries not to resist. Mostly because even the grip on his good side seems to hurt the other. For a CMT she’s a lot more forceful than he expected, but then he remembers what happened and wonders if she’s usually this harsh or if it’s just because of circumstance.

“My name is Kelli Purcell -” she starts, reading off the script that all the medics use.

“I know who you are,” he snaps, cutting her off, a little breathless because of the pain.

“- and I am here to help you, Lieutenant Price,” she continues, hardly missing a beat.

John is impressed by just how little she reacts to his rudeness. Her eyes are as hard as they had been when she glared at Milton, but she looks for the most part unbothered. Focused. Like she’s not about to suffer his bullshit.

A flush of embarrassment creeps up his neck for just a second, but then she places a sturdy hand on his elbow and the pain shoots up his elbow.

He grits his teeth and grunts.

“How did you do this?” she asks, her eyes intent and searching across his shoulder.

John decides it is easier to comply. She’s clocked him, which means she’s not going to let up. If she did, she wouldn't be doing her job. And from everything he’s heard, Kelli is considered a highly promising CMT. Still, he might be able to convince her with enough stubbornness.

“Crosswinds,” he says, “used my arm to brace.”

Kelli hums, examining the angle of his arm.

“I’m going to need to get you to take off that vest,” she says, kneeling down on one knee to fetch a pair of latex gloves from her pack.

“I’m fine,” he says, “it’s just sprained.”

He tries to appear casual but when he tries moving his arm, the pain shoots down his arm again and he can’t help but grunt.

Kelli does not look amused.

“Yeah? And what,” she says. “Planning to shoot with your teeth?”

John sucks at his teeth.

“Off,” she orders.

He sighs and unbuckles his vest with one hand. When he tries to shrug it off, it gets caught on the odd angle of his shoulder.

“Here,” Kelli says, carefully extracting the garment from his body. He lets out a hiss as she drags it over the shoulder. She glances up at his face but doesn't pause.

John gets the impression that she’s well-versed in interacting with stubborn soldiers.

He blinks as she starts unbuttoning his fatigues. Partly because it does something to his lizard brain, but also because it’s still fucking cold and he doesn't really want to stand around without a shirt. Luckily, she stops just short of the bottom edge of his pecs and peers under the material around his shoulder.

“That is not a strain,” she says, clearly already knowing this. “Looks like an anterior dislocation,” she says, pulling back from her examination. “That means the top of your humerus, this bone-” she gestures along his bicep, “- has shifted forward out of the socket. Can you wiggle your fingers for me, please?”

He obliges her.

“Good.”

She places a finger against the blood vessel in his wrist and pauses for a moment.

“Can you feel my fingers?”

Her face is close to his now, and just for a moment, John wonders what it might be like if she was a regular woman touching his wrist, smiling up at him. He wonders if the pain from his shoulder has made him go a bit loopy.

Yeah, that's it.

“Yeah,” he says, aware that he has paused for a noticeably long time.

“That’s good,” she said, her gaze lingering on his for another moment, “I was beginning to worry your hesitation meant the opposite.”

“I didn’t hesitate,” he insists, reflexively, stupidly.

Kelli huffs out a dry laugh.

“Whatever you say, Lieutenant,” she says. “Any pins and needles?”

He shakes his head.

“Good,” she says before stepping away. “Okay, so looks like your nerve function and circulation are okay. Shoulder’s out, but we’ll keep it stable till I can get you somewhere with X-ray.”

She kneels down again and fetches what looks like a sling from her pack.

It’s the words he’s been dreading.

“You can’t just do it here?” he asks down at her. “I'm fine, just set it back and I'm good to go."

Kelli smiles, a patronizing edge to the corner of her lips. It pisses him off. She might have his best interests in mind, but she doesn't have to be such an ass about it.

“If I had a pound for every time a soldier told me that,” she says, standing up.

“I can keep going,” he insists.

“I know you could,” Kelli says, cutting off his protests. “But that’s not the point, Price.”

This comment surprises him. It's an acknowledgment of his capabilities at least, but there is something soft in her voice that tells him that she is not completely devoid of compassion.

“From what I've heard, you’ve got a long career ahead,” she says, raising an eyebrow, “do you really want a badly healed shoulder injury to be the reason you can’t graduate SAS?”

John stares at her. It had not occurred to him that she might know who he is.

“I’m not enrolled in SAS,” he says a bit dumbly.

“I know,” Kelli says slowly. “We’re talking hypotheticals here,” she waves a hand, “you know, use your imagination. Think of a world where you’re not a dumbass.”

A playfulness has appeared in the conversation, just for a moment, and he gets the feeling that this is what the real Kelli Purcell would be like if she wasn’t currently mourning the death of her father.

He levels a dry look at her.

“I’m not sure that exists,” he says.

A small smile appears on Kelli’s face.

“What have we got here, Purcell?” The senior CMT, Sergeant Mullen, appears behind Kelli’s shoulder. He is maybe 30, with dark brown hair and a cheerful demeanor that seems completely out of place at 2 in the morning.

He peers at John before staring expectantly at Kelli.

Kelli looks at Mullen. Her spine sets into a hard line. The smile is gone, in its place, the professional.

"Lieutenant Price has sustained a likely anterior dislocation of the right shoulder, Sir,” she says, “suspected due to crosswind during HALO insertion. Presenting with limited range of motion, visible deformity, and guarding. Neurovascular function intact.” She glances sideways at him. "He's trying to push through, Sir, but he’s non-operational until it's reduced and stabilized. Recommending immediate withdrawal from mission set and medevac if feasible."

Mullen nods.

“Good,” he says, “not for you Price though, obviously. Ha. Whitaker’s going to love this.” He barks out a laugh. “Just crosswinds, my arse.”

He glances at John.

“Don’t worry, Price,” he says, patting him on his good shoulder, “I’m sure everyone knows you’re very brave, but Purcell’s right on this one - you're done.”

John knows there is exactly zero chance that Mullen would let him keep going. He looks back at Kelli, defeated. She raises her eyebrows and does not appear apologetic.

-----------------------

John leans back against the low stone wall, clutching an ice pack to his shoulder. He watches as the sky begins to turn morning blue over the airfield. The wind has calmed down, and a thin fog has descended. His balls are still freezing off, but he’s grateful for it now, the chill helps dull the pain in his shoulder.

The more he reflects, the more he knows it was the right call to pull him out. The scan was clear, but he’s apparently sustained enough soft tissue damage to put him on light duty for at least six weeks.

It’s a pain in the ass, but as he thinks about Kelli’s comments, he knows he’d be a dumbass to let an injury like that follow him.

Whitaker had been furious, the prick. As if John had intentionally dislocated his own arm just to spite his chances of promotion. He’d dressed him down for several minutes, right in the middle of the med bay. Right up until the point that Mullen and the Jumpmaster had stepped in to defend him. John hopes he never has to see that dickhead ever again, but he’s not going to hold his breath.

Yet another reason to pursue SAS.

No one had even mentioned Lewis. John wonders if that’s just going to be something that happened. He wonders if Lewis has even told anyone. In the back of his mind, John wishes he could get the credit. Logical or not, having to be withdrawn is a fucking embarrassment. The least Lewis could do was give him recognition for saving his ass.

His attention is caught by movement to his left, and he turns his head.

Kelli is passing by, heading back from the medical tent. Her posture is tired and she drags her feel slightly.

He nods at her.

She pauses as she gets nearer and gestures at his arm.

“You’ll heal up fine,” she says. “But you should work on that landing.”

John adjusts the ice on his shoulder.

“Didn’t know medics were so cheeky,” he says, smiling crookedly up at her.

“Only with the clumsy ones,” she says. “It’s like making sure a toddler doesn't fall down the stairs.”

John grins.

“I’m insulted,” he says. “I’m at least a pre-schooler.”

Kelli nods.

“Sure Start it is, then,” she says.

Kelli’s eyes are unreadable, but she’s smiling at him. He wishes he could know what she’s thinking - what she thinks about him.

“I must say, I didn’t expect you to be this breakable,” she says a little wryly, her eyes sizing him up. “Not after all the praise Dad used to lavish on you over dinner.”

She makes a face.

“‘That boy, Kelli,’” she says in a mock version of her father. “‘Mark my words: he’s gonna go far. And then one day I’ll be the guy that trained Johnathan Price.’”

As soon as she finishes the pantomime, Kelli grins. Then, almost instantly, her face drops, and she looks like she’s about to cry.

The hands by her side curl into a fists

It’s as if she just reminded herself that her father is gone. Dead.

John’s stomach twists. He’s not sure how to respond to what just happened. He doesn’t know if he should try and comfort her. He looks away for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” he says, because he doesn’t really know what else there is to say. “I heard you...”

He trails off.

Kelli shrugs. She seems to understand his unspoken question better than he does.

“Thanks,” she says. “I’m okay.”

“Are you?” he says incredulously. It kind of just comes out, and he immediately regrets it.

What a stupid fucking thing to ask.

Kelli’s eyes snap to his, and she looks angry for a second.

“I’m fine,” she snaps, and he knows she’s lying. “And it’s not really your business.”

He’s not about to challenge her on either of those points, so he just nods as if he understands at all what it must be like for her. One of his mates had killed himself years back, but John reckons it must cut a lot deeper when it’s your own father.

It must cut real deep when you’re the one that finds them.

Kelli starts to walk away, and he knows he’s cocked it up. But then she pauses and turns back to him.

“You should apply for SAS,” she says after a moment.

He raises an eyebrow.

“After that disaster?”

Kelli looks down and smiles.

“Everyone fucks up,” she says, sounding exactly like her father. “But not everyone gets back up.”

Her smile fades, and she looks back up. She fixes him with a serious look.

“Besides, I talked to Lewis,” she says. “You saved his fuckin’ life, Price. And you did it with a dislocated shoulder - I hope you understand how ridiculously heroic that is.”

He stares at her for a moment. A flush creeps up his neck, and he’s grateful that the sun hasn’t yet broken the horizon.

“Lewis would’ve sorted himself out,” he dismisses.

Kelli rolls her eyes.

“Sure,” she says. “Just think about it, okay?”

She looks at him like she wants to say something else, but she doesn’t.

“I’ll think about it,” he acquiesces.

Kelli nods. She turns and walks back down toward the medical tent.

John watches her leave. He wonders if Kelli’s advice about getting back up is directed more at herself than it is at him. He hopes she’ll be okay, but he knows she will.

Call it instinct.

Chapter Text

0224 hours, Al-Hafir, Kharzari. 2023

When they reach the clinic, a single halogen lamp glows outside the porch. The building is small, barely bigger than the other concrete boxes lining the streets of Al-Hafir, but well-kept. The red MSF logo has been printed on copy paper and taped to the front door. A list of opening hours sits next to it: 9 a.m.–9 p.m., seven days a week. Ring for after-hours emergency.

John marches up to the door and jabs the ringer so hard he thinks it might break. The slightly muffled sound of a doorbell tinkles inside the building.

It’s just past 2 in the morning, so he half expects no one to answer despite the sign. These kinds of outfits are usually understaffed and overworked. Even if Kelli is involved, there’s no telling how reliable the care will be. MSF are ballsy, but they don’t hesitate to pull their people out or reassign them when needed to avoid critical danger. It doesn’t matter now, though. Ghost is in bad shape, and this place is their only option. Even with Gaz’s monitoring, the chest seal had started leaking, probably due to Rains driving like a fucking maniac. But at least the guy had gotten them to the clinic quickly.

His foot taps as he waits. He notices yellow smiley face stickers tacked to the corners of the left-side window set high in the thick concrete.

"Sir," Gaz points. A light in one of the upstairs windows has turned on, and John can hear someone coming down the stairs. When the door cracks open a few inches, the blue eyes of a woman around his age peer back at him. If the stickers hadn’t confirmed it, it’s now unmistakable.

Kelli stands before him, a look of momentary shock on her face. She’s cut her hair again, chin length, held back by a ratty headband as she peers blearily out at him. She looks older, but he probably does too.

Relief fills his veins, infused with a dash of doubt. She doesn’t look particularly happy to see him - like he’s an omen of misfortune. Which, to be fair, he is.

"John Price," she states, her brow furrowing, but there is no emotion now except a careful assessment of the situation. Her eyes dart to the wheezing body of Ghost being held up by Gaz and Rains behind him.

The deadbolt clicks, and she opens the door wide. "Bring him in," she says without hesitation. "Table in the back room."

The clinic is as small as it looks from the outside. Kelli ushers them all into the back room, separated by a white curtain. When he passes her, she shoves a small pager into his hands.

"First number," she says, "page 3."

He complies immediately, punching the buttons.

"What happened?" she asks, glancing between him, Gaz, and Rains as she pulls on a pair of blue latex gloves. She points at Gaz. "Hold his head still," and starts tearing off Ghost’s shirt.

"RPG caught us in a stairwell down in Al-Quatar," John checks his watch. "25 minutes ago. Ghost got the brunt of it," he says, tossing the pager aside and helping her yank off the rest of Ghost’s gear. "Extraction mission. Got stuck on the evac."

"Medvac?"

He shakes his head. "Red airspace. Comms went dark."

Kelli nods. She looks at Rains and jabs her chin at the door in the back corner.

"There’s an alleyway back there," she says. "Knock on the green door and get Darya in here. She knows you."

Rains nods. John watches him rush out into the alley.

"Can you speak to me, Ghost?" Kelli asks, her voice calm.

"Fuck, doc," he says. "I can’t-" He gasps at empty air.

Kelli places a gentle hand on Ghost’s left shoulder.

Ghost turns his head to look at her. Even through his mask, John sees the wide-eyed fear. It's an emotion he doesn't think he’s ever seen on Ghost’s face. It reminds him too much of that godforsaken subway. The look in Soap’s dead eyes, the last thing he must have ever felt.

John feels like he might throw up.

Kelli’s voice, clear and steady, cuts through his spiraling thoughts. "Ghost," she says. "My name is Dr. Purcell. You’re finding it hard to breathe because something has punctured your left lung cavity. Fortunately, your Captain plugged the hole long enough to get you to me, and luckily for you, I’m going to get you patched right up. But I need you to stay with me and stay calm. I know you can do that, can’t you?"

Ghost’s eyes focus, just slightly.

"Sure thing, Doc," he croaks.

John exhales silently. They’re nowhere near safe, but it’s something.

Kelli will stop this. He’s seen her do it plenty of times before.

She grabs her stethoscope from a drawer by the window. He recognizes it - the same sunflower yellow from Basra, Sangin, and every installation in between.

She presses it to Ghost’s right side. Then the left. Her eyes dart across his chest, sharp and focused.

"No air entry," she says. "Left side’s moving, right’s silent." She moves the stethoscope lower and hums.

John stiffens. He knows that hum. It’s never good.

The alley door swings open. Rains rushes in, followed by a girl, startlingly young, with a hastily tied head covering. Her eyes are wide.

"Vitals, Darya," Kelli says with a nod.

Blinking, Darya nods quickly and hurries to the trolley in the corner. She whips it around, almost hitting Rains in the process.

"Move," Kelli snaps as he jumps aside. John leans over and yanks him aside

"Get the car off the street," he snaps, shoving him toward the door. "Gaz, cover him."

Gaz nods and bolts after Rains.

Kelli grabs Ghost’s wrist, whipping off his glove. A muscle in her jaw hardens as she feels along his pulse. The silence stretches.

Darya clips something to Ghost’s other hand and starts inflating a blood pressure cuff, her hands shaking.

"Pulse is thready - around 130," Kelli says finally. "Respiration’s 28 and shallow."

"Blood pressure is 90 over 60," Darya adds, before peering at the clip she placed. She rattles off the numbers like she’s done this before, but her hands are shaking. "Oxygen is falling. Eighty-four percent."

Kelli tosses John a roll of tape. "Secure the chest seal," then to Darya:"No breath sounds on the right. Left’s clear. We’ve got a pneumothorax. You’re helping me decompress, okay?"

Darya nods, eyes wide.

John rips off pieces of tape and presses them to the chest seal. Ghost’s chest is heavily muscled, but there’s a disturbing tug to the skin just above his sternum.

"I need iodine," Kelli says, "one of the angiocaths, and for Christ's sake, Darya, put on some gloves. In that order, please."

Darya fetches a dark brown bottle and hands it to Kelli.

"John, I need you to hold his arm back," she says, swabbing Ghost’s chest with iodine. The use of his name jolts him. He grabs Ghost’s arm and holds it steady.

Kelli places her fingers on Ghost’s clavicle and moves downward with careful precision. She takes the catheter from Darya’s now-gloved hands, uncaps it, and breathes deeply. In and out, just like she always has before something serious. Then she slides the needle perpendicular into Ghost’s chest.

There’s a beat of silence - then a faint hiss.

Darya lets out a breath. "Stats are climbing, Doctor. Ninety-one percent. Blood pressure is up a little."

Kelli nods. "Good. That’s the first fire out, but he’s still hypotensive."

She presses the stethoscope to the right side of Ghost’s chest.

"How we feeling, Ghost?"

"You need breathing to live, right?" Ghost says slowly, his voice tight.

"Hang in there, mate," Price says, leaning forward to grasp Ghost’s hand. "You’re gonna be fine."

Kelli looks over at him. He can’t tell whether the pinch in her brow is sympathy or determination.

She looks up at Darya, just as the back door swings open and a tall, blonde-haired man bursts into the room.

His eyes go wide as he looks about and John thinks he was probably not expecting soldiers.

"Heart sounds are dull," Kelli says to him, barely missing a beat. "He’s tamponading."

The man’s eyes focus in on Ghost’s body. "You sure?" he says in a thick French accent.

Kelli glares. "I’m not guessing, Benoît, am I? This isn’t fucking Jeopardy. Jesus fucking Christ. Pericardiocentesis. Now."

"Okay, okay," Benoît says, hands up in apology. He ducks around the table, tugs on gloves, and tears open a sterile syringe. "Merde."

"How is he?" Gaz asks from behind. John blinks - he hadn’t even heard them come back in.

"Not good," John says, folding his arms. "What’s happening, Kelli?"

Kelli glances up. "Internal bleeding into his heart cavity. I need to drain it before it stops beating."

"Jesus," breathes Gaz.

"He was fine on the way over."

John snaps his head toward Rains. The blasé attitude is really starting to piss him off.

"Fine?" he snaps. "You call a collapsed lung fine?"

"You know what I mean," Rains mutters, raising his hands in a half shrug and backing into a corner.

John isn’t sure he does. He isn’t sure he understands anything right now, except that he’s about to lose another soldier, and Rains still can’t say anything useful.

"It doesn't matter what he was like on the ride over," Kelli says, calm but firm, taping a gauze square across Ghost’s chest. "Whatever caused the bleed was likely small, it’s just now presenting. Not uncommon. But deadly without surgery."

She directs the last part at John.

He turns to Gaz.

“We need comms back. Now.”

He and Gaz had tried to fix the issue in the car. Nothing worked. John suspects jamming - probably Zaman’s crew. GPS was spotty, satcom dead. He glances at Rains again.

It’s a lot of trouble for one runner. Too much heat for too little. Either the lad’s got something stitched into his DNA, or someone upstairs is playing chess with live pieces again.

Gaz nods. “Maybe they have some antenna tech in this village,” he says.

John nods.

Darya looks up at him from where she’s been fetching needles. “My uncle,” she says quickly, “he owns a television shop. Just down the road.”

John nods at her.

“Locals might tip Zaman off,” Gaz murmurs. They share a glance at Rains, who is staring at Ghost’s pale body.

“It’s either that or Ghost is done,” John mutters.

“I need some hands!” Kelli snaps, beckoning him and Gaz over.

“Gently, lift his chest so I can get this under,” she waves a blue hospital pillow. “Gently, gently.”

John and Gaz carefully lift Ghost forward. Kelli slides the pillow under his shoulder blades.

“Don’t mind me, boys,” Ghost grits out. “Just bleeding internally. Take your time.”

Despite everything, John cracks a crooked smile. If Ghost’s still making jokes, thats something.

“You know I always thought your Captain was my most dramatic patient.” Kelli nods at John as she attaches a long needle to a syringe. “Turns out he was the warm-up act.”

“Funny,” Ghost mutters. “That’s what my last girlfriend said.”

Gaz swears under his breath. Benoît mutters something incredulously in French. Kelli shakes her head and laughs.

For a second, John feels like he’s back in Afghanistan. 24, tired, and young enough to still feel invincible. Joking with the lads. Trading stories about girlfriends while tracking targets through streets too dangerous to sneeze in.

He wouldn’t call them the good old days, because really, he quite likes being more mature and less stupid, but the feeling tugs at a point just above his sternum.

Kelli snaps him back.

“Hold him steady,” she says, serious. “I need the sternum exposed. If he flinches, I could hit his heart.”

Benoît swabs the center of Ghost’s chest with iodine.

“This’ll sting, Ghost,” Kelli warns. “Then you’ll feel pressure.”

Ghost grunts.

Kelli angles the needle upward, to the left.

A deep breath. Then, with slow, deliberate precision, she inserts it.

“Needle in,” she says. “Advancing, aspirating.”

Silence.

John forgets to breathe.

Then, dark blood fills the syringe.

Kelli grins. “There you are, bastard. Alright. Drain’s working.” She continues aspirating, then looks over at Benoît and Darya. “We’re leaving the line in.” She disconnects the syringe and attaches tubing. “Aspiration every ten minutes. Ghost?” She places a hand on his shoulder. “You move and you’re dead.”

“Fun,” he says weakly.

“Life and death,” Kelli says. “The best kind.”

She and Benoît finish setting up the aspiration system, taping the tubing to Ghost’s skin. Kelli takes out a sharpie and makes a few marks on his chest.

“Can you monitor for a moment, I’ll be back,” she says, placing a hand on Benoît’s shoulder. “Thank you for coming. Do you want coffee?”

Benoît shakes his head and mutters something in French that John doesn't catch.

A muscle tightens in Kelli’s jaw.

Benoît is staring at her with a hard look, and John just knows he’s going to be a problem. John glances at Rains, who is also watching Benoît and Darya work.

Another one.

Kelli gestures for him and Gaz to follow her into the front room, peeling off her gloves and tossing them in the bin as she walks. Rains follows after them.

“It’s a Band-Aid on a bullet wound,” she says quietly. “This’ll buy us an hour, maybe two - if he stays still and nothing goes wrong.”

She fixes him with a hard look. “And something always goes wrong.”

He nods. “Gaz,” he says, “we need those comms back up. Now.”

Gaz nods. “On it, sir.” He glances at Kelli. “You’ve got an antenna on the roof. I can try patching the radio through it.”

Kelli rubs her jaw, eyes tired. She looks older, but not changed. Same eyes. Same crooked smile. Same goddamn look that cuts like a field knife.

Even dressed in a ratty pajama robe and a pair of neon green Crocs, she’s as beautiful as the day she first told him he was a dumbass.

“It doesn’t work,” she says. “You’ll need power.”

“MSF not have enough budget for comms?” Gaz asks, skeptical.

“There’s a lot of wars,” Kelli says grimly, “and not a lot of charity these days.”

John clears his throat. “Make do.”

“Darya’s uncle might have parts,” Kelli says. “Try the abandoned buildings first. The village is mostly neutral, but if word spreads… well, it spreads.” She looks between them. “You can have the antenna if you get it working. But hands off anything in the clinic. I’m already down to my bones, and people need this place.”

"Take Rains." 

Gaz nods. He gesture at Rains to follow him and they slip out the front door.

Kelli turns and fixes John with a careful gaze. “Zaman’s got a strong influence in the outskirts,” she says. “He’ll want Nico back, John. You can’t stay here. Not for long.”

John grits his teeth. “That kid is more than just a runner, isn’t he?”

Now that there is no immediate threat of Ghost dying, the anger returns - hot and potent.

Kelli sucks her teeth. “Truthfully? I don’t know,” she says, glancing toward the back. “But it’s not the first time I’ve seen him. And the fact you were sent to extract him…” She raises a brow and leads him into a side room with a stove and kettle. “Come on, John. You and I both know that means something. Especially now you’ve got this fancy task force. Congratulations on the promotion, by the way.”

“You know about that,” he says.

“You’re not the only one with friends in secret places,” she says with a raised eyebrow, lighting the stove.

Now that there’s a moment to breathe, John suddenly feels awkward. Even though he thinks about her sometimes - a lot, really - he hasn’t seen her in five years. Not since Zanzibar, and that was a fucking disaster. Now he’s turned up on her doorstep with a medical emergency, and he hasn’t even said hello.

They left on shit terms, and while he was technically not in the wrong, he said a lot of things he regretted. He wonders if she feels the same.

She’s looking at him like maybe she does, brows drawn and careful.

“Kelli, about what I said-” he starts, and immediately runs out of words.

Kelli, like she always has, understands.

“John,” she says, placing two mugs down on the bench, “your boy’s got a syringe stuck in his heart. What you said was five years ago. It’s in the past.”

“No,” he insists. “I shouldn’t have-”

“John. It’s fine.”

He steps forward and ducks his head. Having to say this feels so embarrassing right now - he can barely look at her. But he’s spent the last five years regretting that conversation, and now she’s here in front of him again, like some gift from the Almighty. He thinks of Soap. how quickly he was gone. Of Ghost, hanging by a thread.

There might not be another chance.

“Kelli,” he grinds out. “Let me apologize. Please.”

Kelli considers him for a moment. She pokes her chin at him. “Alright,” she says. “Say your piece.”

Once again, he’s started something he doesn’t know how to finish. He clears his throat. “That was it.”

Kelli sucks at her teeth as if she's holding back a laugh. She looks at him and shakes her head.

“It’s fine, John,” she says, her voice kinder than he deserves. “I’m sorry too, you know. I shouldn’t have broken your nose. It was uncalled for.”

John smiles grimly. “I deserved it,“ he says. “Did a right number on it too - never been the same since.” He gives a sniff for good measure.

Kelli chuckles. She looks at him for a long moment. “Are you okay, John?” she says.

It hits him like a freight train.

“My guy’s bleeding out in your back room, Kelli. What do you think?”

She has the gall to laugh and it pisses him off. He always thought soldiers had the worst gallows humor, but medics are even worse. It’s like emotional whiplash.

“Thats not what I meant,” she says before fixing him with a long hard look. “You look like shit.”

He scowls.

Kelli’s tone reminds him so much of his saint of a grandmother - down to the kind, soft stress on the word ‘shit’. Nan would never had told him he looked like shit, but she had always known when he was hurting. It had killed John when she died, and now it’s like she’s been reincarnated into this torturous creature who looks at him like she already knows the truth. Five years apart, and five before that, and she still reads him like a book.

"I'm fine," he lies.

He knows that if he voices the truth, then it will make it the truth, and he won't be able to hide behind denial. He's already falling apart at the seams, barreling toward the kind of give-no-fucks attitude that turns good soldiers into rampaging liabilities. He can see the abyss before him. So close he might be able to reach out and touch what he sees staring back. It pulls at him like a riptide, and he is helpless to resist.

He has always anchored himself in moral certainty, in his instinct about what was right, about what he had to do because it kept the world clean.

Now? He doesn’t know what to be certain about.

He meant what he said to Shepherd before he placed that bullet between his eyes; he used to be a better man.

But he’s redrawn the line so many times, he doesn’t know which side he’s standing on.

And worse - after Soap - he’s not sure he cares.

The better John Price would care. This one doesn’t. He got his revenge and felt nothing. The fury stayed. Now, he’s a man with no compass and no target.

He thought he had felt his worst, but now, standing in front of the one person who truly sees him for who he is, the one person who will not hesitate to challenge him on his bullshit-

He’s terrified.

“I lost someone recently,” he admits. “One of my men.”

Kelli pauses mid pour. She glances at him. “I’m sorry, John,” she says, turning to give him her full attention. “Did I know him?”

John nods. “Met him. Zanzibar. Soap.”

She nods slowly. "Black's cousin,” she says, and sets a mug of steaming tea in front of him. “Brought it from home,” she says in response to his look, “its not a beer but it’ll warm you up.”

He’s not in the mood for tea - he needs to get eyes back on Ghost - but it smells like home. Nostalgic. The exact right shade of brown.

He’s always been unsettled by Kelli’s ability to move from crisis to blase normalcy back to crisis in the blink of an eye. Soldiers have their own version, but he's seen this specific compartmentalization many times before.

Its a medic thing, not just a Kelli thing.

It would be easy to think things were okay, just for a second.

They never are.

Kelli takes a sip of her coffee and makes a face.

“I hate Kharzari coffee,” she says. “But its better than the mud they gave us in Afghanistan.”

“Not a hard bar to beat,” John says, taking a sip from his mug. Its perfect, exactly the way he likes it.

He’s grateful she’s not pressing - yet. But part of him aches when the moment slips by so fast. He was never meant for a normal life, but slivers like this feel like crumbs tossed to a starving man.

He wants to ask her everything.

Wants to ask if she ever missed him.

If she’s happy.

Why she’s not wearing a wedding ring.

But the moment is not right. He has a job to do. He needs to keep focus. So, all he manages is:

“Thanks for the tea.”

And Kelli just nods.

“Lets go check on your guy.”

Chapter Text

Camp Redgrave, Helmand Province, Afghanistan. 2007

John watches as Kelli takes a sip of coffee and gags. She mutters something to the woman at her side, Ronan, if he recalls. Ronan laughs. She takes the enamel mug from Kelli’s hands, takes her own sip, and rolls her eyes.

John takes a bite of curry. Even now, there’s still that flicker, quiet, stupid, stubborn, whenever he catches sight of her.

They’ve run into each other many times over the years, but Herrick 5 was the first time they’d been stationed at the same FOB.

Kelli’s unit had been in support since then. She may not be SAS, but the boys like having her around. He likes having her around. She’s a damned good medic. The back-to-back tours have racked up her experience to a point where he’s been trying to push Mullen to recommend her for promotion to Corporal. He has no real control over whether he does or not, but he knows his opinion carries some weight. Not that it should need to. Kelli is calm under fire, skilled, and can handle herself on base. She’s been cycling through rotations while most medics tapped out after a tour. Not her. She seemed hungry for it. Not reckless, not naive. Just wired for the job in a way most aren’t. Especially in her shoes. But John figures she loves it, or at least she loves saving people.

He thinks there are probably easier ways to save lives. But SAS has been kicking his arse ever since the first deployment to Helmand, and he loves it more than he’d admit - so he’s not about to judge another soldier’s crazy.

Besides, he’s glad to see her doing alright.

The Afghan sun beats down on the camo net that the entire base seems to be trying to cram under. He can feel a small sliver of sun burning a path across the back of his neck. The mission briefing had gone long -way long - but that’s not a surprise. Lunch has been shortened, and he needs to run the route review in less than 10 minutes.

Helmand province is a dangerous place these days, and Sangin is especially chaotic. Tight urban clusters, flanked by dense vegetation. It’s a minefield for Taliban activity, IEDs, ambush zones, hideouts. Intel says the region has been in a lull the last few days, but there’s been recent insurgent activity nearby in Kōṯay Zaī, so command is on alert.

John sometimes wonders what Afghanistan was like before the invasion, before the Taliban. Probably still hot enough to cook an egg in the sand. Hopefully less dangerous. He doesn't really think about it too much, but he likes to think that one day things might be better for the people here. They’re good people, for the most part. At least the ones that aren’t trying to blow him or his squad up.

Riggs elbows him in the side.

“Hey Price,” he says, grinning like he’s about to set something on fire. “Why didn’t you tell us your girlfriend’s well fit?”

John pauses, holding the spoon he was about to shove into his mouth still for a moment.

“Excuse me?”

Riggs grins.

“Your bird, Price,” he lets out a low whistle, leaning in close and glancing around at the other guys. “I saw the photos. Why didn’t you tell us you pulled a fox?”

John purses his lips.

He is immediately on alert for whatever bullshit is about to come out of his mouth next. Riggs is a right dog, and ever since the promotion, he’s acted like John’s stripes don’t mean shit, just because they slogged through selection together.

The rest of the table seems to be observing Riggs with varying degrees of amusement and wariness. Riggs’ mates are holding back thinly veiled smirks. A couple of the quieter guys are looking at him with careful looks on their faces.

John thinks they are right to predict his annoyance on this topic. He’s not above a bit of banter, but John doesn’t really want to hear Veronica talked about like she’s some piece of meat. Knowing her, she’d probably enjoy the attention, but he doesn't. It’s the principle of the thing.

He carefully puts the spoon in his mouth and chews. The beef chews like boot leather, but it buys him a second to think. Small mercies.

He’s 90% sure Riggs is doing some bit because John knows there’s no way he has photos of Veronica - he’s not that much of a sociopath. More likely Riggs is just being Riggs. A button-pusher to the bone. And John’s rep as a hardass doesn’t do much to scare him off.

He swallows down the food.

“Because I knew you’d be a knob about it, Riggs,” he dismisses, “since you’ve never pulled anything but your hamstring.”

There is a soft chorus of oohs.

Riggs is looking at him as if he’s weighing up his options, and at that exact moment, Kelli and Ronan have the distinct misfortune of walking past their table.

“Oi, Purcell,” Riggs calls, craning his head over his shoulder to flag her down. “C’mere.”

Kelli looks like she’d rather chew glass, but she sighs and stops.

“What is it, Riggs?” she says. “You finally figure out the food goes in your mouth and not up your ass?”

There is a smattering of snickers around the table.

“Good one,” Riggs says, unperturbed, before whipping out a digital camera.

Kelli shakes her head, but she stays in place. She knows, just like he does, that Riggs’ blasé attitude is why he’s hard to pin down. Nothing sticks because nothing matters to him. It will get him killed one day, John is sure of that.

“You seen Price’s new girlfriend?”

Kelli glances at him. She looks like she is searching for something - a reaction, probably. But John thinks he’s just going to let whatever is happening play out. Riggs is clearly trying to get a rise out of him. If Riggs crosses the line, he’ll make sure he knows it, but one of the first things he’d learned from his mentor was sometimes you gotta let the boys have their stupid fun.

Sometimes it’s the only thing that keeps the cracks from showing.

Kelli peers at the small screen.

“Oh that’s very clever, Riggs,” she says, as if speaking to a particularly slow four-year-old. “You think that one up all by yourself, clever boy?”

Riggs’ expression drops for just a moment.

Ronan leans over to have a look.

“That’s a picture of a dog,” she says.

Riggs and his mates burst into laughter.

John shoves the last spoonful of his curry into his mouth. He raises an eyebrow at Riggs, who cackles.

“Your bird is hot, though,” Riggs says to him after a moment. “Saw that Polaroid of yours,” he lets out a low whistle. “Great tits.”

John drops the spoon into the curry and swallows.

“Alright,” John says, standing. The table goes quiet.

“Review tent in five,” he says flatly. “That includes you and your camera, Riggs.”

The table groans and starts finishing up.

He hops over the bench and tosses his bowl into the mess. He glances back and realizes that Kelli is following him. He knows that look - she’s about to give him grief. Always does.

“Can’t believe you let Riggs spout that disrespectful bullshit right in front of you.”

John shrugs.

“He’s just being a dog,” he says, stopping in front of the review tent.

Kelli turns to him.

“Yeah, I know, Price,” she says. “That’s my point. She’s your girlfriend.”

“He’s not wrong,” John says with a shrug. “Veronica does have great tits.”

She shoots him a look of disgust.

“Gross,” she says.

“Jealous?”

“Of Veronica’s tits?” she scoffs. “Not worth the cost of sucking your tiny cock, thanks very much.”

John huffs out a laugh, tonguing a back molar.

The urge to tell her she’s welcome to suck his cock anytime she likes comes out of nowhere.

He doesn’t. She’d shoot him.

He’d deserve it.

He can dress it up however he wants, but he’s heard the locker room filth about the women on base. The way Riggs really talks, when he thinks John can’t hear him, is disgusting.

Doesn’t change the fact he kinda wants her.

He knows he’s fancied her ever since that disaster of a HALO drop, but he’s almost certain she’s had something unsanctioned going on with her CO, Mullen, for the past year that breaks every fraternization protocol in the books.

It pisses him off, and not just because he fancies her. He’s met men like Mullen before. He’s one of those slick bastards. The ones who don’t need to force someone to do something. They just wait ‘til you convince yourself to do it.

He worries about her.

She’s become a friend since SAS selection, checking up on him every now and then. In her words, ‘making sure he hasn’t fallen out of another airplane’. Herrick’s been the first time they’ve spent so long in the same place together. He knows that she was grateful to see him at her father’s wake. Her mother had hugged him like a vice when Kelli had introduced him. He had felt shit, but also like it meant something - as if he carried some part of Robert that had been left behind. He hadn’t really understood that back then, but as he loses more and more friends, he thinks he understands better now.

John also thinks that anything he might feel would spoil whatever it is that they’ve cultivated over the years.

And so he keeps his mouth shut.

Besides, he and Veronica just became ‘Facebook official’ - whatever the fuck that means. Veronica is nice, and he likes her despite it all. She makes him feel less like a boring wanker when he’s off deployment. She forces him to museums and art galleries, and though he sometimes wants to shoot himself in the head listening to the never-ending stream of inane drama her friends seem to come up with, she looks at him like some kind of knight in shining armor.

And yeah, maybe he’s fancied Kelli for three years, but there’s no way she’d be able to top some of the stuff Veronica can do with her tongue.

“You up to date on the extraction zones?” he asks.

Routine grounds him. It always does, especially around Kelli.

She nods, her eyes glancing around his face for a moment.

“Always,” she says.

“Good,” he says as the rest of the unit starts milling into the review tent. “Right. Let’s get on with it.”

————————

The sun has not yet reached the highest part of the sky, and John feels like his scruff's about to melt clean off. He adjusts the strap under his jaw, the helmet already hot and heavy, the scrim tickling the side of his face. The heat enhances the stink from the canal, choked with algae and water the color of dishwater. It cuts like a scar through the poppy fields, flanked by rough-packed mud-brick embankments that have been widened and reinforced over generations of farming. A swarm of flies buzzes over a goat carcass.

His team moves slowly, methodically, down the narrow footpath, just wide enough for one man at a time. John moves second in the file, glancing between rooftops and doorways like a metronome. Every grinning kid might be a scout. Every grain sack, a trip to goddamn pieces. Sangin’s green zone was notorious for danger - tight alleyways and winding paths, doorways set back and out of sight, rows of poppy stalks up to his shoulder. All prime real estate for an ambush or an IED.

If he misses something, that could be it.

Connors, the point man, suddenly raises his fist.

The squad freezes.

“Movement, rooftop. Ten o’clock,” Connors whispers to him. “One figure, shadow behind the lattice.”

“Weapon?”

“Can’t confirm. Could be optics. Could be nothing.”

John sniffs.

“Eyes up, rooftop, ten o’clock,” he says into the comms. “Hold spread. Black, get eyes on from cover.”

“Copy. Moving.”

John watches the rooftop, his jaw tight. From the corner of his eye, he sees Kelli glance at the compound wall, then across the street. Her voice comes low but sharp.

“Locals pulling back from the road, sir.”

“Confirmed,” he says, a familiar prickle at the base of his neck. “This is smelling wrong. Riggs, left flank overwatch. Everyone else - hard eyes.”

A breath passes. Two.

Then comes the first burst of fire.

The shot tears through Connors, spinning him sideways. He drops, his scream swallowed by the dirt, rifle skidding into the dry canal bed.

“Contact! Rooftop, one o’clock!” John snaps, dropping to a knee, rifle up. “Black, left wall! Riggs, push to flank!”

Connors is writhing near the canal lip. Leg hit, blood jetting fast across the dry dirt. The field goes loud. Controlled bursts thudding from behind cover. Clay spatting off the compound wall in puffs.

In his peripheral, he sees Kelli break cover and make for Connors.

“Purcell - hold position!”

“Femoral might be hit,” she barks back, sliding down next to Connors like a fucking maniac, “he might have minutes.”

That punch-to-the-gut feeling never bloody changes. It doesn't matter if it’s Kelli or one of his unit or some other moron. They run, and his gut drops every time.

He fires off a burst, then ducks below the wall and presses his back into the clay.

Kelli is yanking a tourniquet from her kit. She slaps it high on Connors’ thigh, cinching it tight. Bullets crack overhead. One punches through the clay embankment behind her.

“Black, I need cover on that roof!” John shouts, already moving.

He crosses the canal ditch in three strides and drops beside her, shoulder to shoulder.

Connors is white-lipped and thrashing.

“Hell of a spot for a house call,” he mutters, rifle clearing her shoulder.

Kelli looks up at him.

“I go where the blood is, sir.”

There is a slight madness in her eyes that he recognizes. He sees it in most of his SAS mates. He sees it when he looks in the mirror. Christ, he just prays that it doesn’t get her killed.

He prays it doesn’t get him killed.

The first burst had come from the rooftop. The shooter is gone now, melted back behind the compound wall. Silence follows, for just a second.

Silence here means shit’s about to go sideways.

Then it comes again. From the east, tight three-round bursts thudding into the canal bank, kicking grit into their faces.

“They’re bounding,” he calls, “trying to keep us pinned.”

He raises his rifle, pivots, and feels the pain graze his side before he hears the shot ricochet off the wall next to them.

He grits his teeth, swallowing down a noise. It’s not deep. He hopes. It’s just enough to shift his knees underneath him.

“Black, move north side. Get eyes on that tree line! Riggs with him! Purcell-” he turns, teeth gritted, “-be ready to move him. We’re not holding here if they circle.”

He fires off a burst toward the northern compound. Rounds crack overhead. Short bursts slapping mud from the canal wall and kicking up dust and gravel. He wipes his face with the back of his hand. Someone shouts down the line. Return fire spats out in sharp rhythm. Kelli is moving beside him.

“Down- get down!” she shouts, dragging him below a loose rise in the canal bank. Her gloves slide against where he’s been hit. Blood. Her gloves are covered in blood. Connors’. Now his.

He tries to wave her off, tries to push up on his good elbow.

“Get back behind cover-”

“You’re bleeding, sir,” she snaps, pushing him flat.

He groans, more from the pressure than the pain.

“It’s nothing. Keep on Connors.”

Bullets crack past them again. One strikes the bank, inches from her boot. She doesn’t flinch, neither does he. She is already tearing open his vest, yanking the fabric aside to find the wound.

“Through and through,” she says, “he’s stable for now.”

He grunts as she finds the wound. It is ugly, ragged edge, high on his left flank. It’s not spurting, but it’s bleeding fast.

Kelli’s gloves move fast. Without hesitation.

“Lucky bastard,” Kelli says, looking up at him, “it’s a graze. Stay still.”

“No promises.”

John’s breath comes sharp as she packs the wound, pressing hard with a thick wad of gauze. She pulls a pressure bandage from her med pouch and wraps it around him.

Another burst of gunfire rattles close.

He grunts. He needs to get eyes on the rest of the team.

“Give me ten more seconds, sir,” Kelli says, reading his mind, “then you can be a big man again.”

He looks down at her - mud-smeared, focused, lips pressed in concentration as she works in the middle of hell, like she doesn't even hear the gunfire anymore. Her face is so close. She glances up, just for a moment. Her eyes are still wild, but there is concern there. Concern for him, he thinks, and it messes with him.

She cinches the wrap tightly, fastening it with her teeth.

He hisses as she slaps the plate carrier back into place.

“Done.”

“About time,” he grunts, reaching for his rifle. Before he can, she catches his wrist. Her eyes are so intent, staring at him as they share the same breath huddled against the side of the canal.

“Don’t be stupid, Price.”

He searches her face.

“Rich, coming from you.”

Kelli grins.

A beat passes. She releases his wrist and turns back to assess Connors.

Over comms, Black’s voice crackles: “Targets falling back. We’ve got movement to the north, but nothing pressing.”

The gunfire eases into the distance, not gone, but far enough.

John raises his weapon and scans the area for any signs of movement. The firefights are always chaotic. It’s impossible to have a full handle on everything that’s going on. The rest of his team is alert behind cover. Assessing. He counts. He lets out a breath. Everyone seems intact.

Almost everyone.

He glances back. Kelli is pressing down on Connors’ leg. The kid seems stable for now; pale, drifting in and out, muttering something to Kelli. The field dressing is soaked red, tourniquet cinched tight against his thigh.

He’s a good guy, near the end of his first tour. He’s been reliable, sharp. It would be a shame for him to go this way. John thinks maybe he should feel more about the situation, but right now he needs to focus.

He licks his lips. They are cracked and sandy.

“Nine-liner’s out. MERT inbound, ETA seven minutes,” Black calls from up the trail, eyes still scanning his arcs.

The MEDEVAC Response Team would fly in fast and low. Sometimes it came with a full trauma team, sometimes it was just a winch and a prayer.

“We’ll hold the LZ here,” he says, pointing to a flat patch beside the canal, just past the crumpled goat pen. “Purcell, keep pressure. Riggs, I want security on the north wall. If they’re circling, I want to see them before they see us.”

Riggs nods and gestures for two of the infantrymen to follow him.

The canal bank reeks of algae and his boots are soaked. At least the water is a cool contrast to the beating sun. Flies already swarm the blood-soaked dirt.

He glances at Connors again. Kelli is kneeling beside him, her forearm slick. She doesn’t look up: “He’s circling the drain, sir. If they’re late, we lose him.”

“They won’t be.”

He launches himself up the canal wall and moves to the highest ground he can find - a ruined compound corner. He watches the horizon. He hates the waiting. The fragility of each second. One more ambush. One comms delay. And it could all tip again.

Then: the distant thrum of rotors. Not distant for long.

“Bird’s coming in!” Black shouts.

The dust kicks up like a bomb blast as the Chinook banks hard over the poppy fields, rear ramp already lowering. The whine of the engines bounces off the clay walls.

He hops down off the wall and legs it to the LZ. Kelli shields Connors’ face from the grit as he and Riggs lift him. His leg looks worse in daylight - limp, broken open like peeled fruit. But he is still breathing. Still blinking. Looking up at Kelli like she’s the second coming of Christ, his savior.

They load him onto the bird. The MERT doc barely nods, too fast and focused. Kelli steps back. She squints against the rotor wash.

The Chinook thunders skyward, and as quickly as it came, the noise is gone. The uneasy silence returns.

Kelli stands still for a second. Then she exhales hard and wipes her bloody hands on her trousers.

“That was close.”

“Too close,” he says, glancing at her. “You alright?”

“Yeah.” A beat. “No.”

He places a hand on her shoulder, reassuring, he hopes. He understands. Too well.

“He’ll make it,” he says. Not a promise. A dare.

———————

Connors makes it, but it was touch and go according to the MERT doctor.

John debriefs with the team before being pulled into a command report with Halford that takes way too long. COs have always been a mixed bag. Halford’s the best of the lot so far. He’s seasoned, pragmatic, and trusts his officers. His only flaw is that while in practice Halford doesn't mind bending the rules, on paper he likes things to be clean.

Which means paperwork. Mountains of the shit. If someone had warned him how much came with stripes, he might’ve told them to shove the promotion.

“This says you were injured,” Halford says, peering at him over the top of his report. His eyes glance between John’s face and his chest, covered by his fatigues but still bulky and bloody from the wrapping Kelli applied earlier.

John nods.

“Get it sorted.”

John nods.

He’s halfway to the medic station when he catches a glimpse of Kelli and Mullen, half-shadowed between the tents.

From the angle, it looks like they are having an argument. Mullen’s ears are red and his shoulders tight. The kind of posture John’s seen in dozens of officer pricks about to throw their weight around. Kelli’s glare would cut through body armour.

John knows it is none of his business. He knows this because he tries to cultivate the cold discipline of a man who keeps his mouth shut unless needed. But his feet angle slightly toward them anyway. Just close enough to catch it.

“-this is why I can’t recommend you for promotion.”

“I’m not asking for a promotion, Ryan,” Kelli snaps. There’s heat in her voice, but something raw beneath it. “I’m asking you to fucking trust me, I’m not a child.”

It lands wrong. Not what she said, how she said it. Like someone just kicked the floor out from under her.

Anger flares - quick and sharp. He’s got no right to it. Doesn’t stop it boiling up anyway.

He tells himself it is because she is his friend.

As he passes, Kelli catches his eye. Her jaw sets like she’s bracing for impact.

Mullen turns too. His expression shifts the second he sees who it is. He nods, terse. Waiting for John to continue on. As if he has any fucking say over where John has a right to be.

John keeps walking. If he doesn’t, he’s not sure what he’d say.

Connors is surprisingly peppy for a kid that lost a full liter and a half of blood.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he apologizes as soon as John enters the tent. He tries to sit up, but the attending medic, Ronan, shoots him a glare. Instead, he falls back onto the bed and frowns up at the roof of the tent. John stops by his bedside. He knows that look. Connors is mortified. Same way he’d felt the first time he got lit up.

“Sometimes the bastards get you,” he reassures him. “You feeling better?”

Connors nods, but his face is forlorn.

“They’re gonna send me home, aren’t they, sir?” he says, turning to look at John.

John glances across at Ronan, who shrugs.

“Maybe, maybe not,” she says. “That’ll be Captain Mullen’s call.”

John stands awkwardly for a moment. He’s still not sure what to say in these situations. He’s still figuring out what kind of man he’s meant to be, what kind of leader. It is hard to deliver wisdom when you’re only three years older than the bloke you’re delivering it to.

He thinks about saying it’s not a bad thing to go home. That recovery matters. That seeing your family, your friends, is a good thing. That staying alive is enough.

But he knows that wouldn’t land. Not for someone like Connors. Not yet.

He was Connors once. In a lot of ways, he still is.

He would be devastated.

The war is shit. The food is shit. The sand, the grime, the politics.

Somehow the shit is shit.

You spend your days walking through someone else’s broken country, trying not to add to the wreckage.

And yet he knows that -for some of them -it makes sense in a way nothing else does. It strips everything back. It gives shape to the chaos.

The fight gives him purpose. He can handle it. So he must. It is a sacrifice that only people like him can make. To keep the world safe.

If that makes him a bastard, fine. He’ll take being a bastard over being useless.

He looks down at Connors.

“If they send you home, that’s not failure. It’s survival,” he says. “But if you’re still trying to prove something - don’t do it for anyone else. Not me. Not the lads. Not the bloody Queen. Make sure it’s something you believe in.”

Connors swallows hard, eyes flicking toward him.

“Do you believe in it, sir?”

John doesn’t flinch. But it’s a question that sticks.

“I believe in the men beside me. That’s enough.”

His answer seems to satisfy Connors, at least for the moment. He sees Ronan raise an eyebrow at him, but she doesn't comment on his little speech. They are not especially familiar, besides the mutual connection and proximity. She has always struck him as shrewd, but he is her superior.

She beckons him over.

“Shirt off,” she says, all business. She points to the gauze. “Kelli warned me. Said you’d rock up playing hero and not to let you weasel out of a checkup.”

John grunts. He was here to get it checked out anyway, and so he acquiesces. Part of him thinks it’s probably better for Ronan to be manhandling him and not Kelli.

He leaves the tent fifteen minutes later, side burning from the antiseptic, ego still a little raw.

He makes his way to the perimeter fence and sits down on a supply crate. The sun sits low on the horizon. Distant pops of gunfire punctuate the low hum of the base. Sangin never sleeps, but he savors the rare moments of rest. He is not due back for briefings until twenty-hundred. He’s still got a few forms to fill, but he needs the moment. He cracks open the little cigar tin Nan gave him when he made sergeant - like he’d earned knighthood.

“It was your grandfather’s,” she had said with a twinkle in her eyes. “We used to smoke the Wintermans together in Monte Cassino.”

John had never really smoked, but the scent reminds him of his grandparents. The first time he had tried, he had almost keeled over, but now he inhales easily. He only has a few left, but he thinks about the day and decides he deserves it.

“Those give you lung cancer, you know.”

He smiles into the cigar as he lights it up.

When he looks up, Kelli is sitting down next to him, looking thoroughly exhausted.

“As opposed to all the other creative ways I could die out here.”

“Touché.”

She sighs and stares out at the sunset.

“Emma said you gave Connors quite the speech,” she says. “Didn’t know the SAS taught that kind of emotional wisdom.”

He grunts. He wants to savor the flavor of the Hamlet, slightly sweet, a little earthy, nice dry aftertaste. He kind of likes something more peppery, but he hasn't had the chance to experiment much yet.

He blows out the smoke. “I improvised.”

Kelli watches as it dissipates.

He looks sideways at her. There is something in her posture that hints at unease.

"You okay?"

Kelli sighs.

“You know,” she says, “for a moment I wished it was me that had been shot.”

John turns to her sharply.

“Jesus, Kelli.”

His stomach drops. He hates that kind of talk, half-joke, half-cry for help.

She holds her hands up.

“Not dead, just like Connors,” she muses. “Easy RTU, back to Birmingham. Excuse to see the family.”

“There are easier ways to see your family,” he says, before pausing, “look Kelli, if you aren’t happy-”

“Jesus. I’m fine,” she insists, gritting her teeth as if regretting every word she just said. Which he thinks she should - what a stupid thing to voice aloud. “Look, I shouldn’t have said anything. Now you think I’m insane.”

He looks at her for a moment, disbelieving.

“I already thought that, but yeah.” He hates himself for it, he should probably ask her if she is okay, but he has to ask, “Are you good for this? I need you locked in, not locked up in your own head.”

Kelli’s face drops slightly. Her shoulders straighten.

“I’m good, I’m good,” she says, waving a hand, forcing a tight smile onto her face. “If I thought it would compromise my abilities, you’d be the first to know.”

He nods.

“Good.” A pause. “I need you focused out there.”

Kelli smiles tightly.

“Always.”

He watches her for another moment.

“Except for the wishing-you-were-shot part.”

Kelli gives him a little punch on the arm.

“Be real. Everyone’s thought that at least once.”

John takes another drag of the cigar. She’s not wrong exactly. But it alarms him all the same. He believes her when she says that she is focused in the field, but he thinks back to her argument with Mullen. That kind of drama, combined with the inherently fucked-up nature of what they have to do day in, day out... well, she’s not wrong that it’s a common sentiment among some of the infantry. It just surprises him to hear her say it.

“For the record,” he says, “I do not want to be shot.”

Kelli laughs.

“Rich coming from you.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

“Veronica?”

He shrugs. “I was thinking more about my mum, but sure.”

Kelli sits back against the supply crate and crosses her arms. They sit in silence for a moment.

“She good?”

He nods.

“Caring for nan full-time,” he says, “which they both hate, but what are you going to do? She refuses to go to a home.”

Kelli nods.

“And Veronica?” she asks, and something in her tone is careful, searching. But then she looks at him wryly: “Tits still holding up?”

John chuckles. She's such a hypocrite.

“She’s fine.”

“Just fine?”

John turns to look at Kelli. She is staring straight ahead, and something about the focus of her gaze tells him she is trying not to look at him.

He shrugs.

“She spent our last call moaning about bridesmaid drama like I wasn’t calling from a bloody war zone.”

Kelli turns to look at him.

“You should talk to her about that,” she says. “She’d probably appreciate you sharing your feelings.”

John lets out an incredulous huff. “Women don’t want men to share their feelings. Ruins the illusion.”

“The illusion?” Kelli scoffs. “I doubt Veronica has any illusions about what kind of man you are.”

John looks sideways at her. Kelli might as well be one of the boys, but she is still a woman, and women never want to admit that all women do weird, hypocritical shit.

“You’d be surprised,” he says. “I’m pretty sure she thinks I don’t actually kill people for a living.”

“What does she think you do?” Kelli asks.

John shrugs.

“I dunno. Save Afghani kittens.”

He pauses, weighing whether to say the next part. When he looks over, she’s already watching him - eyes sharp. She’s clocked it. Of course she has.

“And yeah... pretty sure she’s seeing someone else.”

He says it flat, like that’ll make it sting less.

Kelli stills.

“What?” she says. “Wait, what? John, are you serious? That’s fucked.”

He shrugs one shoulder before taking a long drag on the cigar.

“One of my mates said he saw her out with another guy,” he says. “Could be nothing, but=” he shrugs again, “-it wouldn’t shock me.”

Kelli tightens her mouth into a grim expression.

“I’m sorry, John,” she says. “That’s fucked.”

John rearranges his weight on the supply crate.

He grunts. “It’s not the end of the world.”

Kelli looks at him with disbelief.

“You are being, like, really calm about this,” she says, waving a hand around. “She’s your girlfriend.”

John knows he is only being calm about this because he always thought that he and Veronica were a temporary thing. She’d always had stars in her eyes. Was too idealistic and attached to the image of him as a soldier. Not him. Not the reality of what he does.

“We’ve only been dating for, like, nine months?” he says. “It’s not like I was married to her.”

Kelli pokes a finger at him.

“It’s still fucked, John.”

He kind of likes that about Kelli. She is so easily indignant about things, so easily on the offensive when she decides there has been some grave injustice committed. It’s a fucking pain in the ass when she directs it at him, but when it’s on his behalf - it feels great. Like someone actually gives a shit.

“Why don’t you just break up?”

He shrugs.

“She’s really, really good at-”

Kelli holds a hand up.

“I swear to God, John-”

“Making breakfast,” he finishes, a small, crooked smile tugging at his mouth. “And she’s got a nice apartment down in Chiswick.”

“Holy shit,” she says. “And I thought wanting to be shot was bad. At least it makes sense in context. That is fucked up.”

He looks at her for a long moment.

“More or less fucked than sleeping with your CO?”

A muscle in Kelli’s jaw twitches. She doesn’t answer right away. Doesn’t deny it either.

The silence stretches.

Then, quietly: “Less, probably,” she says. “But at least I know why I'm doing it.”

“And why are you doing do it?”

Kelli looks up at him. There is something unreadable in her expression. It could be sadness, it could be regret. It could equally be anger.

“Ryan is a good man, John,” she says, defensive.

John tips off some of the cigar ash into the dirt.

“He’s still a man, Kelli,” he points out, “and he’s your CO. You can like him all you want. Doesn’t change what it is. Power’s power. And he’s using it.”

It’s true.

Mullen is ten years her senior and her direct CO. Kelli might have a will of steel. She can choose to do whatever she wants, but even John recognizes that kind of power differential is a recipe for disaster. He should report it. He wants to report it. But Kelli is looking at him desperately, as if he is her lifeline.

She deflates a little.

“I know,” she says, unexpectedly. She opens her mouth again, “but-”

“If you fucking tell me you love him, I swear to God Almighty.”

Kelli snaps her mouth shut.

He sighs, glancing around. Twenty-two years of Keep Calm and Carry On fight against what he knows he should say.

“Look, I’m just worried about you, okay,” he admits. “Riggs might be a dog, but pricks like Mullen are the worst kind of bastard. You deserve better than that, Kelli.”

Kelli stares at him.

“So I should take your approach? Find someone I don’t give a shit about and fuck them for the view?”

John pinches the bridge of his nose.

“That’s not what I mean at all. Kelli-” he tries to stop her from standing. “Kelli.”

She shrugs off his hand and narrows her eyes at him.

“We’ve all got our own version of fucked, John,” she says, brushing dust from her trousers. “Maybe you should look at your own before commenting on mine.”

She’s gone before he can think of something smart that won’t sound like bullshit. Which is probably for the best. He’d probably make it worse by saying something true.

He sits back down, cigar burning down between his fingers, and watches as the sky over Sangin bleeds from orange to gunmetal grey.

Chapter Text

0241 hours, Al-Hafir, Kharzari. 2023

When they enter the back room, Benoit is standing over Ghost, arms crossed. He looks up as they enter. His face is drawn into an expression of hard intent, and John is immediately alert.

“He’s stable,” Benoit says, before turning to fix John with a sharp look. “He was… asking for you.” He looks at Kelli. “I sent Darya home. He won’t let me give him oxygen.”

He gestures to his chin. The mask.

John strides over and looks down at Ghost. His eyes are half open, and he is pale.

“Took your bloody time, old man. Thought I’d have to start haunting the clinic.”

John purses his lips, but he feels relief.

“If you wanted attention, you could’ve just asked. Bastard.”

Ghost lets out a half-chuckle, but winces at the movement.

“I was about to start seeing Soap. And he’d be pissed you let me go out like that.”

John knows Ghost is joking. That humor is just how he deals with things. But it cuts all the same. It reminds him of the stakes. Kelli has always been so dammed calm that it lulls him into the lie that everything will be okay. The surreal shock of seeing her again is replaced by biting clarity; he has a mission to complete.

He places a hand gently on Ghost’s arm. They make eye contact. Behind the mask, Ghost’s eyes grimace.

“Gaz is taking care of comms,” John says. “We’ll get MEDVAC sorted ASAP, mate.”

Ghost nods very slowly.

“Don’t rush on my account.”

“You’re going to need surgery.” Kelli says, slipping on a fresh pair of gloves, “beyond my pay grade and resources-but we’ll keep you stable here in the meantime.”

“Sounds fun,” Ghost says, examining Kelli from beneath heavy lids. “We can swap stories about the Captain.”

“As much as I’d enjoy that-” Kelli glances up at him with an unreadable expression, “you’re not going to do any talking. You need an O₂ feed to take some pressure off your lungs. The mask has to come off.”

Ghost turns his head to look at her.

“No.”

Kelli cocks her head to the side. “You enjoy being alive?”

Ghost considers this for a moment, as if he is seriously contemplating his identity versus his life. His eyes flicker to John’s.

“Captain can do it.”

Kelli and Benoit both turn to look at him. Kelli looks expectant, Benoit just looks annoyed.

John doesn’t move immediately.

There’s a quiet beat. Not hesitation - not exactly. Just the weight of it.

The mask had always been there. In every op, every briefing. It was Ghost, the symbol, the shield, the myth wrapped in mesh and plastic. Stripping it off felt like stripping him bare.

Kelli examines his reaction. She appears to appreciate the gravity of the situation because, ever professional, she shoots a look at Benoit and says, “we won’t look. But he needs it.”

John nods. He leans down by Ghost’s side, eyes scanning the familiar contours - peeling white paint, the hard plastic skull, tight straps looping behind his ears.

“You sure about this?”

“Don’t be soft. Just do it.” He says, “I ain’t ready to see Johnny just yet.”

John glances up. Benoit is standing by the door now, staring intently into the front room, arms folded. Kelli is still beside him but facing away. She glances at him and nods.

The damn thing is tight, slightly frayed from the makeshift stitching. John finds the edge of the balaclava underneath his chin and pulls slowly. The mask shifts, lifts. Ghost’s face, smeared with black paint and sweat, is pale. His lips are blue.

John settles the mask across Ghost's forehead, just above his eyes. In his peripheral he sees Kelli hold out the O₂ mask - soft silicone, connected to the portable tank line and controller.

“It’s a simple face seal. Set it over the bridge of his nose, cover his mouth, snug the elastic around the back of his head. Not too tight - just enough for a seal.”

“Let him breathe into it first, then I’ll start the flow.”

The mask is like the ones they use for HALO, but John has never fitted one to someone else before. He places it gently over Ghost’s face, adjusting until it fits.

Ghost blinks slowly but he doesn’t move.

Kelli moves beside him. There is a hiss. Oxygen begins to flow and John sees the mask inflate and deflate with each breath.

He watches Ghost’s chest rise, steadier now. The tension in his shoulders eases, just a notch. John thought the O₂ mask wouldn't do much to hide his face, but the smeared paint and gaunt complexion reflect a man that looks nothing like the soldier John knows.

“Now for the second revelation of the day,” Kelli says, carefully adjusting the oxygen feed. “-I’m going to give you something to help you rest Ghost. You’re stable for now, but you need to stay that way.”

John shoots her a sharp glance. He doesn't like the idea of Ghost being put under. The way he’s gone pale and weak, John thinks he might never wake up.

Ghost may well be thinking the same thing. His eyelids flutter beneath the mask. His eyes fix on Kelli’s - alert, mistrustful, afraid.

“You’ll wake up,” she assures him. “But if you keep moving, you’ll undo everything I just did. This is safer.”

She nods at Benoit. “Can you get the midazolam?”

John’s jaw clenches as he realizes she’s not asking. To her, it is a given. Logically, he knows she is the expert; she knows what she is doing. Ultimately, he still trusts her instinct, even after everything. He would have turned the car around as soon as Rains mentioned her name if he didn’t.

But he can’t help the irritation. He can’t help his paranoia, cultivated in the years since they fell out. Tended to by years of missions gone sideways and betrayal.

He trusts Kelli’s hands. He’s not sure about her judgment.

Kelli must see it on his face, because she sighs. “Half-dose first,” she says. “I know what I’m doing.”

He nods.

Kelli holds his gaze for a moment before checking Ghost’s IV. She takes the vial from Benoit and draws it into a syringe, tapping the side with practiced fingers.

“Monitor for hypotension,” she tells Benoit. Then to herself, so quiet he almost doesn’t catch it: “God, don’t bottom out on me.”

She injects the syringe into Ghost’s IV port, pushing the plunger slowly. Ghost flinches. His fingers twitch.

“Deep breath, big boy. Good. That’s it.”

John watches Ghost like a hawk. He’s not sure what he would even look for, but he would know if something was wrong.

Seconds pass.

Ghost’s chest rises and falls, more even now. The tension in his shoulders slackens. Eyes flutter closed.

She exhales - not relief, John thinks, not yet.

There is a pause.

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

The words are low and controlled. Benoit doesn't look at Kelli, just adjusts the clamp on the IV line.

John clenches his jaw.

His mind immediately jumps to foul play. His eyes flick between Benoit and Kelli before settling on Ghost, searching for signs. His thoughts race between anger and contingency; anger flares in his chest.

And then Benoit continues: “You’re gambling a civilian clinic on a dying soldier, Kelli.”

It’s not foul play. The doctor is just upset.

John grits his teeth.

Kelli doesn't respond right away. John watches the muscle flex in her jaw.

“I didn’t have a choice, Benoit.”

For a few seconds, the room is quiet. Then Benoît straightens, wipes his gloves off with deliberate slowness, and speaks.

“You had a choice,” he says. “You just didn’t like it.”

Kelli turns slowly. “I stabilized him, that’s all.”

Benoit turns his gaze to John.

“You’ve exposed everyone in this village in the process.”

That gets John’s attention. His jaw tightens. He steps forward, his hand ghosting over his rifle involuntarily.

“She kept him breathing. That’s what matters.” A pause. “If that’s a problem for you - take it up with me.”

Benoit straightens, arms crossed.

“And who are you exactly?” he says, glancing across John’s fatigues. Laswell had wanted the mission dark, and so John wears no flag. John would be impressed by the Frenchman’s gall in questioning him so blatantly, but he supposes anyone crazy enough to work the field with Kelli has the balls to match. “Another mercenary here to pillage a broken country?” He spits. “Men like you are a stain on this earth.”

John takes another step forward.

“You think you know what this is?” His voice drops to something colder. “You have no idea.”

Silence.

Benoît opens his mouth, but John cuts him off.

“You don’t want us here? Fine. Let her work. Then I’m gone. With him.”

He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t move. Just lets the quiet stretch.

Kelli steps up beside them both, her hands raised.

“Alright,” she says calmly. “Let’s just all take a breath.”

Benoit takes a step back from John. His eyes are hard, furious, but with an undercurrent of fear. Good.

His eyes flick to Kelli.

“You’re gambling everyone here on a soldier,” he says tightly. “If Zaman-”

“It won’t come to that,” Kelli says, but John can hear the slight waver in her voice.

Benoit sucks his teeth; his head twitches. He looks at Kelli like he wants to slap some sense into her.

“Operations will have your head if this goes south,” he says, a warning. “Merde, I’ll report you myself. Testify if I have to.”

Kelli crosses her arms. She glances at John, holding his gaze for a long moment.

“I accept that,” she says, looking back at Benoit, and there is a trust in her words. As if she trusts him. It tugs against the tension that John has been feeling in his chest, even since he stepped foot in the clinic.

Even after all this time, she has his back.

The feeling is marred by a tinge of guilt. He’s not sure if she fully appreciates the man he has become.

Would she still have his back if she knew?

Benoit sighs. He raises his hands.

“Your head, Kelli,” he says. “Your conscience.” He glances at John. “I hope he’s worth it. I’m out. I’m done.”

John watches him as he leaves.

Kelli runs a weary hand over her face.

“Christ.”

Already, John considers contingency. Benoit could talk. He should march out that door, grab Benoit, drag him back inside. But he knows that would escalate things further. The best hope they have is to get comms back quickly and pray that Zaman’s goons don’t track them down.

Kelli crosses her arms.

“He’ll keep his mouth shut,” she says, reading his mind. “All he cares about are the people here. Can you blame him, John?” She gestures to Ghost. “You and your boys turn up covered in blood, wearing fucking skull masks, no flags - what do you expect?”

John expects not to be questioned, but he knows that is too much to ask. Civilians are always liabilities. Even Kelli - especially Kelli - is an unknown quantity now.

“I expected a clean mission,” he says darkly.

Kelli huffs out a laugh.

“Doesn’t exist,” she says.

John feels the anger simmering in his chest. This is not Herrick, he’s not a kid leading patrols in Afghanistan anymore. He’s grown since then. Kelli might not have seen him in action recently, but he's only gotten better with age. The mission should be clean, because he is in control.

If it isn’t, then it’s on him.

If Ghost dies, it’s on him.

He grunts.

“Speak for yourself.”

Kelli examines him. Whatever she sees seems to interest her, because she looks thoughtful for a moment.

“Why are you here?”

“Extraction. Ghost got hit.”

Kelli rolls her eyes.

“Why this clinic?”

John shrugs.

“Was closest. Rains said your name. Figured you’d keep him breathing.”

“Quite the gamble,” she muses. “I could have slammed the door in your face.”

He looks up at her from beneath the brim of his hat.

“You’d patch up the devil if he came in bleeding.”

He’d gamble his life on that fact.

Kelli cocks her head to the side and smiles. It sends a jolt straight into his chest.

“I could turn you away,” she says with a raised eyebrow. “Leave you outside to stew.”

He looks at her. It’s a little cute that she thinks she could make him leave the room. Then he notices the gun, holstered under her ratty pajama robe. He wonders how he didn’t notice it before. She must have untied the robe at some point. She’s making a point with the eyes. So is he. She’d have no chance, and she knows it.

“I’m not going anywhere without Ghost.”

He takes a seat in the corner and flips open his cigar case.

Kelli lets out a sigh.

“I swear to fucking God.”

She marches over to him and goes to swipe the lighter from his hand. He catches her wrist. Stands to face her.

He stares down at her.

This close, he can feel the heat from her body. Can smell her hair - something floral and peppery. Time folds. It’s 2010 again. Close air, breath shared. Nothing else.

Before she fucking left without so much as a goodbye.

He frowns.

“This is a doctor’s clinic,” she says, her voice even, but his eyes catch on the flush creeping up her neck. She’s not straining against his grip, but not giving up either. “You can watch your boy or you can take it outside. Choose, John.”

He releases her after a moment, but does not move away. She holds the lighter up. A question in her eyes. A choice. He takes it, his fingers brushing hers as he sits back down.

“I’ll stay.”

He slips the case back into his vest and busies himself with checking the comms again. Still nothing.

Kelli nods and starts quietly cleaning up. She checks Ghost’s vitals, noting down the numbers on a clipboard.

John watches her. She moves with the same confidence that she always has. Every movement purposeful. She’s older, but it has only enhanced her features. Same eyes, same jaw, same athletic build. His eyes flicker toward her arse.

Get a fucking grip.

“Did you hear Emma and Tom are having another kid?”

John blinks at her. It takes him a moment to parse who she is talking about. He was never that close to Ronan and he mostly thinks of Tom by his last name.

He grunts.

“A daughter,” he says. “Yeah, Black mentioned it.”

John doesn’t see his old SAS mates that much these days, but Black had pinned him down the last time he’d been in Birmingham. He thinks back to that night at the pub. Black buying him a round of beers with the daft grin of someone who was outnumbered and thrilled about it. 

Kelli’s question reminds him of Ronan and Black’s wedding. That fucking weekend in Zanzibar. It hits him harder because he knows he still has to face Black again after what happened to Soap. He shakes his head. She’s brought it up deliberately, she must have.

“Why are you here?” he asks.

He would rather silence.

He wants to remain focused on the mission. But he knows Kelli. She’s not going to have changed that much. If he lets her control the conversation, she will ask him increasingly uncomfortable questions.

He knows better than to let her set the tempo.

Kelli tugs on another pair of gloves. She peers at him curiously, as if surprised at his question.

“Kahzari?”

He nods.

She pulls out her stethoscope and listens to Ghost’s chest again. He watches her hands. Every motion. Just in case.

“Well, I joined MSF after a few years in the trauma center at St Mary’s.” She glances at him. “You knew that part, right?”

“You mentioned you were thinking of applying.”

Kelli nods.

“Yeah. I mean, I moved around a lot. Sudan for a bit, Urzikstan for a long time. I guess I just ended up out here. It’s good work.” She scribbles down another note. She pauses for a moment, her hand hovering above the clipboard.

She looks over at him. There is something she wants to say. No, something she’s not sure if she wants to say.

“I missed it,” she says finally.

John gets the impression this is not the only reason. He wants to ask: is it because you realized the civvie fiancé was holding you back? John thinks about that smug prick’s face. The way he acted like he was above them all because he had a practice in the suburbs and played squash every Wednesday. Didn’t get the itch. Didn’t want to. Civvies never do. Never realizing that people like them were the ones that kept the world from falling apart.

Kelli is like him.

She’d tried to play house, pretend she could be normal, and something must’ve gone sideways. That thought stirs a dark little satisfaction he doesn’t examine too closely. He knows it’s petty. He’s not glad she had to suffer - if that’s even what happened. Maybe David dumped her. Maybe she walked. Maybe hes still up in Chelsea, playing squash every Wednesday, waiting for her to return. Either way, the ring was gone. And seeing her back in the shit, doing what she was built for? That hits somewhere deep in his chest.

Regardless of their history, he has always wanted her to be happy.

He doesn't voice any of this.

He's not even sure if Kelli would be honest with him about it. She’s never admitted to the real reason that she left the military, though he knows it must have been his fault.

It's only been 30 minutes since their reunion, after all.

“You missed it,” he repeats, a small smile threatening the corners of his mouth.

Kelli nods, then shakes her head.

“Yeah,” she says. “The rush. That’s crazy, right?”

John shrugs.

“Yeah. But we’re all a little crazy, aren’t we?”

Kelli looks at him thoughtfully.

“You don’t get tired of it?”

He considers the question for a moment.

“I can’t afford to,” he says, before conceding, “but no. It's the purpose, innit.”

Kelli nods.

“Yes!” she says, her eyes bright with that same madness from 15 years ago. “Yes.”

She sighs.

“Purpose,” she says, strangely wistful.

She finishes her vitals check. She is calm. Competent. Still, he watches her like she might vanish again.

After a moment, she peels off the gloves and sits down next to him.

“Tell me about Soap,” she says.

John stills. He grits his teeth. She’s done it again. Gained control of the conversation without him even realizing it.

“Not tonight.”

Kelli leans forward onto her elbows, examining her hands.

They sit in silence for a long moment. The faint beeping of the O2 monitor softly punctuates the heavy air between them.

“That’s okay,” Kelli says. “It took me a year before I could talk about Riggs after he died.”

She reaches out her hand, as if testing his reaction. When he doesn't stop her, slowly, she places her hand over his knee. It burns a hole through his trousers.

John grunts. He stares at the floor.

He wants to tell her that Soap’s death was nothing like Riggs’. Riggs was a cowboy who got himself killed. Soap died because John failed - a leader who could not protect his own. A leader who made the wrong choice. Who should have known when to move the line - for the greater good.

Kelli lets out a breath.

“I blamed myself too, John.”

He looks up at her. He wonders what she means. She had been the attending medic on that mission, but there wasn’t anything she could have done to save him.

Kelli is staring intently at the floor. Her face is thoughtful, but there is no real pain there, simply acceptance.

Her eyes flick to his, and the look in her eyes hits him for a six. He doesn’t know the word for that emotion - it is something unfamiliar to him. But if he had to guess, it feels like grace.

For a moment, he can’t breathe.

The silence breaks.

The back door swings open and Darya rushes in, breathless and flushed.

“Kelli,” she says quickly. Her eyes flit between them, but if she realizes that she interrupted something, she doesn't show it.

John stands quickly, hand readying on his rifle.

“I’m sorry, but it’s my uncle,” she says. Her eyes flit between him and Kelli. “He says he saw someone on the roof. He’s…worried.”

“Who did he see?”

John steps forward.

Darya steps back several paces. She fidgets with the edges of her frayed shayla. Her wide brown eyes are set on him. Fearful.

John imagines he might cut an imposing figure for a young girl, but he doesn't really care.

Suddenly, Darya starts rambling out a long string of words to Kelli in a dialect he doesn't recognize. She gestures at John as she does it, glancing between him and Ghost.

John tightens his grip on his rifle.

The girl is not a threat, not directly. But he's been burned by scouts before. Not being able to understand what she is saying puts him right on the edge of his patience.

Kelli nods. She holds up a hand.

“Yes, yes,” she says, glancing at John. “It’s okay, Darya, I know them.”

She takes a few steps forward and places a hand on the young woman’s shoulder.

She says something softly in the same dialect, and

Darya’s stiff posture relaxes slightly.

“What did your uncle see exactly?”

Darya’s eyes flit across to him.

“I think it was one of them,” she says. “The other soldiers.”

John steps forward.

“Did he see the soldier?” he says. “Did he say soldier?”

Darya shrinks backward.

“No,” she says, and despite the fear in her eyes, her voice is clear. “Just said someone with equipment-” her eyes flit between him and Kelli, “-I thought maybe to say someone was fixing the generator?”

“You told him that?”

Darya startles at his sharp tone.

“No, I didn’t say anything,” she says. “I said I’d ask you first.”

John studies her for a moment. She is scared but defiant. Probably the most dangerous combination.

He nods. Just once. They might be able to play this off.

Kelli shoots him a look from Darya’s shoulder. John knows he is being intimidating. He doesn’t care. This girl helped save Ghost’s life, but she is still a liability. Everyone in this fucking village is a liability. Someone is going to tip Zaman off, he is sure of that.

They need to get comms and get out.

“You did the right thing,” Kelli assures Darya, squeezing her shoulder. “Go tell him power went down and I’ve just got someone working the generator. We’ll handle it.”

Darya hesitates for a moment.

She looks up at him, and the look in her eyes has changed slightly. Anger.

“It’s just…my aunt is jumpy. Risha won’t settle. She asked if we were safe.”

A jolt of guilt cuts through John’s edged focus. He ignores it.

“If anyone’s watching this place, the fewer questions they ask, the better.”

Kelli gives him that look again.

“No one’s watching the place, John,” she snaps. “They’re scared. That’s different.”

Darya’s gaze flits between them again. She seems to sense the tension because she frowns. Her gaze comes to linger on him. He meets it, impassive.

Oddly, she reminds him of Kelli.

“I’ll tell them it’s the generator,” she says, but her tone carries a hint of uncertainty.

John follows her with his eyes as she hurries back outside.

When he turns, Kelli is looking at him.

“She’s trying to help.”

John raises an eyebrow.

“Trying doesn't stop bullets. She’s a liability.”

“Christ.” Kelli shakes her head and turns back to check on Ghost. He watches her for a moment. He can tell by the way her shoulders are hunched that there is a lot more she wants to say.

“Kids like Darya,” Kelli says finally, “they grow up surrounded by soldiers, war, famine, they’re just trying to survive.”

“I know what war does to a country, Kelli.”

“Do you?”

She turns around, her eyes narrowing on him.

“Maybe you do.” She examines him, considering. “But do you care?”

He huffs.

“Of course I fucking care.”

The answer is reflexive more than anything. He does care, at least he did.

He still does, he thinks.

It’s just harder to care when you sacrifice so much and people still treat you as if you’re the fucking bogeyman. Narrowed eyes. Suspicion in every corner. Paranoia follows him across the globe.

He knows this is the job. It’s always been the job. He doesn't want praise. He doesn't want a parade. Hell, he doesn’t fucking know what he wants.

All he knows is that he has a mission, and that’s what he has to care about.

He glances at Ghost.

His men are the only people he can trust. They trust him. That is why he is like this. He can’t afford not to be like this.

Kelli is still looking at him.

“I get it,” she says.

“You don’t.”

The muscle in her jaw tightens.

“I was in Afghanistan too, you know,” she says. “I know what numbness feels like.”

He laughs, bitterly.

“I’m well beyond Afghanistan,” he says.

Kelli cocks her head to the side. She examines him for a moment. Whatever she sees makes her smile grimly, but she doesn’t push. She just watches him, her eyes full of another emotion he can’t name - not pity, but not far off.

It bothers him more than her words.

He turns away.

Ghost lies still on the bench, chest rising slowly. His mask is askew slightly, blood drying at the edges.

He adjusts it without thinking.

Chapter Text

Wendover, United Kingdom. 2008

The air in Wendover is as familiar to John as his own face. He’d never loved it, but it was baked into him - like itchy blisters and early starts, just part of the wiring by now. It carries the damp stillness particular to English autumns. Wet leaves slide underfoot, smoke curls from grey chimneys and the clouds hang low enough to press in on his thoughts.

As it had since he had been a boy, the village church sits perched on a gentle rise, flanked by yew trees and gravestones mottled with moss.

He had been scared of the church as a child. The gravestones had reminded him of old men, hunched over. The yew trees of their gnarly hands, breaking through the earth to grab him and steal him away.

He fears the church now. Not for ghosts or gnarly old men, but for memory. For silence. For the way someone he loved will become a photograph on a wooden table.

The weight of his nan’s coffin catches him off guard as he pauses under the mossy lychgate. It’s not heavy, not for him, but the weight shifts, awkward and uneven between him and the other pallbearers with each step. He keeps his grip firm as the vicar reads a short prayer. When he finishes, he makes eye contact with John for a moment. John remembers him from his childhood, a short, elderly man who had always struck him as too solemn.

John is grateful for it now.

A silent nod passes between them before the vicar leads the funeral procession up the pathway.

John had been halfway through a training cycle at Hereford when the phone call had come through. Lucky, or unlucky, depending on how he looks at it.

His mother hadn’t even needed to finish her first word before he knew exactly what had happened; “John…it’s nan. She’s had a stroke.”

Like in life, in death his Nan does it right.

She lingers in Stoke Mandeville long enough for her 5 children, 24 grandchildren, and 4 great grandchildren to all say their goodbyes. She dies without suffering the indignity she had always feared.

“Let me go, John,” she had said to him the last time he had been back in the UK. She’d said it like she was asking him to turn off the kettle. Calm. Stern. No sentiment, no fuss. It had been her way. Now it was his. “Make sure they do it, eh? Tell your father I’ll haunt him if he doesn’t.”

He had smiled and promised her that.

They had always had a particular type of relationship. John had been the first grandchild, one of only three that had ended up in the military and the only one that had followed in his grandfather’s footsteps and joined SAS. John sometimes thinks it is strange that so few of her brood had followed her and his grandfather’s lead. But given how much his father - the Major - argued with his siblings, it was perhaps not surprising.

The Prices had always been a law unto themselves.

In the end, John hadn’t needed to threaten his father. In perhaps the only time he had ever seen them in agreement, his Father and his siblings had agreed unanimously to honour his nan’s wishes and let her go.

John remembers looking down at her frail body, so small in the huge hospital bed, so at odds with the force of nature she had always been. Unable to speak, unable to do anything.

He’d knelt next to lads while they bled out, sobbing for mums they’d never see again. But nan, in that hospital bed, had hit him harder than any of them. He hated how small she looked. Hated how he felt helpless and not grim acceptance.

He’s not sure what that says about him.

He carries her now on his shoulders, through the open door of the church, wide and yawning, like a mouth threatening to swallow him whole. The air changes as he crosses the threshold. It stills. Their footsteps echo along the grey stone floor. The church has barely changed since he was last there. The smell of old wood and brass polish hits him like muscle memory. Hymns he hadn’t sung since he was ten rise up in the back of his throat.

The church will not be big enough for everyone that has turned up. It seems like the whole shire had been milling about outside - former nurses, local vets, military officials, local villagers.

It is not a surprise to John. His nan was a force of nature.

His hands curl tighter around the polished brass handle, the wood slick beneath from the morning mist. He can smell the flowers - sweet, cloying - too close to his face. Roses, maybe. The kind Nan used to deadhead without gloves, just pinched them off with her fingers. He doesn’t look at them. Can’t. He focuses on the flagstone ahead, worn smooth by centuries of funerals just like this.

They place the coffin down at the front of the church and pause for a moment. His cousin Henry, dressed in his RAF blues like John, nods as they take their seats.

John doesn't focus as the vicar leads the service. He doesn't focus as he recites Abide with Me. He doesn't focus as his Aunt Josephine does the bible reading through teary eyes and a wavering voice. It is only when his father steps up to the lectern, mouth set in a long thin line beneath his grey moustache that it hits him that his Nan is gone.

His father’s blue eyes are downcast as he looks at the papers in front of him. John sees his shoulders inflate and deflate as he takes a breath. He looks up at the congregation.

“Ladies and gentlemen. Friends and family,” he begins, his voice deep and clear. Even in grief, he projects like he’s on the parade ground. “On behalf of myself, my wife, and my siblings, I thank you for being here today with us to honour our mother - Margaret Elizabeth Price, Officer of the Order of the British Empire, nurse, veteran, and, in the truest sense of the word, a matriarch.”

John sits, spine rigid, hands laced together tightly in his lap.

He tries to listen, but the words feel like shadows of the woman he remembers - broad strokes of a life that cannot be captured in neat paragraphs. Nan was more than a war nurse, more than a wife and mother. She was the one that taught him how to mend his pants. Who let him eat ice cream for dinner the week he got suspended for decking a bully in Year 7. Who told his father to back off when John announced he was pursuing infantry.

She was the only person he thinks his father ever listened to.

Now, he watches his unwavering father stand behind the lectern, immaculately dressed, eyes set, and he wonders if his father ever feels anything.

"She taught us to stand up straight. To tell the truth. To serve something greater than ourselves."

Then he catches it.

It is quick, subtle - a brief hitch in his voice when he says, “Her words were not often gentle, but in her final weeks she told me that she was proud.” He takes a breath. “Not of medals, or honours -” then he looks over at John, “- but of us. Of her family. Her legacy."

John looks away.

Swallows hard.

He stares at the brass of the candelabra until the lump in his throat recedes.

His father is a hard man. Always has been. Feelings rationed out like ammunition. But John knows what he’s saying.

And of course it would take a funeral to say it.

He wishes it made him feel better.

Instead, it just makes him miss her more.

———————————

John watches his father’s back - upright, steady despite his bad knee - as they walk the narrow path toward the village centre. His mother flanks his father’s side, her hand hovering just below his shoulder blades.

The burial had been mercifully quick. A brief committal, a lot of tears, and a handful of soil.

“Theres so many people.”

John glances to his left.

Jess is dressed in a simple black dress and clutching an umbrella above her light brown hair. She peers around at the people heading in the same direction as them.

Time passes faster in theater. Out there, his sister grows up in intervals - photographs, letters, a new height marked on the kitchen doorway each time he comes home. She looks so mature in the cold overcast light, older than 14. It’s jarring.

He grunts.

She is right.

Locals have turned out in quiet numbers - faces John doesn’t recognize, but who all seem to know exactly who he is. They wish him condolences as he passes.

He nods automatically, eyes forward. Everyone means well, but they say the same thing. Like a script.

As he turns from her, he sees Black and Kelli, following them close behind. For a moment he is surprised. He had not asked or expected anyone to come.

Part of him had tried to keep it quiet - as if he could keep this one part of his life separate and untouched. But word spreads fast in uniform. His Nan and family were well know enough in military circles for it to quickly become common knowledge. He certainly has a reputation so leave is bound to come with speculation. The thought of hearing the same script - kind, well-meant, and “I’m sorry for your loss” - made him want to poke his eardrums out.

Now, as he nods toward them both, he is grateful for the familiar faces. Of course Kelli would come, she was just like that. Black is more of a surprise. They are good mates, he’s basically become his 2IC - if not in actual rank, at least in spirit - but John had not thought Black considered him this type of friend. It tugs at something deep within him. The sense that there are people who care about him who are not obligated to by blood.

They are both better friends than he deserves.

“Is that Kelli?” Jess asks, following his gaze.

He forcibly turns Jess’s head back along the road. Of course Jess noticed. She notices everything when it comes to his friends, especially Kelli. She wiggles free of his hand and cranes her head to look over at Kelli from beneath her umbrella.

He feels a flush creep up his neck and buries it with a grunt.

“Not the time.”

John sometimes wonders if his parents deliberately had him and Jess so far apart just to test him. For what, he’s not sure. He adores her, but he sometimes feels more like an absent uncle and less of a brother. She was 7 when he enlisted and he’s never lived at home since. Her cheeky innocence plays into his drive to serve. She’s been in the habit of writing to him recently, which he appreciates - more than he would probably ever admit. He sends her gifts, stupid things, like Afghani sweets. His father doesn’t approve.

“Your mother spoils that girl more than enough.”

John thinks his father could afford to spoil Jess at all - but that’s never been his way. Though, John supposes that he never thought he’d ever see his father emote, but that just happened so maybe miracles are possible after all.

Jess turns back to look at him, a sly grin on her face.

“She’s really tall,” she says. “Like you.”

He nearly laughs. His sister may be maturing, but she still possesses the focus of a untrained Jack Russell Terrier.

“Is she your girlfriend yet?”

He shushes her.

“Be respectful Jess,” he says, frowning. “It’s nan’s funeral.”

He almost feels grateful for that, despite it. Jess is like a dog with a bone sometimes and he’s not sure he’s in the right frame of mind to rebuff her fantasies. Jess has never actually met Kelli, but she’s nosy enough to have spotted her in one of his deployment photos -tall, athletic, big blue eyes. Of course Jess pounced. Somehow, without even having the slightest understanding of anything at all, she’s fixated on the idea that Kelli would be perfect for John.

“No, it was nan’s funeral,’ Jess says as if he is the younger sibling. “Now its the wake, so I’m allowed to talk. Mum said so.”

A wind whips up along the road and sends a swirl of chilly air across his face. Yew leaves dance across his black leather shoes.

“I can’t imagine she said that,” John says, trying not to look over at Kelli again, “given your talent for saying stupid things.”

Jess nudges him with her shoulder.

“Don’t be rude,” she says with a pout, “you’re just jealous I can actually talk to people.”

She is not wrong.

John knows he is generally quiet at the best of times. Its not his fault, he thinks, he just doesn’t have much to say unless its giving orders or reports or discussing tactics. He prefers to observe and assess. He feels awkward with words anyway, most of the time he hardly knows the right ones to say.

“I can talk to people,” he says, despite this. The sibling urge to rebuff her will always be pull too strongly to ignore - even if he wanted to, which he doesn’t. He’s only got 2 days before he’s due back on base and he knows he will miss Jess’ inane banter when he’s getting shot at 5000 kilometres away. Besides, she might not be able to read a room to save her life, but she’s making him feel better. Nan probably would have been mortified at the dreary mood - she liked her family lively.

“You cannot.”

“I can.”

“Can’t!”

His mother turns and glares at the both.

“What did I say Jessica?” she says quietly, glancing meaningfully at his father’s back. John can see the muscle locked in his father’s jaw.

Jess pouts and folds her arms across her chest. The action angles her umbrella wildly and she almost hits him in the face. He catches it with one hand.

His mother turns her glare on to him.

“Stop baiting her Jonathan.”

He raises both eyebrows and opens his mouth, but the look on her face is a clear warning against backtalk. Instead he takes the umbrella from Jess’ hands and hold it over them both.

Beside him, Jess grins.

“Jonathan,” she singsongs in their mother’s voice, nudging him with a smirk.

————————————

The rest of the walk to the pub is mercifully short. There had been discussion of having the wake at the local hall, but The Red Lion was always going to win out. John’s not sure how they’re meant to fit everyone in, but that’s never stopped a Wendover event before. He doesn’t have to do anything anyway, his aunts have run this like a bloody military op.

Inside, the pub is already bursting. Chairs dragged in from the garden, coats heaped, pint glasses sweating on every surface, even though it’s barely gone one. The hearth is cold, but someone’s lit a cathedral’s worth of candles around an enormous framed portrait of Nan. It feels less like a wake and more like a shrine.

Jess is pulled away by a handful of younger cousins, and John is grateful for the reprieve.

He makes for the window, hovering like a ghost. He takes a pint from a passing tray and swallows half in one gulp. The noise is bearable, but the attention isn’t. As he hovers, he’s immediately caught in an endless loop of small nods and stiff handshakes, all gratitude and grief and nothing to say that hasn’t already been said. He's tired, deep down, into his bones. He wants to retreat into himself. Into his room back on base and wallow, though he knows it would only make him feel worse.

Black sidles up, his dark hair still damp from the drizzle outside. He holds out a plate of crisps like an offering.

“You alright, mate?” he asks, already halfway through a meat pie.

John doesn’t answer straight away. Just nods. He takes a handful of crisps, and it is only once he starts chewing that he realizes how hungry he is.

“How many bloody people did your gran know?” Black says in his thick Glaswegian accent, settling onto a stool. “Had to tell three different blokes I wasn’t your RAF cousin.”

John glances at him. He and Kelli came in plainclothes, but Black wears a general service tie and a poppy pin.

“Let’s swap,” John mutters. “Old woman near the bar, blue cane, said she remembered me running around in nappies.”

Black looks over at the woman, then grins.

“Remembers?” he says with a wry look, “You still run like you’ve got a full one.”

John shakes his head. Black might be one of the smartest, most socially fluent men John’s ever worked with - but he’s also an Olympic-level piss-taker. Must be genetic. Comes standard with the accent.

“Your sister’s a treat,” he says, nodding over towards where Jess has intercepted Kelli by the bar and is talking her ear off animatedly.

“She’s obsessed with Kelli,” John says, “wouldn’t be shocked if she started saying she wants to be a CMT.”

“Christ, you don’t want that,” Black says, munching on another handful of crisps, “my 12-year-old cousin saw my sidearm once, now he keeps trying to steal my beret.”

John can’t help but huff out a laugh. The idea of Black’s hyperactive cousin running around with his SAS beret is kind of endearing.

“Johnny’s a menace,” he says. “At least Jess is physically harmless.”

Black raises both eyebrows.

“Yeah, well you might want to get her away from Kelli,” he says into his drink, “I think she’s feeling a bit raw on the topic of her personal relationships.”

John looks at Black.

“What do you mean?” he asks, nervous, but trying to appear unbothered.

Black sets his mouth in a line as if he is resisting the urge to laugh at him. John frowns. He’s never felt more pathetic.

“Her leave request to Mullen,” Black says. “It caused a massive fight.”

John nods slowly, still staring as Kelli laughs at something Jess is saying - a good sign at least. “Commands involved now.” He laughs sardonically. “Hard to keep something like that under wraps when Mullen decided to start screaming at her in the medic station.”

John takes a long sip from his pint. Mostly to distract him from crushing the glass into dust with his fist. He can feel Black watching him.

“I know you’re just friends,” he says slowly, “but Mullen clearly thinks something else is going on.”

John grunts.

“Nothing’s going on.”

Black laughs.

“Oh I know, mate,” he says, clapping him on the shoulder. He leaves the hand there for a moment. John refuses to look at him. He knows Black is examining whatever emotion is on his face right now. He won’t find what he’s looking for.

Black sighs. He opens his mouth to say something, but then his gaze is caught by something - someone - behind John’s left shoulder.

“Speak of the devil.”

Kelli appears by his side and grins. She must’ve pried herself away from Jess. John looks over and sees his sister being tugged in another direction by their mother. His attention is brought back as Kelli holds out a beer and John’s traitorous heart jumps. He takes it without meeting her eyes.

“Thanks.”

Her black dress skims her calves, and John -grieving, exhausted - still finds himself wishing she wore dresses more often. Even now, some hopeless part of him wants to reach under the hem and touch her thigh, wants her close.

Wants, full stop.

Honestly, it’s excruciating. He broke up with Veronica half a year ago, and it’s been dry ever since. He had no time to hook up off base. He refuses to cross lines with squadmates - too much drama. But grief chips at boundaries and it’s harder to maintain the partition he has built between what he wants and what he can have.

Kelli doesn’t speak at first. She simply examines him in that way that she does, and he hopes he’s not flushing more than can be explained by the stuffy air.

“You holding up?” she asks quietly.

He nods.

“Just about.”

He knows she means Nan, but it feels like a cruel fucking joke - her being here, still tied to Mullen.

Still tethered to a man who doesn’t respect her. Still wasting time. John wants to haul the prick into a wall. Tell him to stop fucking around. But he can’t. So instead he has to pine like an absolute moron, avoiding Black’s shrewd gaze and his little sister’s nosy fantasies like he has no fucking desire to push Kelli up against the nearest wall and snog her senseless.

He sometimes wishes he was a less honorable man. He’s seen men take whatever they want and just get it. He thinks of Mullen like that - though he has to acknowledge Kelli’s role in the disaster of a relationship. But he knows that his Nan would probably resurrect herself - and his grandfather - just to haunt him if he turned into that kind of man.

“Did you know,” Black says, nudging Kelli, “there are people here who remember our esteemed lieutenant in nappies?”

Kelli laughs.

“Remembers?” Kelli says, deadpan. “He still stomps around base like he’s got a full one.”

John throws his hands up.

“What is it about the way I fucking move?”

Kelli and Black dissolve into fits of laughter. John, despite himself, shakes his head and grins.

“Wankers.”

Black snorts and stands. “Right. Off to the little boys’ room. You two try not to elope while I’m gone.”

He disappears back into the pub crowd, crisps in tow. John watches him go, then glances back at Kelli. “Thanks for coming.”

She shrugs, but it’s gentle. “You did the same.”

He nods. “Still. Means a lot.”

They stand awkwardly for a moment.

John shifts his weight. Kelli takes a sip of her beer, watching the movement behind the window. Her presence is steadying, even if she says nothing.

Then she opens her mouth and shuts it several times.

“Your sister is…” she hesitates, like she’s selecting the most diplomatic term, “…insistent.”

“Ignore everything she says,” John says quickly. “She doesn’t know you’ve got a boyfriend.”

Kelli tilts her head, gives him that look - the one that unpicks his armour without even trying.

“I think she does,” she says. “Told me he was a real dickhead. Wonder where she got that from.”

He flushes. Remembers the conversation, late night, too much on his chest, Jess pressing him, and him blurting out that she was taken. That her boyfriend was a feckless dickhead. He stands by the statement. But still.

He opens his mouth to try and reassure her. To try and claw back some semblance of dignity. Anything.

But then a voice cuts through the hum of the pub beside them.

“John!” It’s cousin Henry, already flushed and gesturing broadly from the doorway. “Come say hello to the lads before they nick off!”

John grimaces.

Kelli catches the look.

“Go,” she says gently. “I’ll be here.”

He doesn’t want to. Not really. Henry’s mates are all far too romantic about his work. The kind of blokes that view SAS service as a fantasy and not the grind that it is. But he nods, brushing past her arm as he turns.

“Save my spot,” he mutters.

She doesn’t answer.

But when he glances back from the doorway, she’s still there, watching him go, unreadable.

————————————

The sun is dipping low, casting amber streaks across the back wall of the pub. The beer garden is mostly emptied out - a few half-drunk glasses on the tables, soft conversation from a handful of distant relatives still milling about, muffled music bleeding through the brick.

John is exhausted - hours of small talk and condolences and too many stories. The kind that leave your chest aching in places you didn’t know could bruise. He thinks that Nan would have been happy. She would have despised his aunt’s taste in music, though - too much synth and sentiment. The numbness has faded a little, despite the exhaustion. It’s replaced by something deeper - not peace, exactly. Just the sharp edges of missing her without the shock to blunt it. He feels like maybe Nan is gone, but there is so much of her left behind.

He hears Jess arguing with Black over whether vampires or werewolves make better boyfriends and can’t help smiling.

He is grateful, he thinks.

Combat has a way of slowing time, of narrowing focus, boiling it down to seconds and blood. But this - this reminds him of what it is he is fighting for. The reason he crawls back out every single time.

Family. Laughter. Even the bullshit makes the suffering seem less pointless.

He spots Kelli hunched over a low brick wall, rifling through her bag. She is facing away from him. The amber light brushes across her cheekbone, and her skin glows with a fading Afghani tan. Her cheeks are flushed - not just from the booze he thinks.

It’s the kind of warmth that comes from hours of forced small talk. It’s the kind of warmth that seeps into him as he approaches, subtle, dangerous. The booze has loosened both his tongue and his tie. A dangerous combination.

“Thought I might find you skulking back here,” he says, grinning despite himself.

Kelli turns. There’s a flicker, surprise, maybe guilt, and then it’s gone. She closes a small tin box quickly and slips it into her pocket.

“Sorry,” she says, flashing a white pill and laughing with a strange brightness, “headache, needed paracetamol and air.”

John frowns, its small, automatic. Something’s off. She’s playing normal a bit too hard. Then her phone buzzes, and she hurriedly snatches it off the bricks.

He catches a flash of the name: Mullen.

“I heard they’ll start serving some food soon,” she says, too fast. “Your mum told me you hadn’t eaten.”

He steps closer. He doesn’t give a shit about food. He only cares about her.

“I had crisps.”

Kelli arches a brow. “You stole Black’s crisps. That barely counts.”

It’s a little unnerving just how good Kelli is at appearing as if everything’s okay. He knows Mullen’s a problem. But for a moment, he wonders what else she might not be sharing.

“You always take care of everyone else,” he murmurs. “Even here.”

She looks up at him. Her eyes are wide, caught, maybe, by how close he is.

He knows he is standing too close. He should give her space. But she looks so Goddamned beautiful in the sunlight and grief has sanded his restraint down to something thin and cracked.

She shrugs, like it’s nothing. “I learned from the best.”

He doesn’t answer that. Just looks at her a beat too long.

And then, because the words are sitting too close to the surface, he says, “You alright?”

She exhales through her nose. Defensive. Deflecting.

“I’m fine,” she says, almost reflexively.

Then, after a pause, “It’s Mullen.”

John nods once, slow. “I figured.”

“He didn’t like that I put in for leave.”

“He didn’t like that you have a life outside of him.”

Kelli studies his face. He can tell by the look on her face that she’s about to go on the defensive. Like she always does with Mullen and his bullshit.

“He wasn’t always like this,” she says, gesturing with her phone, which is buzzing - again - and John wants to hurl it into the sky and watch it shatter across the tiles. “At the start he was...I don’t know. Steady. Supportive?”

John scoffs.

“Not supportive enough to promote you when he should have.”

Kelli narrows her eyes at him.

“And how would that look, John?”

“I don’t know, Kelli, how would that look?” he says, leaning forward. His focus narrowing. “Is that what he told you? He can’t promote you because it would look bad? Despite the fact that you’ve saved more lives out there than Mullen has fucking hair on his balls. Give me a fucking break!”

He glances over at some distant second cousin, who is peering at them with interest. Kelli smiles at them - that smile that hides everything simmering beneath the surface.

He tugs at her elbow and directs her into a small corner of the service alley behind the pub.

The sun doesn't reach back here. It is dim and cool. John’s chest feels like it’s been scorched from the restraint he’s trying, and failing, to manifest.

Kelli does not shrug off his hand. Just lets it linger there. She hesitates, not meeting his eyes. “Lately it’s just been...everything’s tense. His unit’s rotating out soon, HQ’s breathing down his neck. He’s under a lot of pressure.”

John swallows down a strangled sigh.

“He screamed at you in front of your team.” He says. “That’s not pressure, Kelli, thats a man showing you who he is.”

She doesn’t answer.

He watches her face, the little twitch in her jaw, the way she looks down like she’s searching for a counterargument and can’t find one that doesn’t sound like bullshit.

And then he says, his voice quieter, soft, “I hate watching you try to explain him. Like it’s your fault he’s a prick.”

His hand twitches on her elbow.

“You shouldn’t have to shrink just to keep the peace.”

That hits. Kelli finally looks up at him.

“He doesn’t like that I spend so much time with you.”

John’s jaw clenches.

Something dark clenches in his gut. He wants to say something furious, but it is something he knows he will regret.

Instead he asks, “Do you like spending time with me?”

Kelli scoffs, but there’s a waver behind it.

“Of course I do,” she says. “Do you think I would have put up with your moody shit for three years if I didn’t like you?”

John laughs - a short, joyless breath - but he knows it doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Then what’s the problem?”

Kelli looks at him for a long moment, eyes searching. She leans a little closer, as if unable to stop the pull. The same pull that he feels too.

“Don’t act like you don’t know, John.” she whispers.

He breathes in, sharp and quiet. He brushes his thumb against the inside of her elbow. Skin on skin. Scalding.

She stares up at him, her blue eyes wide. Her eyes flicker- for a moment - toward his lips.

From inside, someone calls his name again.

They both start.

Another relative, another obligation.

John wants to stay.

But he doesn’t trust himself to. Not like this. So he sighs and straightens, relieved in some ways for the reprieve.

“Better not keep the aunts waiting.”

Kelli leans back against the wall, watching him. There’s a flicker of something behind her eyes - disappointment.

He knows it’s cowardice, leaving her like this.

But she’s still tethered to that bastard, and if he stays, he’ll say something he can’t take back. He'll do something he can't take back.

Something neither of them is ready to deal with.

“I’ll still be here,” she says quietly.

He nods, but doesn’t look at her when he says it.

“Yeah. I know.”

Chapter Text

0301 hours, Al-Hafir, Kharzari. 2023

John watches Kelli’s hands as she presses the stethoscope to Ghost’s chest. Her nails are short - bitten down to the quick. She was always compulsive when things got bad. Some old guilt or grief worming its way out through her hands - a habit she hasn’t appeared to break.

Even in ten years.

His eyes flicker to the concrete wall by the door, covered in cartoon PSA posters. The clinic’s bones remind him of an old Soviet bunker - a broken keypad by the back door, the high slit-like windows, the faded Cyrillic lettering painted inside the stairwell - he’s seen buildings like this before. In the Caucasus, in old Soviet holdouts turned NATO FOBs. They’re relics repurposed. Built to watch, to survive, always reborn with another layer of purpose.

True architectural cockroaches.

The building is like her. Built for one thing, turned into another. Reassigned, retooled, but never really remade.

The veneer has Kelli’s fingerprints all over it. The rickety shelving unit with a collection of worn anatomical replicas. A colorful ceramic bowl overflowing with a Khazari confection he has never seen before. A large poster of a smiling soap bar grinning above the caption: “Clean hands save lives!”

Distinctly Kelli, right down to those god-damned smiley face stickers. He wonders how long she’s been here.

He shifts in the chair, the wood groaning beneath his weight.

The silence has stretched too long. Not tense. Not easy either. Just the slow pulse of Ghost’s O₂ monitor and the hiss-click of the cuff.

He wouldn't call it companionable, he knows there is plenty more Kelli wants to say. She’d always had more words in her than he did. Still does, by the sound of it.

But she hasn’t pressed further - yet. She simply watched him for a long moment after his sardonic declaration then refocused on Ghost. Good, he thinks. That’s her job. Let her focus on Ghost. That’s what he needs. Not questions. Not whatever she thinks he should give a shit about. His jaw flexes. The anger’s still there, low and mean.

Five years gone and she still finds a way to get under the skin.

He thinks about the last words he said to her.

She had been vulnerable with him then - totally out of line, still never telling the full truth - but he had spat it back in her face.

Because it had scared the hell out of him.

Not because it didn’t matter. Because it did. Too much.

He watches her now, calm and precise at Ghost’s side, and wonders if she ever hated him for it.

Maybe she should have.

Maybe he earned it.

But she earned it too. She left.

The front door to the clinic opens. He hears footsteps and stands. Gaz hurries into the back room, oil smeared across his chin. He is followed closely by Rains who is limping slightly.

“Sir,” Gaz greets.

“Give me good news.”

“It’s news,” Rains says. John wants to smack him. He doesn't. But his fingers twitch toward the butt of his rifle.

Gaz shakes his head at Rains, exasperation in his brow. He turns back to John.

“Here’s what we’ve got.” He says dropping a pile of dusty parts at his feet - a spool of fraying wire, a rusty hunk of metal. It looks like a pile of problems to John but he’s seen Gaz do more with less.

“Had a look up top.” He says. “Antenna’s buggered at the feed line - looks like someone’s rewired the system, maybe a lightning surge. Either way, signal’s dead at the mount.”

Kelli steps up next to him.

“It was us,” she says, “we rewired the system to power the critical systems.”

“There you go.” Gaz says with a nod. “I can get a partial signal if I splice in the booster. But I’ll need steady voltage. Clinic’s inverter won’t carry it, not that I’d use that of course -” he glances at Kelli, “Do you have any backup? I could tap the bank.”

Kelli shakes her head immediately.

“No.”

John frowns.

“No, there’s no backup or no, we can’t use the backup?”

“That bank keeps the criticals running if the generator fails.” She says, looking at him as she does. “You fry that system, not only is the clinic dead in the water, but your boy’s not going to get his O2.”

She folds her arms across her chest.

“We’re already running on compromise here John. That line stays where it is.”

Her tone is sharp, controlled. She’s not asking.

Gaz frowns. He glances between him and Kelli and John can tell he’s got questions. But ever the professional, he continues. “Without power, we’ve got no up-link Sir. Laswell can’t coordinate extraction. We’re flying blind as it is.”

John holds Kelli’s eyes for a second longer, then relents. “Negative on the bank,” he says, pacing a few steps to focus his thoughts. Kelli’s never needed rank to stand her ground - not with him. Whatever the alternative, it will be easier than fighting with her over a backup bank. Besides, she’s right about Ghost being able to breathe.

“What else?”

“There’s an old generator in the utility room.” Kelli offers. “Don’t think its been used for years though. And you’ll need fuel.”

“Diesel?” Gaz asks.

Kelli nods, “yeah.”

Gaz nods.

“Okay.” He says. “Okay, I can work with that.” He screws up his face for a moment, “it’ll be loud.”

“Locals already think someone’s working on the generator?” Kelli offers. “Fits.”

Gaz cocks his head to the side. “When did that happen?”

“Someone’s got eyes on the roof,” he says, ignoring Kelli’s look. “We’ll deal with it. Get it working.”

Gaz nods again.

“Power’s not the only issue Sir,” he says pulling out his notebook. The page is a mess of calculations and small diagrams.

“Managed to salvage some coax from behind the telly shop. Not ideal, but it'll carry a signal if I splice it clean.” He toes the spool of rusted cable with his boot. “Also picked up a rusted signal booster - may or may not catch fire, but it should amplify enough to push through local jamming.”

John frowns.

“Comforting.”

Gaz grins.

“Yeah, well, if it does catch fire, it’ll light up the roof real nice. Bit of ambiance.”

Kelli laughs, short and amused. John says nothing. He doesn't want to smile, he only wants to focus.

Gaz senses this and continues. “I’m gonna need to re-route the line and get the antenna elevated. Problem is, the water tank on the roof’s blocking our southern arc - the satellite path to Laswell’s bird.”

He points to a small diagram that John can’t really decipher, but he understands what Gaz is saying. There’s a bloody tank between them and Laswell.

“Reckon if we move the antenna two metres left, I can build a makeshift brace for the dish. Scoped an old relay tower, about 5 klicks east. I can try to bounce off that. Might get patchy voice. If I’m lucky, burst-data.”

“And if you’re not lucky?”

“Static. Maybe a partial message. Worst case, we fry a wedding cake of copper for no reason.”

John stares at him.

“Worst case we can’t get MEDEVAC.”

Gaz sucks his teeth. Grim.

“Yeah.”

John adjusts his vest. “Alright. What do you need?”

“Another pair of hands. Antenna’s heavy - can’t shift it solo. Might need to climb the scaffolding too if I need more height. Risky, but we’re out of better.”

“And what’s wrong with you?” John turns to Rains. Rains sheepishly taps his left leg.

“Think I tore something in my knee.”

Gaz presses his lips into a thin line.

“Moron tried to jump a fence.”

Rains glares at him indignantly, “Got you the wire though didn’t I?”

“Yeah and there was a fucking gate.”

John grits his teeth. There were more fucking liabilities in this village than stars in the sky tonight. He glances at Ghost again.

First shrapnel, now a knee. When did he end up surrounded by glass bodies? He hopes Gaz isn’t about to electrocute himself hot wiring the antenna feed.

“Fucking hell,” he breathes, “alright you stay in here. Kelli, make sure he doesn't try any more fucking parkour.”

She cocks her head at him.

“At this rate I should start billing your command directly.” She says wryly. She directs Rains to a chair in the corner. “I’ll tape it up for you Nico.”

John thinks that Kelli's hands are far more than Rains deserves for being a moron. He nods once at Gaz, and moves towards the stairwell. He’s not wild about leaving Ghost but even he can admit to himself that Kelli is both more than capable and the only one qualified to keep an eye on him.

John knows he is wasted stewing in the corner when there’s actionable steps that can be taken. Besides, he’s itching to extract himself from Kelli’s orbit. He needs clean air, not the heavy charged stuff that has settled over the back room.

“Let’s get it done.”

Gaz falls into step behind him as they cross the threshold toward the rear stairwell. The stairs are tucked in a concrete corridor behind the kitchenette.

“She always talk to you like that?”

John glances at Gaz over his shoulder.

“Like what?”

“Like she, I dunno - knows you.”

“She does know me.”

“You know what I mean Sir.” Gaz says after a moment. “She’s comfortable with you. You must go way back?”

John grunts and lets the silence hang. He takes the steps two at a time.

Gaz has never met Kelli before, only heard gossip from the other two. John realizes that the subject of his love-life attracts interest. Especially since he’s cultivated such a reserved and married-to-his-work reputation. John wonders how a selection of the worlds deadliest men manage to concoct gossip worse than a book club full of suburban housewives. Ghost is friends with Black, which should have been its own warning.

And Soap - Soap was the one who told the story in the first place. Loudly. With too much flair.

It wasn’t malicious - never that. But amused, like John’s life had become a sitcom. The awkward bridal party photos. The charged dinner conversation. John coming back from the beach with a broken nose and fury in his eyes. Jilted by his would-be lover. Soap had been so wrong.

A stab of sadness hits him in the gut.

Now Soap was dead, and the story was still alive. The bastard was a menace. Always talking, always joking, always poking at things John didn’t want poked. But he never meant harm by it.

And fuck if John doesn’t miss him anyway.

He clenches his jaw, the ache in his throat rising fast and unwelcome.

Hell of a time to miss the noise.

“We were in Afghanistan together,” he says after a moment, forcing his mind back to Kelli, “We were friends for a long time.”

John can practically hear Gaz’s curiosity buzzing behind him.

“Soap said you had a falling out?” he asks after a moment. Slow, cautious.

“Not relevant Sergeant.”

He stops in front of the door to the roof. Gaz stops too, silent behind him. There is silence for a moment.

“You trust her?” Gaz asks. Quiet.

John turns to look at him. His expression is concerned, not accusing. John sighs.

“I trust she won’t let Ghost die,” he says finally. “And I trust she knows what she’d doing.”

Gaz nods. He doesn't press. That was the thing John liked about Kyle - he knew when to not pull on a thread.

“You alright Sir?” he asks after a moment.

Sometimes.

"Don’t make it weird, Kyle."

“No, I mean-” Gaz looks a little awkward for a moment, “- are you alright with her being here.”

John lets out a low chuckle, humourless. “Ain't got much of a choice do I?”

They stand for another beat. Then Gaz adjusts the sling of his rifle and gestures to the door.

“Well, if you ever feel like not answering me directly, I’ll be right here. Not listening.”

John shakes his head. Almost smiling. “Piss off.”

Gaz grins

“Of course, sir.”

He swings open the door and steps out onto the roof. It is dark, but the moon is almost full, casting the landscape in a cool, eerie glow. There are no lights in the village except for the flickering of the single lamp outside the clinic and the low glow in a handful of house windows. Warnings, he thinks.

John is immediately on guard for movement and eyes. He had no reason to think Darya would lie about the villagers unease. If someone has already seen Gaz scoping out the roof, they’re probably still watching.

The roof is flat, bordered by a low parapet wall. Weathered, cracked patches of old tar paper band-aid over cracks in the concrete. On the southern side is the antenna, mounted on a bent brace and rusting. The wires are frayed and he can see where MSF has jerry rigged the power line.

“Looks like the building used to be some kind of relay station.” Gaz says. “Definitely hardwired for comms, but its all been stripped and patched so many times it’s a miracle it was working at all.”

He huffs out a laugh and points over to the rusted tank on the left side of the roof. It is elevated on a short concrete rise.

“Theres our problem.” Gaz says. “But I reckon if we shift the antenna it should work.”

He takes out his compass and peers up at the sky.

“Just need your help moving it, then you can get back to Ghost and your girl.”

John shoots him a pointed look but Gaz has suddenly become very focused on peering between the sky and the antenna.

“She’s not my girl.” He says after a moment. Normally he wouldn’t rise to meet the bait, but he feels the impulse to set the record straight.

“Your woman then.”

“Sergeant.”

“Right, so she just looks at you like that for fun.”

“Kyle,” he warns. He does not need Gaz putting ideas in his head.

Gaz holds up both hands.

“Sorry Sir.” He grins sheepishly, despite everything that’s going on. “I just feel like I gotta compensate for both Ghost and Soap here, and I know neither of them would let you get away with all those lingering looks without saying anything.”

John purses his lips.

“Ghost is dying Kyle, stop fucking about.”

Gaz nods after a moment.

“Yeah. Right,” he says.

Gaz looks at him. Too long. Too soft. John clenches his jaw. He doesn’t need sympathy. He needs action.

He points at the antenna.

“Where’s this going?”

Gaz straightens and nods. He gestures towards what John had thought was a pile of trash.

“Bracing it over here, against the parapet.” Gaz points with his chin. “Need the southern line clear.”

The brace isn’t a brace. It’s a re-purposed HVAC grate, lashed to a crumbling cinder block with paracord and a scavenged tension strap. Two warped aluminum poles form a makeshift tripod. It looks like something a drunk engineer might have dreamed up, but Gaz steps back and nods.

“My masterpiece,” he says, “Can’t promise it’ll survive a pigeon landing on it, but it’ll hold for now.”

John grunts. Gaz crouches beside the base of the old antenna mount, his fingers working fast.

“Bracket’s fused with rust,” he mutters, “Hold that steady.”

John grips the dish’s edge, anchoring it while Gaz jimmies the bolt with a wrench that’s seen better decades. It groans, then gives with a sharp ping, metal flaking off like dried blood. John is grateful for his gloves. The metal of the bracket is rusted so badly in parts that the edges are like razor blades.

They lift the dish free, awkward and heavy, awkward mostly because it’s balanced wrong. The feed horn jiggles, alignment scope long gone. When they place it down on Gaz’s masterpiece, it wobbles threateningly. Gaz wedges an old toolbox around the base to counterbalance it.

John holds his breath as they let go slowly. The air is still for a moment. Then the dish keens quickly. John whips out his hand to stop it. Sharp pain shoots along his forearm as the raw edge of the bracket slices into his skin. Gaz pulls it away from him.

“Shit,” he says.

“Keep working.” John says through gritted teeth. “Just get it stable.”

Gaz hurriedly rearranges his brace, adding another cinder block to stabilize the dish. He shoves a folded length of rubber matting beneath one leg to correct the lean. John slowly releases his grip on the dish and steps back. He eyes the precarious contraption.

“You sure this is going to hold?”

“For long enough,” Gaz squints down the dish’s sightline. “Lines clear past the tank now,” he says, wiping his forehead with the back of his arm.

John nods and looks down at his arm to assess the damage. The rusty, raw edge has sliced open a good five-centimeter length of his skin. Blood is dripping onto the concrete, soaking into his glove.

He grits his teeth, pulling a bandage from the med-pack in his vest. It is hard to wrap it with one hand, but he manages.

“Good thing there’s a doctor downstairs,” Gaz says with a levity John does not appreciate. He peers at him. “You okay?”

He grunts.

“I’m fine.”

He’s had far worse. Barely a scratch. Besides, it’s not the wound that worries him, it’s the thought of Kelli inspecting his arm. Admonishing him. Patching him up and being close while she does it.

The thought sends him back to a time he doesn’t want to be in right now. Her fingers on his ribs, back in Helmand. Cool, professional, but they lingered. Said nothing off script, just looked at him like she already knew too much.

He shifts his weight now, like he can shake the memory off his skin.

Christ, he really thought he was over it all.

Has to be the loss, Soap, knocking him off balance. No other reason he’d be thinking like this. He needs to get a fucking grip.

The pain from the cut feels like the only thing tethering him to reality right now.

He almost laughs at the irony.

He had been pissed off about glass bodies. He didn’t expect his own to be next in line.

He tugs the knot tight and flexes his fingers. It’ll do.

Gaz is still watching him.

“What now?” he asks, before Gaz can tell him to get it looked at or something equally as stupid.

“Give me ten to splice the feed,” Gaz says, “then I gotta check in on that old generator. We’ll need to source fuel, then run a line up the stairs.”

“I’ll check the generator and the fuel,” he says, thinking about the old jeep that had been parked in the alley by the clinic. It had the MSF logo. Kelli won't be happy, but he honestly doesn't give a shit about that right now. He can’t give a shit. He needs to stop thinking about what will make Kelli happy and focus on the mission.

Before that though, he really needs a smoke. He pulls out his case and lights up a cigar.

Gaz has stopped looking at him and is laying out the rest of his trash heap of parts.

John inhales, keeping the smoke in his mouth. He tries to slow his thoughts, but his mind is already ahead - possible extraction points, siphoning the fuel and the creeping sense that something’s coming.

Always is.

Village’s defensible. One road in, one out. Rear lot’s big enough to land a bird. Decent sightlines between buildings. Sparse. Exposed.

If Zaman’s goons come knocking, the best bet is to play it defensively. Use the clinic as a base - it’s elevated on the ridge.

He breathes out the smoke.

Fuck. Forget the goons - Kelli will kill him if it came to that. Still, he won’t hesitate. He’ll wear it like he wears all the other cold decisions he’s had to make. He just wishes that it didn’t have to be her standing in his way. He has to get Ghost out, hell, he still has to get Rains out.

He steps up to the parapet, placing both hands on the edge. Blood from his wound drips onto the whitewashed concrete. Stark even in the moonlight.

The air is still.

He sweeps his gaze across the village. Rooftops flat under the dark sky. A TV aerial turns lazily on a rusted pole. The smoke from his cigar drifts sideways.

Nothing makes a sound.

Nothing moves.

Except-

His eyes catch on a flicker of movement in a second story window across the street. A child, he thinks. Big eyes, half hidden behind sun-bleached curtains. Watching.

He stares back for a beat. Then the curtains flutter and the window is empty again.

John watches for another few moments.

He finishes the drag, crushes the cigar under his boot, and heads down without a word.

—————————

John doesn’t intend to see Kelli.

Jeep. Fuel. That’s all he lets himself think as he descends the concrete stairs into the front room.

But the moment his boot hits the floor, she appears in front of him like a specter and he just knows something is wrong.

“Ghost?” He asks.

She shakes her head.

“Yes, but not in the way you think.”

She glances at the bloodied bandage on his forearm. There is a pause. The pain has dulled to a background noise. But she says nothing. That silence carries its own weight.

When she leads him back into the back room, John’s eyes snap to Ghost. He is still quiet on the table, his chest moving gently.

Instead of blaring vital signs greeting him, Darya stands by the back door. Her arms folded and a worried expression on her face.

Once again, an omen.

“Tell him, what you just told me.”

Darya looks between him and Kelli.

“Can’t you?” She mumbles, clearly reluctant.

Kelli just gestures for her to speak.

John narrows his eyes. If Kelli is agitated that is bad news.

“What is it?”

Darya grits her teeth.

“One of the villagers,” she says, halting, then points at Ghost, “I overheard him say the Ghost’s name.”

John’s blood goes cold.

“When?”

“Just a few minutes ago,” she says.

“No one here should know that name,” he mutters, more to himself. It’s a small village in the middle of desert and dust. His mind races. “You mentioned him to your uncle.”

Darya shakes her head so hard, her shayla slips off her head. She fumbles with it, hands shaking.

“I didn’t I swear!” she says. “I never talk to the butcher, he’s a bad man.”

John’s jaw tightens. His pulse spikes. He takes a step toward Darya before he even realizes it - a soldier’s instinct, not a rational one.

She flinches.

“Then explain how the hell he knew that name!”

He looms, not meaning to, but he is too wired to stop.

Kelli steps in front of him.

“Back off, John.” Her hand is on his shoulder - grounding, not gentle. “She’s not the threat here.”

He shakes his head at her.

“You have a reputation,” she continues, “it might mean nothing. It might be a coincidence.”

“You’re not that stupid Kelli,” he snaps, “there are no coincidences.”

Kelli looks like she wants to hit him but she just presses firmly into his shoulder.

He grits hit teeth and leans away from her. He runs a hand over his chin, tonguing his molar so hard his jaw aches.

“What did he say?” He stares past Kelli, at Darya. “Was he talking to someone? Did he have a phone?”

Darya nods.

“He called someone, I heard him say the Ghost was here-”

“Shit.”

“-but he said he wanted money. He said money before location - argued, hung up. I think he was going to call back.“

Kelli turns to look at Darya, alarmed.

“You’re sure?”

Darya nods.

John cycles through every possibility. If the butcher has tipped them off but not where they are, he has a maximum of twenty five minutes before the bullets start flying. Maybe thirty if he’s lucky and he’s never lucky.

Probably less.

Scumbags don’t take long to fold on the money.

“We assume he’s called.” John says, marching over to have a look out of the window. He reaches up to scan the street outside. It is quiet, still.

“He hasn’t.”

John whips his head around and stares at Darya.

Her eyes are wide as she holds up a phone.

“I took his phone.”

Kelli stares. “You did what?”

John marches over in three clean steps and snatches the phone from Darya’s hand. It’s a cheap android, scratched up from use and sand.

“He’s dangerous. I know what kind of men he talks to.”

John nods at her, “clever girl.”

Kelli shoots him a look. John ignores her. He taps the phone in the air.

The situation is salvageable. Maybe he still has some luck after all.

Rains leans over from his spot in the corner.

“Can you call your people on that?”

John laughs - short. He wishes.

“You think I’m dumb enough to ping Laswell from an informant’s phone?”

Even if the thing had a full charge and a direct line to Laswell, it wouldn’t matter. Civilian networks were blind out here - and he wasn’t about to light up their position just to leave a voicemail.

He turns back to Darya.

“Show me the butcher.”

“John.” Kelli is shaking her head slowly at him.

He knows she knows exactly where his mind has headed - the butcher needs to be neutralized. Darya might have taken his phone, but that’s no guarantee he doesn't have some other way to rat them out. Besides, John finds himself very interested in how someone in the middle of bloody nowhere knows about Ghost.

“Hes dangerous.”

Kelli shakes her head.

“I don’t give a shit about Arman,” she says, surprising him, “just leave Darya out of it. I’ll show you.”

He examines her for a moment. She’d always had that instinct, that bleeding heart. Comes with the territory he supposes - do no harm and all that bullshit.

But she’s always had an edge too - that madness - and the way she’s looking at him is razor sharp. It’s been a long time since he’s seen her in the field. Five years in MSF, servicing war zones, natural disasters, humanitarian crises. She must have seen the worst humanity has to offer, only the people she sees probably never chose that life. Not like the assholes he usually deals with.

He wonders for a moment if he’s not the only one beyond Afghanistan.

“No,” he says. “You stay here with Ghost.”

He points at Darya.

“You with me.”

Kelli sighs - almost growls. As he steps past her, her hand snaps to his elbow.

He narrows his eyes down at her, but doesn’t pull away. She stares back up at him - eyes hard, sharp.

Her breath is warm next to his ear as she says, “If she gets hurt, I swear to fucking God I will call Zaman myself.”

John wants to tell her to stop being ridiculous. That the melodrama doesn’t really have the effect she thinks it does. That he knows she wouldn't do that, that she’s being protective. He gets that.

But then the pain laces through him as she moves her grip downward - just to the edge of the bloodied bandage.

He hisses.

God fucking damn.

“I’ll send her home after she shows me.” He relents after a moment. “No contact until then.”

A pause, Kelli’s blue eyes search his. She must find what she needs, because she nods and releases his arm.

“Thank you,” she says, the softness of her voice contrasting starkly with the pain she had just inflicted. Her breath still warm on his ear and its all he can do to avoid shivering.

She steps away.

He nods.

Darya looks nervously between him and Kelli, but when he nods at her, she straightens.

“It’s not far.”

Darya leads him out into the alleyway and immediately turns right. He follows quietly behind her for about fifty meters before she turns left, another left and then stops behind a pile of crates. Somewhere to the right, a goat bleats softly, disturbed by the movement.

“There,” she says, pointing around the corner.

The butcher’s shop squats low and dull beneath the awning - red once, now the colour of old liver. A faint light flickers inside. Not bright. Maybe a lamp

“Good.” He says. “Family?”

Darya’s brow narrows for a moment, then she shakes her head.

“No. He’s a pig. Always staring, always sniffing.”

John’s mouth quirks on its own accord.

He turns to Darya, leans down and places a hand on her shoulder - slowly, so as not to startle her.

Darya looks at his hand as if he’s grown another head. He’s not been a particularly gentle presence in her life over the last hour, he supposes. Guilt flickers. He kills it. She’s helped him, but shes still a liability.

“Go home,” he orders, “Stay there with your family. Stay safe.”

Darya stares up at him.

“But-”

“No buts.”

“But I want to help!”

John stares down at her. Her eyes are wide, dark like blast marks on old stone. Far too old a look for fourteen.

Unease cuts through his gut.

It’s the same look Farah wore, has worn, for 20 years. That look that cuts through a childhood. Dark like blast glass, an adult forged in the sand after detonation.

He’s not sure how to feel about it.

“You’ve already helped,” he says. If she continues to insist, he’s not sure what to do. He’s learned how to convince soldiers, convince his men. He’s not sure how to convince a kid.

But he knows that look.

“That man back there,” he says, “He’s one of my best mates. You-” he presses a finger into Darya’s shoulder. “-you’ve helped save his life, okay?” He takes the phone out of his pocket and waggles it in front of her face. “You stole this, bought us time. That’s enough, sweetheart.”

She doesn’t move, if anything, her face scrunches at the use of ‘sweetheart’.

“What if it’s not enough?” she says, chin tilting up. “What if he dies?”

John exhales through his nose.

Christ.

“Then it won’t be on you,” he says, flatly, “it’ll be on me.”

She opens her mouth again - too quick, too ready to argue. He cuts her off.

“Listen to me. You want to help?” his voice drops, low and firm. “Help your aunt with Risha. Stay safe. That’s the job now, Darya. Go home. Be a kid while you still can.”

Darya stares at him, angry, frustrated. But she nods - slowly.

“Good girl.”

“What are you going to do?”

John blinks very slowly. Christ almighty.

He pauses. He forces himself to meet her eyes. Too-old. Too-dark.

“Go home Darya.”

She gives him a final look before she turns and hurries back up the alley. Her footsteps fade behind him and John waits.

He lets the quiet settle. Just him and the dark.

He moves left, hugging the wall.

The air reeks of blood. Dark stains smear the concrete around the doorframe - old, rusty, still wet in places. There’s a window cracked open, just wide enough to breathe through.

Inside, a stocky man paces. Muttering.

Searching for a phone he won’t find.

John presses in.

The back door creaks open under his hand. The butcher doesn’t hear it, too busy searching amongst rusty knives. The shop smells of rust and old meat.

John slides through the door, quiet as smoke, moving carefully along the cracked tile floor.

Then the butcher turns.

John lunges, but the man is faster than he looks.

He grabs a boning knife from the counter and swings it wide. It’s clumsy, wild, but fast.

John sidesteps, catches the wrist with his good hand, but the swings momentum drives the butcher into him, full weight.

They slam into the counter.

Reflex kicks in. He reaches to brace. Wrong arm.

White-hot pain explodes down his forearm.

Fucking hell.

He falters. His arm buckles for a second, only a second. Not much, but just enough for the butcher to drive his fist into John’s ribs. Not trained, but frantic.

John grits his teeth and lunges again, ignoring the pain. He wraps the man’s arm and twists.

A grunt.

The butcher turns with it. John slams him backward, into the wall chest first. The knife clatters to the floor.

John pins him there with his knee.

The man’s breath is sharp, face pale.

He spits, curses in that fucking dialect John doesn’t understand.

John clicks his tongue.

“English?”

The butcher spits.

“Fine.”

John grips his collar, pivots, and slams the butcher’s head against the tile wall. Not gentle. The man slumps instantly, out cold.

John takes a step back, dropping him to the floor.

His breath drags in, tight.

The bandage is soaked through, warm blood trailing down in slow, sticky ribbons.

His arm’s screaming again.

He peels the wrap back and hisses through his teeth.

Stupid. Should’ve wrapped it tighter. He’ll have to get it seen to now.

He blinks hard - trying not to think of her hands, her touch.

The pain helps. Sharpens the edges. Burns the rest away.

The man groans at his feet. Still breathing. Still dangerous. Still knows more than he should.

John glances at the bloody handprint smeared on the counter, the knife on the floor, the cracked tiles. He can’t leave the bastard here.

He swears and crouches down, tying the man’s wrists with a zip tie from his belt. The blood makes it slippery work, but it holds. He stuffs a rag into the butcher’s mouth for good measure.

His arm protests as he lifts. The man is fucking heavy. He grits his teeth and adjusts, shifting the weight until the man is draped across his shoulders.

The alley is silent when he slips out.

Just him, the unconscious body, and the sharp stench of blood trailing behind.

Christ, Kelli’’s going to lose it.

His jaw clenches.

Let her be angry. Let her yell. It’s not like he gives a damn.

Except he does. And that’s the bloody problem.

Chapter Text

Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan. 2010

There are a hundred ways to die in Sangin.

IEDs. Heatstroke. Secondary blasts. RPGs. Snipers. Delayed CASEVAC.

Hell, even friendly fire.

John’s seen every one. And a few that don’t make the textbooks. In his experience, half of it’s luck. The rest is preparation. Nine years without a serious injury - he’s learned how to stack the odds.

The armory hums. An overhead fan stirs dry air, the clink of metal. Dust, whipped up from a recent sandstorm, lingers in the corners like smoke. It’s dark under the canvas. Outside, the sun blinds, already sharp enough to bite.

John sits, stripping and reassembling his rifle. Recess. Routine. Reassurance.

Black watches him from the next bench over, one boot up on the crate between them, elbow resting on his knee.

“You’ve already cleaned that twice.” He says, eying him as he strips and cleans his rifle for the second time that morning.

“Then it’s twice as likely to fire.”

Black’s mouth quirks and John feels it - that strange comfort he only finds with certain men. Black’s been many things to him over the years - sparring partner, shadow, anchor. It’s been too long since he’s looked at him with that dark, amused gaze. Dangerous in some ways, but also friendly. A combination that doesn’t usually bring him comfort, but with Black it feels good to be back in his orbit.

John hadn’t expected to be, not so soon.

“Not sure that’s how that works, but sure,” Black says with a shrug, “You’re the commander now.”

John arches a brow.

“I was always your commander.”

Black pushes off the bench and comes round to peer at John’s handiwork.

“Yeah but now I have to actually listen to you.”

John shakes his head, amused.

On paper, he’s still in B Squadron. In reality, he hadn’t worn the patch in a year.

After Herrick 8, the quiet invitation came - JSFAW attachment. Not a surprise.

It had felt appropriate after Nan’s death - a way to move forward.

After Urzikstan, the secondment to E Squadron was inevitable.

He’s not arrogant - just precise. But there is something purposeful in knowing he is uniquely capable of toeing that line. It is a responsibility he wears. It attaches him to his roots, to serve something greater than himself.

Covert ops is brutal. Knife’s-edge. Fewer rules. Fewer people. It suits him.

He fucking loves it.

But Command wanted someone senior for this one. Someone familiar with Sangin. So here he is, borrowed from black ops and dropped back into the fold like a ghost from the past.

It’s not even the past, not really - time always moves differently in war.

But he feels a faint barrier now, ever since he touched down on base. His old squad-mates congratulate him. Make stupid quips about how he’d have to kill him if he told them what he was doing. They still joke like he's one of them - but the jokes come slower now, eyes glancing at the rank on his sleeve.

Even Black looks at him differently. The distance is subtle, but it’s there.

Of course, not everyone seems to understand rank. Some people are just unique like that. Speaking of -

Riggs saunters into the armory like he owns the place, sleeves rolled, jaw dusted with stubble. He makes a show of leaning against the locker door, arms crossed, casual and cocky.

“Well, well, well,” he says, “Look who’s back from the black. Come to grace us regular killers with you’re presence?”

John bites down. “Riggs.”

“You look tenser than a cat on a roof. Covert ops giving you enough stress leave?”

Black rolls his eyes. “You here to check your kit, or just wasting air?”

Riggs pouts.

“What? I can’t come say hello to hot shit over here?” he says gesturing at John. “It’s not the same around here without you Price, I gotta say.”

John eyes him. “New command not putting up with your bullshit?”

Riggs huffs out a laugh.

“More like new command is bullshit,” he says a touch sourly.

“Got reprimanded recently, did you?”

Black folds his arms.

“Someone got a slap on the wrist for not following ROE.”
“It’s bullshit man,” Riggs complains, “I’ve been doing this shit for six fucking years, I know what I’m doing.”

John raises an eyebrow.

“You gonna complain about protocol to your commanding officer or are you gonna check your kit?”

Riggs waves a hand.

“It’s fine, I checked it this morning.”

“Then check it again,” John says, “Or I’m not dragging your sorry arse back later.”

Riggs grins. “That’s fine. Kells always patches me up anyway.”

A beat. That fucking grin. That look in his eyes, the same damn shit-stirring look. “She’s got nicer hands than you anyway.”

John clenches his jaw.

He glances over to the med bay where Kelli is checking tourniquets like she’s rigging explosives. She’s precise, almost too precise - like she’s trying to brute-force calm out of muscle memory. Like she’s wired, not focused.

He misses her something fierce.

He hasn’t seen her in months, just trades nonsense texts like they always have. She’s been going through a cat meme phase recently, which he secretly likes but would never admit to.

She’s the only one that treats him like he’s still him. It’s a breath of fresh air. Like she understands the promotion hasn’t changed him. Just reinforced the man he already was.

And yet, there’s something different now. Harder to place. Her messages have been more erratic lately - late at night, full of typos, some trailing off halfway through. He chalked it up to exhaustion.

Or maybe he didn’t want to think too hard about it. He worries about her enough.

Riggs examines his fingernails for a moment, then nods toward the med bay without even looking.

“Y’know, she’s been solid. Head down, running a tight ship. Bit of an edge since Mullen but you’d expect that. That fucker was a piece of work.”

John doesn’t respond. It is a bit ironic, he thinks for Riggs to judge Mullen, but he supposes it says a lot about Mullen, if even a dog like Riggs thinks he’s a piece of shit.

John wonders momentarily how everyone saw it, but none of them did anything.

Riggs keeps going. “You’d almost forget how close it all came to blowing up in her face.”

A beat. “Riggs.” Black warns.

John eyes him. “You got something to say, say it.”

Riggs shrugs, all faux innocence. “Just making conversation, mate. She doesn’t talk about it much. Not to me anyway.”

He smiles. “But we’ve had a few laughs. She’s… loosened up a bit, lately.” he says, with a look that makes John want to shove him through the wall.

He has the absolute audacity to wink.

John files the phrasing away. Loosened up is not at all how he would describe the way Kelli approaches her work. His grip on the cleaning cloth tightens. “Riggs-”

“Relax,” Riggs cuts in, tossing the rag into a bin. “I know the rules. I keep things professional. Mostly.”

John resists the urge to kick his arse out of the armory. He knows Kelli would rather eat glass than go anywhere near Riggs like that. But it doesn't stop Riggs from pushing buttons that are primed for pressing.

John doesn’t say anything. Just fits the upper receiver into place with a satisfying click.

He hasn’t had a chance to actually talk to Kelli yet, just traded nods. She’s busier now, still missing her promotion. Still waiting on the stripes that should’ve come months ago. But Mullen’s gone too.

Riggs is right - it had been a proper scandal when it had all come out. Mullen had ‘volunteered’ for early discharge. Over it all, Kelli and the job. Last John’s heard he moved abroad, works as a private sector consultant now.

Kelli’s still here though, still grinding, despite the investigation, despite the reassignments and her promotion sitting in limbo. John wonders how long it will take for it all to calm down. She deserves to be recognized for more than just a cautionary tale. It’s been a year and a half, surely she is one good mission away from redemption.

Maybe this will be the one.

Riggs makes a quiet click with his tongue. “So. This op. Word is it’s a big one. High-value bastard, yeah?”

John doesn’t look up. “Briefing’s at fifteen-hundred. You’ll find out then.”

Riggs scoffs. “Come on, don’t be like that. We used to trade intel over beers.”

“You used to spill intel over beers,” John corrects. “And I used to clean it up.”

Riggs laughs. “Alright, alright. But seriously, who’s the bastard?”

John slides the bolt back, checks the chamber.

“Name’s Haroon Wazir. Codename Candlemaker. Been active since ‘08. We’ve tracked him across three provinces.”

“Candlemaker?” Riggs snorts. “What is he, a bloody fairytale villain?”

John sets the rifle down a little harder than necessary. A quiet clink of metal against metal.

“He’s killed over forty coalition personnel,” he says, looking up. “And a lot more locals. Whole cell under him. We’re not just here to take out a guy - we’re here to put a dent in the network.”

“Damn,” Riggs mutters. “Well. Good thing we’ve got Mr E Squadron with us, then.”

John scowls.

“This isn’t a playtime raid, Riggs. It’s a contested area, Gamsar Lane, civvies in the crossfire, secondary threats out the arse. I’m here because Command wants someone senior on the ground, who doesn’t fuck about.”

That quiets Riggs for a beat, just long enough to make John wonder if the words have landed.

Riggs clicks his tongue. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll stick close to the grownups,” Riggs says, tossing him a lazy salute. “See you at briefing. Try make it interesting, yeah?”

He turns on his heel and walks off, whistling. John watches him go, unease prickling at the base of his neck.

The prick was always reckless, but today it lands different. Like somethings off-kilter.

“He’s more…feckless than I remember.” John says.

“He’s stopped giving a shit I think,” says Black, watching Riggs as he crosses the yard and makes a beeline for the med tent.

“Did he ever give a shit?”

Black’s eyes flicker to his, and for a second John sees the weight in his gaze. He looks exhausted, they all do, but on Black the expression is starker. He's always been the most cheerful of John’s mates - dry but fundamentally optimistic in the most annoying way.

“I think he did.” Black says. “I just think its getting to him.”

John nods. He understands. Sometimes it gets to him too. But he also wants to stay alive. Not for the first time he is grateful for his inherited pragmatism. Somehow always stronger than the sense of dread, you just have to do what you have to do.

And John has a job to do.

Black sighs.

“Still manages to land on his feet.” He glances sideways at John. “Or in Kelli’s good graces.”

That lands heavier than it should.

Black clocks the silence.

“You know,” he adds, voice more deliberate now, “you give him grief for being feckless, but you’re not exactly charging into battle on that front either.”

John’s brow furrows.

“What front?”

“Come off it,” Black says. “Kelli. You two orbit each other like it’s a fucking Cold War.”

John exhales through his nose. Short. Controlled. Maybe he spoke too soon about being grateful for Black’s company. He forgot how fucking needling he can be. That Scottish bluntness that contrasts so irritatingly with his own English repression.

“Its not the right time,” he says.

“Mate,” Black says flatly, “if we waited for the right time in this job, none of us would’ve ever gotten laid.”

He cocks his head to the side.

“And I know you’re not stupid enough to think your invincible, especially not with the new gig. Don’t you think you should take the chance while you have it?”

John thinks he should do any number of things.

March over to Kelli , tell her to be safe.

Tell her he missed her

Ask how she’s doing.

Say something stupid, just so he can hear her call him a moron.

He thinks about saying something like, “maybe when this is over…Maybe when we’re both on leave…”

But he doesn’t.

Mullen’s gone. Nothing in the way now.

Except there is. Always is.

Its all the little stupid things. Missed calls. Half-finished messages. Long silences that shouldn’t feel awkward, but do. Its not like they’ve been around each other as much as Herrick 8 either. Shes still pulling steady rotations in Afghanistan. He’s bouncing around the Middle East from op to op. They’re never on leave at the same time. And when he does see her, he is usually left thinking he’d rather not ruin what little time they have together with something as stupid as how he feels.

Its almost like it was easier when Mullen was in the way.

It makes it simple, a binary decision. If he were to be completely honest with himself - it was a shield. A shield against admitting that whatever he feels for Kelli has long since moved beyond simply fancying her.

“I’m giving her space,” he says, “Mullen fucked her up.”

“A year and a half is a lot of space, mate.”

“So were the four years she spent getting fucked up.”

“Not arguing.” Black watches him carefully now. “it’s just…You don’t think she’s gonna interpret that as disinterest? What if she finds another bloke?”

“She wont.”

Black looks at him for a long time. He looks like he’s trying to decide if John is being an asshole or not.

“You know,” he says and John already hates the tone. “When I realized I fancied Emma, I didn’t wait around till she read my mind. I asked her out. Before someone else could. Because you know, she’s hot and clever and a lot of guys like that, and Emma is surrounded by a lot of horny fuckers. Do you see where I’m going with this?”

John tongues his teeth. He does and he doesn’t like it.

“I know you’re worried she might say no but come on man, I’ve never seen two people mooning over each other so fucking hard.”

John shoots him a sharp look.

“I’m not mooning.”

“You are. It’s tragic, honestly.” He pauses. “For you, not her.”

John grunts, not enjoying any part of the conversation.

He looks past Black, toward the shade of the med tent.

Kelli’s moving crates, sleeves rolled, brow furrowed. Laughing at something Ronan says.

Black follows his gaze.

“She’s been coping,” Black says, answering the question John didn’t even know he was asking. Then a beat. “But coping’s not the same as doing alright. She misses you.”

John’s avoids Black’s gaze.

“She told you that.”

“She told Emma that.”

A beat.

“I dunno,” Black shrugs, “girls man. I could complete a million missions and still never understand how they do it.”

“Do what?”

Black laughs.

“Fuck us up.”

John looks back at Black. For a moment he wants to tell him to stop being an idiot. He wants to tell him to leave him alone, to let him stew like the moody bastard that he is, but instead he coughs, tries to cover it by clearing his throat.

“How did you…you know, ask Emma.” He says tightly. “I mean you guys were friends for ages first.”

Black looks at him for a long moment, utterly delighted.

“I just asked her.” He says, as if that helps John in any way at all. He sighs, clocking John’s irritation. “You’ve had girlfriends, how did you ask them out?”

John furrows his brow.

“I didn’t really,” he says. “They kind of attached themselves to me.”

Black’s eyelids flutter.

“Yeah, course they did.” He says, clapping John on the shoulder. “Well, looks like you’ll have to stoop down to us average-looking blokes level and take some bleedin’ initiative pal. I’m sure you’ll be fine. Just think of her like a HVT.”

“What, kill capture?” John says dryly.

Black snorts.

“No you daft bastard - eyes on the target and try not to fuck it up.”

John can’t help but crack a small smile. He’s not sure how they got to this point in the conversation. It feels bizarre to be asking Black for dating advice several hours out from a highly dangerous HVT op, but when he glances over at Kelli again, he has the sense that maybe Black is right.

Maybe he is leaving too much to chance. He thinks he would probably hate himself if she got with someone new and he never tried to do anything about how he feels. He’s like his father in a hundred ways. He hopes this isn’t one of them.

Black shakes his head and stands. “Come on. Don’t you have a briefing to tizzy up for Riggs. Don’t want to let the bastard down.”

John stays seated a moment longer. Just watching her.

Kelli’s still hauling crates like the job depends on it. But something in her movement’s off. There’s a drag in her shoulders he didn’t notice at first. Not tired, exactly - just… frayed. Like something under her skin is rattling loose. Like the gears are still turning, but the engine’s running too hot.

He pushes to his feet.

“Alright,” he mutters, more to himself than to Black. “But I’m adding in at least twenty more slides on ROE, sounds like he needs it.”

Black’s brow arches, he frowns as if he’s not sure if John is being serious or not.

“That feels like punishment for everyone, not just Riggs.”

John shrugs.

“Always good to revisit the basics.”

“Christ,” Black mutters, standing up with a stretch. “You really are turning into a commander, aren’t you? What is this world coming to.”

“Reckon it means you lot are doomed,” John says dryly. “Better hope I don’t get invited back.”

He starts toward the briefing tent, half a step behind Black, but glances back one last time.

Kelli catches his eye.

She smiles, face like the sun.

John realizes that he doesn’t get it either. He could take down a thousand Candlemakers and Kelli’s smile would still be the thing to fuck him up.

Every single time.

———————

The light is starting to go gold when she finds him. The briefing ran long, not strictly his fault. Kelli had been there, nodding along slow and steady, but he’d only managed a quick hello before she was off with her own team for the med brief. He’d requested her unit on the op, though part of him wanted her nowhere near what they’re about to do.

He’s hoping for a clean op. Knows better than to expect one. A bastard like the Candlemaker always has something up his sleeve. John doesn’t want her anywhere near it. Which, of course, means she’s exactly where she needs to be.

He’s half sitting on an ammo crate near the motor pool, lacing his boots slowly and precisely. It’s a habit he’s had since selection, a ritual before the storm. Something to keep his hands busy when the noise in his head won’t shut up.

He hears her boots before he sees her. No clipboard, no junior medics, no radio crackling. Just her.

She waits patiently until he is done.

“So the rumors are true,” she says when he looks up. “John Price is still alive.”

Shes squinting into the light, her hair pulled back behind a wide headband. But she’s smiling - that crooked-half smile that he loves so much.

“Been told as much,” he says, “Haven’t exploded yet.”

“Shame. I had five quid on you spontaneously combusting when Riggs started back talking during that briefing.”

John tongues a molar.

“He's never appreciated my directives on not dying.” He says, dryly.

“I don’t think he appreciates you pressing him on hypothetical ROE edge cases.” She says, cocking her head at him. “Which, you never quite clarified what is the ROE on a suspected bomber pushing a pram with a baby in it?”

John huffs a laugh.

“Obvious,” he says. “Don’t shoot the baby.”

A beat. “Unless it’s armed.”

Kelli’s mouth quirks.

She examines him, eying him in the way she does - the medical edge, like shes checking for fractures no one else can see.

“You’re skinnier than I remember,” she says. “MI6 not feeding you?”

“And you’re bossier.” He retorts, “lucky most people think it’s charming.”

That earns him a quiet laugh, the real kind. Not the polite one she gives the others. Not the clipped professional tone. This one's his.

She raises an eyebrow.

“You think I’m charming?”

“No,” he says, raising a finger, ”I said most people think it’s charming. I’m not most people.”

Kelli shakes her head. He would think in disbelief, but there is something undoubtedly fond there.

A flush creeps up the back of his neck. He can feel the heat.

“Yeah no shit,” she laughs, “Most people eat. Sleep. Text back in a timely manner.”

She’d sent him that gif of a skeleton with a phone once. “Waiting for John Price to reply.” He still hadn’t replied to that.

“That’s rich coming from you,” he says. “Half the time you don’t even finish the message, just distract with some god-awful emoji.”

Kelli cocks her hip.

“Hey, the crying cat is my life okay.”

“It’s a cry for help.”

“Exactly.”

It’s just a beat, but it’s there. The stutter in her smile. She distracts quickly.

“Your sister still giving you shit about missing her sweet 16th?”

He grunts. “Yeah. Sent me the crying cat and everything.”

“As she should.”

He shoots her a look, but the corner of his mouth twitches. “You’re really not beating the bossy allegations.”

“And you’re yet to respond to the skinny allegations.”

John scoffs. He knows for a fact he’s packed on more muscle in the last six months than he ever had, even back in the para days. He’s about to retort again, but the look in Kelli’s eyes is both knowing and appreciative. Both always serve to unravel him, so the combination unfocuses his brain for a moment.

Kelli grins, knowing she has won this time.

“Don’t worry. You look fine. It’s almost a relief really, don’t want everyone else to feel too insecure.”

John doesn’t really know how to respond to this comment. He’s ninety percent sure she’s complimenting him, might even be flirting with him. But she jumps from the comment so quickly that he doesn't really have time to parse her tone. Instead, she straightens and reaches into her pocket. She pulls out a small, square box, wrapped in plain brown paper, seams carefully taped, corners scuffed from the travel.

“I missed your birthday,” she explains.

He blinks.

“That was 3 months ago.”

“Way to make me feel worse.”

She hands it to him like it’s nothing. It’s not.

The paper is warm from her pocket. A yellow smiley face sticker holds the wrapping together.

He stands, tears at it gently, slower than he needs to - like opening it too fast might break the spell. Inside, nestled in tissue, is a box of Villa Clara cigars. The old kind. The ones he used to buy on leave in Gibraltar, before everything got so damn complicated.

He turns the box over in his hands, thumb brushing the embossed seal.

“You tracked these down?”

“Took me forever,” she shrugs. “Asked around. Pulled some favors.” A pause. “Figured you’d need one to burn when this is over.”

His throat tightens. He covers it with a dry chuckle.

“You know they rot my lungs.”

“Only if you make it back.” She smiles tightly. “Which you will.”

And then, without warning, she steps forward and wraps her arms around him.

It’s not hesitant. It’s warm. Solid. Familiar in all the ways that undo him.

He should move. Should lean into it. Should say something, anything.

His hands hover for a second like they’ve forgotten what to do. One of them twitches at her back, then retreats like it touched something too hot.

“Hug me you moron.”

Her breath is warm against his ear.

John lets out something between a laugh and a sigh. Wraps his arms around her and closes his eyes. Just for a second.

She smells like antiseptic and desert dust. Feels like home. He thinks that if the mission goes south, at least this will be a nice final memory.

Kelli holds him for a breath longer. When she pulls back, there is something in her eyes - hope, worry, a soft longing that takes his breath away.

“Happy birthday, John,” she says gently.

She starts to step back, but something in him doesn’t let her leave just yet.

“Kell.”

SHe pauses. Turns back to face him, brows raised.

“Stick to the bird, yeah?” He says, voice low. “I know you like to get hands-on but… just let us bring the casualties to you.”

Her expression softens. Its not quite amusement, not quite exasperation.

“You worried about me John?”

“Just stating the obvious.” He says, voice low. “No point losing the best medic on base to a stray round.”

She steps in again, just enough to lower her voice.

“You’re one to talk. I’ve seen the satellite stills, that shop’s a mess.”

“I’ll be fine,” he says. Too quick. Too reflexive.

She hums, unconvinced.

“Funny,” she says. “I know a lot of men who said that right before I had to stop them from bleeding out.”

That gets a sound out of him, halfway between a scoff and a laugh.

“I’ll come back,” he says.

She nods. “Good. Because I didn’t pay the exchange on those cigars just to light one on your bloody grave.”

A pause.

“And John?”

He meets her eyes again.

“Don’t be clever in there. Be smart.”

“Aren’t I always?”

She smirks faintly. “No. But I like you anyway.”

Then she’s gone. Boots kicking up dust, and he’s left with a box of old cigars and a throat full of stones.

————————

The stench hits first - diesel, laundry water and the faint, metallic sting of battery acid.

Then the quiet. The place is packed with locals used to the sound of drones and helicopters. They know when to make a noise.

Gamsar Lane is exactly the kind of place a bastard like the Candlemaker would set up shop.

He uses a metal and battery repair workshop at the end of a short alley in the south west corner. Typical cover - thick concrete, good sightlines, and about 15 families to shield him from any air threats. SIGINT estimates around 40-50 civilians in the immediate area.

They insert through the irrigation trench, moving south under nigh vision. A five man team; John, Riggs, Black, Allen and Hobbs. John hears civilians inside every house they pass - murmurs, prayers, banal familial bickering. A girl stares out from a window to the east, eyes wide, unblinking. She doesn’t scream. Just vanishes into the dark like a ghost.

They reach the staging point in near darkness. A narrow stretch of alley tucked between two compounds. Mudbrick walls rise on either side, claustrophobic. Cracked and uneven, still warm from the day’s sun.

John crouches low beside the outer wall, listening. One of the neighbors is playing a radio softly, some tinny local pop track. Theres the sound of a kid laughing, way too close for comfort.

“Breach point’s here” Black murmurs, tapping the crumbling section of wall. “Low density, won’t echo too hard.”

John nods. They don’t have time for a full loop around. They’ve already been seen once. Speed and containment - that’s the game.

He motions for Riggs to plant the small breaching charge. Riggs sprays quick foam to dampen the noise, places the charge low.

They all pull back, taking knee. John whispers over comms: “three…two…”

The pop is sharp but muffled. Not Hollywood, just a thud and a plume of dust.

The team floods in - fast, silent and methodical. Every doorway a threat. Every shadow a maybe.

Inside is a cramped courtyard, littered with cooking pots, dusty toys, a rusted bike leaning against the inner wall. The house is alive. A woman screams from behind a curtain. She pulls a child to her chest.

They don’t shoot. John gestures with his muzzle for the civilians to stay down.

They enter the main living space, bare but occupied - rugs on the floor, a solar lantern glowing weakly. A teenage boy is frozen beside a wood-burning stove, his hand halfway to something that might be a phone.

“Down,” John snaps, low and hard. “Stay down.”

The boy drops instantly. Eyes wide. No resistance.

Riggs pushes forward, sweeping the rear corridor.

A narrow internal corridor runs through the back of the compound. It connects to a shared rear alley between the homes. Recon shows it opening directly into the target’s workshop compound.

“Allen, clear left.”

They move in a staggered diamond, night vision adjusting to the dim light. Riggs kicks aside a plastic barrel full of feel blocking the threshold. It startles a goat and it tires to bold past them. Allen catches it and shoves it back in the stall.

They pause at the last threshold.

The back door to the target compound is closed, reinforced with scrap metal but crudely done.

Light spills from beneath it - a greenish glow from battery lamps.

Inside, voices. Movement. Metal tools clinking.

John drops to a crouch, signals: Breach left side. Flash. Staggered entry.

Riggs moves to the door, charge in one hand, flashbang in the other. John counts off on his fingers.

One.

Two.

Three.

FLASH-

The world goes white, then black, then noise.

John moves through the threshold second.

Chaos. Movement. A man on the right - not the Canadlemaker, too young. Nervous.

He lunges toward the far door, a satchel slung over one shoulder, hand hovering near something metal on his vest.

“Second contact!” Black shouts.

Riggs reacts - fast - three rapid rounds.

The second man stumbles, , slams into the wall and crumples.

For a beat, everything holds. Then the Candlemaker moves, sitting at a battered workbench with a small circuit broad still clutched in one hand. There are containers everywhere: cooking pots filled with nails, stripped batteries, open bags of ammonium nitrate.

The Candlemaker’s right thumb twitches near the edge of the bench.

“Don’t move!” John barks.

The man doesn’t speak. Just stares. No fear. No surrender.

The look of a man with nothing to lose.

John makes the call.

Double tap.

One round to center mass. One to the skull.

The Candlemaker slumps - his arm slips sideways.

Click.

Everyone freezes.

He waits for the fire - clenched teeth, locked spine - but it doesn’t come.

John breathes again. Just once.

He drops to one knee, low and still, scanning the rig. Then he sees it - a pressure plate under the table. The man had been strapped in, trigger looped around his ankle. Dead man’s switch. Sloppy work, but deadly if mishandled. He needs EOD.

“Device under the bench.” He says. “Rigged. Don’t move anything.”

Black nods, eyes wide. “Holy shit.”

John takes a breath.

The air stinks, not of rot, but of chemicals and heat.

Fertilizer and metal. It hits the back of his throat with a sting.

There’s fuel in the mix, too, the sour tang of diesel soaked into stone, lingering under the stink of old sweat and iron.

He’s smelled it before.

Helmand. Tobrak. Anywhere someone’s been cooking death in a tin shack and calling it resistance.

In the silence, from next door, a child starts crying.

He yells without looking, “Riggs - alley door. Allen, tape and spray - back door. No one enters. If you see wires, don’t touch them.”

They sweep the space fast. John’s eyes track for trip wires, for any sign of a secondary.

He approaches the slumped man carefully. With two fingers, he rifles through his vest. There’s a phone tucked inside a pocket. Its screen is cracked but it lights up with the last called numbers. There’s a notebook in another pocket - wrapped in plastic, pages full of timing diagrams and several names underlined.

John kneels low. One knee in blood.

A USB stick has been hastily taped to the underside of the desk with cloth.

He bags them all fast. No time to decode. Just take. Move.

“Sir.”

Black is holding up a small handset from the second man. Not a radio, it's too crude. Too custom.

“Trigger device?”

John frowns. “Could be. Doesn’t match this rig though.

There is a sudden thud from the left. Someone is running.

“Contact” he asks, eyes still intent, scanning the room.

“Movement!” Allen shouts. “Alleyway!”

“Hold formation. Black - eyes on. Nobody splits.”

But Riggs doesn’t wait. He’s already moving, peeling off toward the sound.

“Riggs!” John barks. But it’s too late.

Riggs is gone. Through the curtain. Into the alley that runs behind the workshop. Its a blind stretch, no coverage, no drone visual earlier because of overhangs.

John’s seen it before. The kind of recklessness that leaves coffins. But with Riggs, there’s something else, like he’s daring the world to stop him.

Like he wants to break something. Maybe himself.

John wants to go after him, despite it. Wants to drag him back by the collar and tell him to not be so fucking stupid.

But he’s in a room wired to kill, intel in his hands and three other men still exposed.

He clenches his jaw and calls to Black. “Back him up. If he gets hot you pull him out - or you pull back. Got me?”

Black grunts.

“Copy. Moving.”

But before he has a chance there is a burst of automatic fire - sharp and close.

A shout. A choked grunt. Then-

“I’m hit!”

Everything stops.

John moves. Hard. Fast.

He shoulders past the bench, zipping the intel pouch shut. Doesn’t wait, just barrels through the curtain after Black.

The alley is half-collapsed, choked with discarded tools and sagging fabric tarps blocking out the sky above. A man in a blue t-shirt lies face down in a pool of blood, a pistol still in his hand.

Black crouches over Riggs, who is slumped against the wall, one hand pressed to his ribcage.

“Through and through,” Black says. “Right flank. But he’s bleeding like hell.”

Riggs is breathing hard.

John drops to a knee.

“Riggs. Stay with me.”

“Got him,” Riggs laughs. “Got the fucker.”

“Yeah. You did.”

He nods at Black and they slide Riggs so he is prone.

John knew this was coming. From the very first time he’d stepped back on base something was different about Riggs. John knew he’d pull something like this.

But it is his job to keep his men in one piece. He failed Riggs the second he took his eyes off the hallway. Intel was always the secondary objective, but the first should always be his men.

No ifs or buts.

“Command wants a SITREP sir.” Allen says, eyes sweeping the alley.

“Tell them HVT neutralized. We’ve got friendly one critical. Secondary device still possible. Civilian contact at compound edge. We need MERT on the ground, not circling. Immediate. LZ is field west of compound. ”

“Copy. Relaying.”

John wipes his glove against his thigh, smearing red deeper into the fabric. Riggs is slipping. Shallow breaths, lips pale. Skin like wet paper.

“Come on,” John mutters. “You’ve taken worse in training.”

Its a lie and they all know it.

“Bird’s inbound, ETA four minutes,” Allen says, hand to comms. “Landing two blocks west.”

“We stay here.”John says. ”Let the MERT come to us.”

He is reminded of his earlier comments to Kelli about sticking to the bird. Of course, he would have to put her in danger.

He looks up at Allen and Hobbs.

“West alley’s our exit. Clear it. No shortcuts, no half-sweeps. Check wires, plates, fuck - anything out of place. We need smoke on the LZ.”

They nod. They’re good guys, sharp, a whole of a lot more level headed than Riggs.

“Which route sir?”

“Path by the water tanks, avoid the butchers. Cut through the garden wall if you have to. I want a clean lane from here to the smoke.”

“Work fast, but don’t fuck it.”

He stands, raising his rifle, scanning rooftops.

“Anyone moves wrong up high, you all it or you drop them.”

Hobbs and Allen move off.

John nods over at Black, who is pressing a wad of gauze hard against Rigg’s flank.

“Keep him alert. Keep pressure on that wound, don’t let him slip.”

John pulls his legs up onto a nearby crate.

“Too kind Sir,” Riggs slurs. “Nice spot for a kip.”

“Don’t talk.” John says, clipped. He takes out a can and sprays a bright red ‘X’ on the floor in front of the curtain. Then, on the wall - ‘IED’ in block letters. Big enough for MERT to see from the alley. He hopes the trigger is truly faulty, and not playing a cruel game of false hope. He thinks about the secondary trigger.

A bastard like the Candlemaker always has something up his sleeve.

“No one touches the workshop until EOD walks it.” He barks, “no one touches anything.”

His radio crackles, “Copy.”

John steps back into the northeast arch, one boot on a busted water drum. Too many windows. Too many phones. Too many chances to fuck this up.

Every inch of him wants to be moving. Wants to sweep, to clear, to control. But movement gets people shot. So he waits.

From here, he’s got eyes on the rooftops.

And there are eyes on them.

Civilians gathering. Faces in windows. Kids with wide eyes and scared parents. A man on the rooftop leans on something long - metal? A stick?

A trigger?

“Allen, Hobbs - north wall. You see what I see?

“Yeah,” come the reply, low. “Could be an oldie.”

“If it moves like a weapon, you drop it.”

“Copy.”

John scans the rooflines. The rotor thump is close now, low, pulsing, eating the air.

It’ll be Kelli leading the MERT. He knows that.

If Riggs makes it, it'll be because of her. And if she gets killed - that'll be on him too. His mind edges toward the risk, not panic, just the calculation of it.

She’s coming into a half-cleared alley with too many sightlines and too little cover. Smack bang next to a faulty trigger tied to a fuck ton of explosive power.

She knows the danger. They all do.

Doesn’t stop the drop in his gut.

His radio crackles.

“Lane’s clear.”

He flicks on his comms.

“Guardian, this is Viper One. LZ hot but controlled. Bring med team to our position. Patient unstable. Say again - move to our location. Over.”

A moment. Not long, but long enough for John’s jaw to tighten.

Somewhere nearby a dog starts barking, high and frantic.

Then comms crackle. Kelli’s voice cuts through.

“Viper One, Guardian copies. Med team inbound to your grid. ETA ninety seconds.”

Behind him, Riggs groans. Black murmurs, steady, soft. “Keep breathing mate. You’re doing fine.”

John doesn’t look back. He watches the alley mouth, the rooftops. Counts the seconds in his head.

One…two…three. Something to keep his focus tethered.

Thirty seconds later, her voice again.

“Viper One, Guardian Two. MERT on ground. Moving to your location. Confirm patient condition. Pop smoke for visual. Over.”

John grabs the canister from his belt, thumb on the striker.

“Copy Guardian.”

He tosses it low, into the back of the alley. The can clinks once on the stone and begins to hiss. Orange smoke pours out, thick and curling.

“Be advised - you’re walking into partial clearance. Possible secondaries still active. Over.”

“Copy Viper One.”

Then silence again. Except it’s not silence. Riggs sucks in another uneven breath. The Chinook cycles into standby. A tarp flaps lazily against the wall, something metal clinking against the brick.

John steadies his rifle, watching the end of the alley like its going to blink.

Then footsteps.

Heavy and fast. Gravel crunching. A boot kicks something metal. Someone curses under their breath. For one awful second, he thinks it’s a runner.

Then she appears.

Kelli, in full MERT gear, flanked by two medics, already gloved, already moving. Allen and Hobbs move at the rear, covering.

Her helmet is low, face shaded by the brim, but he can see the set of her jaw even through the smoke.

No hesitation, doesn’t speak, doesn't even look at him. Makes a beeline - fast and precise - for Riggs lying far too still on the dirt. Her med bag lands beside him with a dull thud.

“Entry and exit?” she asks, pulling back the gauze.

“Flank,” Black says, stepping out of the way of the techs as they start taking vitals. “Through-and-through. He was talking. Fading now.”

“Vitals,” she says. “Now.”

“BP Ninety over fifty Sir. ” Says the male medic - Williams. “Dropping. Pulse thready.”

Kelli nods, just once. But he sees it, just under the surface. Something off. Her breath is a bit too fast. Her pupils wide. Not panic. But something coiled under her ribs.

“No exit bleed. Entry’s closed with pressure. Abdomen’s soft…”

Her gloved fingers press along Riggs’ belly. Her hands move quickly, with more force than finesse, but it’s clinical.

“Push a unit of whole blood. Pressure bag on the second line.”

Williams nods.

“Need anything from me?” he asks, locking his eyes back on the end of the alley.

“Don’t let anyone shoot us in the back.”

Her tone is dry, flippant. But tight. The kind of tight that lives in clenched jaws and white knuckles.

He nods, signaling at the other three.

“On it.”

Theres still eyes on them. Movement. Flickers, someone ducking behind a curtain. A man with a phone. Maybe. Maybe not.

He’s seen this plenty of times before.

Civilians watching. Waiting for something.

Or waiting for someone to press the trigger.

He lifts his rifle slightly.

The alley feels too quiet now. No children, no dogs, no voices. Just wind and the sounds of Kelli and her team.

A soft tap - like metal shifting on brick - somewhere above the garden wall.

“Keep eyes on that second-story window east side. We’re got watchers.”

John steps over to the MERT team, to Kelli.

“Make it fast.” He says, “we’re not out yet.”

She nods but doesn’t look up at him, just gestures for the second tech to take the stretcher.

“Okay, we’re moving. On my count,” Kelli says. “Black, take his torso.”

She places her hands gently on the sides of Rigg’s head.

“Three, two, one - roll.” Black and Williams roll Riggs toward them as the second tech slides the stretched beneath him, tight to his back.

“And back - now.”

Rigs lets out a soft groan as he settled onto the stretcher.

“Knew you’d patch me up Kells,” he slurs.

“Yeah, well I’d be out of the job if you stopped getting shot,” she says, strapping him in across the chest. “Basically pays my salary.”

For just a moment John wonders at the tone. She’s never this warm with Riggs. Not even when she’s patching him up. It’s either professional or pissed-off, never this gentle. John frowns. For an insane moment, jealousy punches him in the gut.

But then he reminds himself that Riggs is fucked.

Kelli stands.

“Bleed’s controlled. Abdomen’s soft. Pupils equal. BP’s low, but climbing. We’ve got time if we keep him stable. Lets move.”

They lift.

Black and the tech take the rear handles. Kelli leads the front, moving fast but smooth. She cradles the IV bag to her chest. John shifts to point, sweeping the alley mouth with his rifle. The Chinook is close now, he can feel the vibrations in his sternum.

Ten steps. That’s all they need.

The rotor wash kicks harder now, whipping grit into his face. The sky above is clearing.

They’re going to make it.

Then the world fractures.

A crack. Sharper than thunder.

The air lurches. Launches sideways.

He registers the flash before the sound. Just light, white, searing, and heat in his teeth.

The wall beside the ally mouth erupts in a bloom of dust and fire.

Everything folds.

The pressure hits him like a hammer. Slamming into his skull.

For a split second he sees nothing but light.

His knees hit stone. His hand finds something wet.

His ears ring. A scream stuck in a bottle.

Instinct overrides everything. He launches himself sideways, toward Kelli. His body covers hers before his brain even parses where she is. Feels her jolt under his chest, her grunt muffled by the roar.

Something hisses past his cheek. Gravel and debris peppers his back. His rifle clatters out of reach

A pained yell.

Then…quiet.

Not silence, just absence. Like the world has exhaled.

He blinks.

The alley is lethargic chaos. Smoke and fire plume in the corner. Someone is screaming. The other tech, not Williams, is on the ground, clutching her side but not bleeding. Civvies, injured, bloodied, wailing from a nearby doorway. A boy staggers out of the dust, his leg bloodied, crawling now.

“Black!” John barks, or he tries to. The world returns in fragments. Muffled. Like he’s underwater. His own voice sounds wrong - flat, distant. It comes out ragged, his throat coated with dust and smoke. “Allen! Hobbs!”

Allen and Hobbs sound off, voices thin, coughing.

Then John sees him.

Black is down by the wall - not moving. Blood darkens his trousers at the thigh, pooling around him.

Kelli is already scrambling to her knees beside him. Her face is streaked with dust, one side of her helmet dented.

“Shit!” she coughs. She staggers to him, half-running, one leg dragging. Blood darkens her upper arm. She yells back over her shoulder, “tourniquet, high and tight! Williams, pressure pack!”

John drags himself to his feet, adrenaline overriding the vertigo, though he clutches at the crumbling wall for a moment. He searches for Allen and Hobbs.

“You broken?”

They both shake their heads, though Allen looks like he’s about to vomit.

“Secure the east wall.” John coughs. “Check for spotters. I want fire discipline tight but decisive - suppress if they move, but don’t light up civvies. ROE remains defensive. Do you copy?”

Both men nod.

“Guardian, this is Viper One. Be advised - secondary device just detonated. One friendly down, critical. Black is down with leg trauma.” He assesses Kelli’s team. “- one medic tech injured, stable. Civilians wounded, unknown count. We are still at original grid, alley compromised but holding. We need immediate evac. Over.”

He grabs his rifle, scooping it from the dust. Swings toward the alley mouth.

His radio crackles.

“Viper One, Guardian Actual. Copy all. Secondary confirmed. We are adjusting ingress. ETA now ninety seconds. Prepare to move casualties. No onboard EOD. Recommend standoff until area declared cold. Rooftop threat noted. Smoke confirm LZ. Over.”

John grits his teeth.

“Negative on standoff. Lane’s cleared to the smoke. Secondary already detonated. You land, we move. One critical, one priority-two. You’ve got thirty seconds on the ground. Copy?”

A pause, not long but long enough.

“Understood, Viper One. You own the lane - we’re coming in. Thirty seconds on deck. You miss the window, we’re waving off.”

John lets out a breath. He covers Kelli and the techs.

“Kelli-” he says, breath harsh, “You good?”

I’m fine.” She says, not looking at him, helping William’s pack Black’s wound.

“Sir,” the second tech staggers over to her, clutching her ribs. She looks panicked, young. John wonders if she’s experienced an IED. She must have, to be on this mission.

Kelli glances up, give her a once over.

“You’re fine Jackson. Stay still. You breathe, you live. Williams - stay with him.”

"Sir." Williams nods, blood running down the side of his face.

Kelli places a hand on Black’s cheek.

“Stay with us big man,” she says, and there is a slight waver in her voice. “Emma’ll kill me if I let you die.”

Black lets out a pain-drunk groan.

There’s so much fucking blood.

“Jackson,” Kelli snaps. “Jackson!”

The second tech looks up from a Black.

“Get it the fuck together,” Kelli snaps, “I need you with me.”

Jackson’s eyes are dazed but she nods.

Kelli slides over to Riggs who is by some miracle still upright on the stretcher. Hes been jostled, covered in dust - stretcher half slid under a shattered cart.

“BP’s low again, blast stress. Push the second unit.”

Jackson pauses - still dazed.

“For fucks sake Jackson!” Kelli barks.

Jackson startles, and fumbles with the bag, her fingers fast, frantic, slipping with the blood.

Kelli’s eyes are hard.

“We’re moving in sixty, all of us, we are not missing that window. John-” she glances up at him. “I need that exit path!”

John’s seen Kelli in worse. Field hospitals with blood slicked to the floor. Burn pits with twenty bodies and three surviving. Back in Lashkargah, a child with her leg blown off and a mother screaming in two languages. Kelli never rushed. Never barked. Just moved like she had all the time in the world - even when she didn’t.

He knows her baseline, even in the most fucked up situations.

But he feels it, that small, sick curl in the gut. Nothing to do with the IED. That tiny shift when experience tells you something’s off, even if you can’t name it yet.

He buries it for the moment, instead nods once, short. Then into his comms: “Allen, Hobbs - confirm the exit lane is open. Then get back here to move Black.”

“Clear to the smoke,” Hobbs replies. “No new movement, but rooftops are still twitchy. Civvies ducking in and out. East side looks sketchy.”

“Rog,” he says. “Get your asses back now.”

He turns back just as Kelli finishes strapping Riggs down again. Her hands move fast, too fast. He watches her reconnect the IV line, sees the tremor in her fingers as she misses the clip once, curses, and fumbles it in. Blood smears across her glove. She doesn’t even wipe it. Just grabs the pressure bag.

Riggs moans, then falls quiet again.

“BP’s still low,” Kelli mutters. “Could be stress. Could be…” she trails off.

John steps in beside her, hauling his rifle across his chest. His ears are still ringing, everything still sounds thin, but the rest of him has settled into that old familiar rhythm, the seconds stretching long and tight.

He leans down to Kelli’s shoulder. Quiet but firm.

“We’re at thirty. Bird’s inbound. You’ve got twenty to get him mobile or we’re done.”

She doesn’t answer - just nods once, jaw clenched. But he sees it again: that micro-pause. That glitch. The difference between poise and panic. And he tells himself that’s fine. That’s normal. But the pit in his gut says otherwise.

“Williams, Jackson with me.”

And then the smoke curls tighter in the alley.

The Chinook crests overhead, low and hard, its rotors pounding the air into submission.

“Guardian inbound!” Allen shouts as he sprints over to Black, Hobbs on his tail.

Kelli looks up at her techs. “We go now! On three- one, two, lift!”

Black lets out a rough scream as Hobbs and Allen pull him up into a bridal carry.

John takes point, rifle raised, sweeping the alley mouth. He moves backward, eyes high. Rooftops, windows, curtains. No shots. No sudden movement. Just smoke. Just waiting.

They cross the last ten metres in a tight, pounding push, boots slipping on broken brick. John can feel the air changing, hears the rotors, not distant anymore. They reach the smoke just as the Chinook punches through the haze, belly yawning open, kicking up a storm of grit and debris.

The rear crew chief leans out, shouting over the turbines; “Thirty seconds! Go! Go! Go!”

The load is messy, rushed. John is last in, rifle still up, eyes still on the alley. Smoke curls around him. His foot hits the ramp just as the crew chief slams the release on the lift signal.

The Chinook lifts like it’s been punched skyward, engines screaming. Below them, the alley shrinks fast - flames flickering. The rooftops stare back, all quiet windows and fractures from the blast. John can make out bodies, some moving, some not.

A woman cries out, and even with the din of the rotors, John knows she's calling out for her child.

————————

Riggs codes twenty seconds later. He's dead before they touch down on base.

————————

It’s after three in the morning when he finds her.

The aid tent glows faint against the dark. The heat clings like guilt. Somewhere in the near distance, a CH-47’s blades thump as it cools down.

The canvas tent creaks as he enters. Inside it hums, like the steady, low drone of the generator. A wave of antiseptic hits him - thick, cloying - trying and failing to cover the copper tang of blood in the air.

Kelli is sitting on the metal frame of the field cot, elbows on her knees, head bowed as if shes listening for something deep under the earth. Her field pack is slumped beside it, zippers half-undone, the canvas smeared with blood.

She hasn’t cleaned up. Still in the same dust-caked fatigues. Her hair’s stuck to her forehead in damp strands. Her headband is brown from the dust. A loose bandage dangles from one hand. She rolls it between her fingers like she’s forgotten what it’s for.

She doesn’t look up.

He doesn’t announce himself. Just steps closer, slow and careful, like shes a skittish cat he doesn’t want to spook.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” she says, without lifting her head.

She shifts and her hand knocks into the medkit beside her. A bottle rattles inside and she flinches at the sound. Just barely, like she forgot it was there.

“You’re supposed to be asleep,” he replies, though he knows a missive like that counts for very little given the circumstances.

She snorts quietly, “Like that was ever gonna happen.”

When he stops in front of her he sees that her hands are trembling. Her nails bitten to the quick, dried blood on her wrists.

She looks like someone running on pure habit - strung out on adrenaline and grief.

Silence stretches between them, like a wire pulling too tight.

“You did good Kelli.” He says finally. “Everyone thinks you did good.”

That gets her to look up.

Her pupils are too wide. Not adrenaline, not quite. Something else. He files the thought away. Not the time. Not yet.

Her look that hits him like a punch. His chest tightens.

He’s seen her like this before. After Lashkargah. After the market bombing. But this is worse, it's tighter, more brittle.

“You weren’t there-”

“I was there.”

“No,” Kelli says, her voice low and sharp. She shakes her head hard. “I fucked it. You didn’t - You didn’t see what I missed.”

John sighs.

“You held it together, made a call under pressure. A hard one. That’s what leaders do.”

“No. Leaders make the right call.” She glares up at him. “Don’t fucking pat me on the head and say I ‘held it together.’”

John blinks, caught off guard by the venom in her voice. He wants- Christ, he wants to hold her. Wants to say something that will loosen her shoulders, unfreeze her jaw, release her from that prison that he mind has built for her. The one made of guilt and grit and rules that she applies to herself like sutures.

But she’s determined to make it difficult. Determined to blame herself for it all.

“You were right there when the blast hit. You stabilized him - twice. Pulled Black through. Hell, hes alive because of you-”

“-he’s alive because of Williams.”

She stands suddenly, eyes blazing. Her whole body bristling. “And I didn’t stabilize him, hes fucking dead!”

Her laugh is too loud, too sharp. It doesn’t belong in the tent. She scrubs a hand over her face hard enough to smear blood she probably hasn’t even noticed.

“Christ,” she mutters. “Why am I even still talking?”

John stays still, just lets the heat roll over him.

“Hes dead because I couldn’t-” she cuts herself off. “-I’m not-.”

John waits for her to continue, but she doesn’t.

“I missed it,” she says, quieter now. “I missed the signs. I thought he was holding. But he wasn’t.”

She stares down at her hands, like maybe they will provide the assurance she seeks. Or maybe like they have betrayed her.

“That’s not how this works Kell.”

Her head whips up again and the anger is back. She steps toward him. “Don’t tell me how it works. You missed the secondary entirely - so how does that work, John? Should we pin that on you?”

He flinches. Just a fraction. But she sees it.

“Right,” she mutters. “Of course not. That would be stupid.”

He meets her gaze head-on. “You wanna blame someone? Fine. But don’t pretend this is just about triage. You’re mad because you felt helpless. Same as me. Same as all of us.”

She’s shaking now, rage, grief. Maybe both. Her breathing’s fast, shallow, like she can’t get enough air.

“You don't get it,” she growls.

“I do.”

“No, you don’t,” she snaps, stepping into his space. “You never let yourself feel any of it. You just bury it like a goddamn mine and wait for someone else to step on it.”

“Oh that’s rich,” John snaps. “Like you’re not constantly pretending like every thing’s fine, when we all know it’s not.”

“Everything is fine.”

John tosses his hands up.

“Lie of the fucking century,” he declares. He takes a breath, pokes a finger at her. “I suppose everything was fine when Mullen was yelling at you, breaking every fucking regulation in the fucking book just to get his dick wet.”

Kelli scowls.

“Don’t talk to me about that piece of shit.”

John cocks his head. “He wasn’t a piece of shit when you were fuck-.”

She shoves him, flat-palmed and hard enough to make him take a step back.

Her whole body is shaking now, and her face is flushed with more than anger.

“You think I wanted that?” she spits. “Really? To be some asshole’s pet because I was too fucking young and dumb to realized what he was?”

John opens his mouth. Closes it again.

“And you-” she jabs a finger into his chest. “All fucking high and mighty about pretending every thing’s fine. You watched it happen. You knew. And you said nothing.”

“And what was I meant to say?”

Kelli waves her hand around.

“I dunno,” she says, “something, anything. You were meant to be my friend John, watch out for me. But you just didn’t want to get your hands dirty.”

“You never would have fucking listened to me anyway.”

Kelli stares at him for a moment.

“I can’t imagine why!”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

Kelli’s in his space now, chest heaving, face close. There’s nothing left in her voice but rawness and ruin. His pulse ticks up like a countdown.

He shouldn’t be thinking about the hollow of her throat. The line of her jaw. The way her collar is pulled sideways, exposing the sharp ridge of her clavicle.

This is not the time. This is not the place.

And still-

“I’m not blind.” She says her voice low now, “I know when a man wants me.”

He swallows.

Kelli’s inhales sharply.

He doesn’t know who moves first.

Doesn’t care.

It’s a detonation - years of tension combusting in a single second.

She kisses like she wants to bruise him, to brand him with the shape of her mouth.

His hands find her waist, tight, grounding. Her fingers claw into his shirt, hauling him in like she’s trying to crawl inside his skin.

She tastes like salt and dust and something bitter, and when she growls against his mouth, he feels it all the way down his spine.

Christ. He’s not even sure this is real.

There is no hesitation, only need.

She shoves him down and back onto the cot, follows quickly, straddling his lap like she belongs there.

She grasps his head and tilts his face up to hers.

God, those eyes - he’s dreamed about them. The way they narrow when she’s about to tell him off. The way they crinkle when she laughs. But like this? Hungry, gleaming in the tent’s dim light? It undoes him.

She kisses him again, grinds down and he can’t help the low, guttural sound tears from his throat.

Holy shit. Holy fucking shit.

Every nerve ending fires at once - jaw, chest, hands, gut - all screaming more.

She tugs at his shirt, rough with the urgency, hauling it up over his head.

Her breath is ragged, hot against his cheek, each exhale a stuttered demand.

And he gives into it.

He’s not thinking anymore. Just acting.

Hands on her hips, dragging her down against him again.

His hips rise to meet hers. He needs to feel her.

His hands find the curve of her spine, drag up under her shirt, anchoring her.

Fuck, he has wanted this for so long. Wanted to feel her skin. Wanted to taste her. Wanted to hear her break apart under him.

Wanted to fuck her so badly, sometimes it makes it hard to breath.

She was always just out of reach - never his, not really.

And now she’s here.

Her shirt is already half-off. He helps her with the rest, eyes locked on every inch she bares to him.

Her body is a work of art, the kind you don’t touch unless you’re prepared to ruin it - he wants to smear his dirty fingerprints all over her.

Muscle and scars and softness. Fuck, she’s beautiful.

She leans in again, her mouth trailing along his jaw, his throat. Leaves fire in her wake. She lingers a second too long over a scar at the base of his neck. The one she stitched a year ago.

His fingers find bare skin - the curve of her ribs under the edge of the sports bra.

She exhales sharply when he brushes there. Gasps when his thumb finds her nipple, hard and responsive beneath the fabric.

The groan chokes in his throat.

He pulls her closer, burying his face in her neck, his tongue on her skin. Her sweat is still battlefield sweat. The whole war still clings to her skin. 

For a second - just a second - he forgets everything.

Only instinct left now, and the need to feel something good. Anything real.

Its just heat. Pressure. Her thighs bracketing his hips, her weight griding down onto his cock. Her nails digging into the back of his neck. Not sweet, needy. Like she’s holding on to keep from falling.

He breathes into her skin, “Kell.”

“Fuck me John,” she breathes into his ear. “Please. Make me forget.”

Her voice is strange. Distant. Wanting, yes - but also hollow. Like she’s not talking to him, but to the noise in her head.

That’s when it hits him. What she says.

She isn’t really here. Not all the way.

An hour ago she was washing blood off her face. Now, shes trying to disappear into him. Crawl out of her own skin.

He knows what that feels like. He’s tried it before. Crawled into the nearest body, the nearest bottle, the nearest fix.

Her breath stutters against his ear. Her hands fumble at his belt. Too clumsy, too desperate.

His fingers close around her wrist. Gently. Firm.

Not like this.

He wants her too much to take her like this. Not when it matters this much.

He falls back, breath shallow. Their faces are still close. His body is screaming at him. One move. One slip. That’s all it’ll take.

He’s at the edge of himself.

“Kell,” he breathes, ragged. “Stop.”

She goes still.

For half a second, she doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe.

Then he feels it - the shift in her weight. She leans back, just enough to see his face.

Her brow furrows. “What?”

Her voice is raw. Frayed at the edges.

He shakes his head, still holding her wrist. His thumb rubs across the inside of it, not meaning to, just instinct. Comfort, or apology. Maybe both. But it doesn’t land. Not even close.

“Kell,” he says again, quiet. “This isn’t-”

He fathers, can’t find the right word.

Right? Wrong? Fuck.

It’s never felt so right. But the moment is wrong. The emotions are wrong.

She’s watching him now. That sharp stare. But it’s not calculating, its wounded.

Then she pulls back. Her expression shifts. Her eyes shutter.

Whatever thread that has been hanging loose in her breaks.

“You don’t want me,” she says flatly, “got it.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“You didn’t have to.”

She moves off him. Quick. Not graceful. Her knee knocks into his thigh hard.

She grabs her shirt from the floor and tugs it over her head. Her fingers trembling so hard she cant grip the collar properly the first time.

John sits up. Breathing still shallow. Hips aching from how hard she had been gripping him with her thighs. Cock still hard, trying to convince him against doing the right thing.

“Kelli-”

“You didn’t want me when I was his,” she mutters. “No surprise you don’t want me now I’m no one’s.”

John stands, a little too fast. He reaches for her but she steps back before he can touch her.

“That’s not fair,” he says in a low voice.

“Don’t talk to me about fair,” she snaps, her eyes blazing, “If things were fair, Riggs would be alive and I wouldn’t still be clawing my way out from under a man who’s not even on base anymore.”

Shes shaking now. With rage, grief, regret. Maybe all three. He’s not sure.

“I didn’t stop because I don’t want you Kelli,” he says quietly. Steady, somehow. “I stopped because you’re spun out in your head. You’re not here.”

And just like that - she deflates. Her anger collapses in on itself.

Worse than fury. Resignation.

She looks small. Like she did in the hallway after Mullen’s office. Like she’s about to fold in on herself.

John hates himself for making her feel like that.

“Its fine John,” she says after a breath. Her voice thin, almost dull. Tears are forming, and she’s trying like hell not to let them fall. “You don’t have to be polite about it. I get it. I’m not-” she waves her hand about vaguely. “-whatever. I fucking get it.”

But she doesn’t. Not in the slightest.

He wants to tell her.

That he wants her so badly it’s a miracle he stopped at all.

That it took every last thread of discipline not to give in, not to let them both drown.

That this isn’t just about sex - it’s about every bloody second he’s wanted to reach for her and didn’t.

The times he imagined them on leave, not as mates but together.

How he pictures her laughing at the pub, sitting close, hand on his thigh.

That when she smiles at him, the ache in his chest goes quiet - just for a breath.

And that’s all he ever wanted. Just one moment of peace.

But none of it makes it out, because instead Kelli is gone.

The tent flap snaps shut behind her.

Like a book slammed closed.

The hum of the generator swells in the silence she leaves behind.

John doesn’t move. Just stands there, shirtless, heart pounding, arms empty.

————————

Two days later, Kelli puts in for leave and rotates out. No word. No goodbye. John doesn’t see her again for eight years.

Chapter Text

0316 hours, Al-Hafir, Kharzari. 2023

To John’s surprise, Kelli doesn’t immediately explode when he shoulders open the back door, the Butcher slung over his back. But he can see it - the flicker behind her eyes, that tight line of her mouth. She’s not calm. She’s choosing calm.

Good. Means she still cares what happens next.

He crosses the room and drops the man into the chair with deliberate care, letting the unconscious weight thud into the frame. Not rough, but not gentle either. He meets Kelli’s eye as he steps back, not defensive. Waiting.

“What the fuck?” Rains blurts, trying to lurch upright with his bad knee.

“Is he dead?” Kelli asks, her voice steady but sharp-edged.

“No,” John says, dusting his hands off. “You’ll want to check on him.”

Kelli steps up next to him, peering down at the Butcher. “You don’t say,” she says, dry as dust. Her voice is calm, but he doesn’t miss the way she draws a breath first - like she’s reining something in. She’s angry - he can tell. But she’s not giving it to him, not like he expected.

She leans down with professional precision, clocking the Butcher, the bruising, the angle of the man’s neck. Calculating. He watches her catalogue the facts. He lets her.

After a moment, her lip curls. She reaches down and removes the gag from his mouth.

“What happened?”

John shrugs. He crosses his arms. “Didn’t ask. Didn’t matter.”

Kelli looks up sharply. “Now, I know you don’t think I’m a fucking moron.”

John gives a slight shrug. “Plausible deniability. Thought you’d appreciate the gesture.”

Kelli exhales through her nose, then says, “How thoughtful of you.”

Her tone is still measured. Edged with sarcasm, but not cutting. Just pointed. More dangerous, in a way.

“What can I say, Kelli?” he says with a sniff. “I’m a thoughtful guy.”

Kelli stands and faces him. “You brought a man into my clinic with a head wound and a gag in his mouth.”

She thrusts the rag at his chest. He nods, takes it from her. Steps over to the Butcher and ties it - around his head this time. Slow. Deliberate.

Testing her.

The Butcher stirs slightly. He’ll be out for a while longer. He’ll be fucked for a lot longer than that. He hadn’t planned to kill him, exactly. But there’s plenty of room between dead and fine.

Kelli’s eyes are hard when he looks back at her, her expression measured but furious.

“Better?”

“Hardly.”

“Better than bringing in a corpse.”

“That’s not a high bar.”

He lets that hang. Just for a beat. Then: “Didn’t bring him here to make you comfortable. Just wanted to shut him up.”

“So you did do this.”

“I didn’t say that.”

Kelli shakes her head, crouches again, examining the angle of the Butcher’s head, the purpling skin around his temple. Her fingers work with practiced efficiency as she tilts the man’s head to the side, checks the pupils, mutters something clinical under her breath. She doesn’t touch the gag again. Good.

“Someone knew exactly how hard to strike,” she murmurs. “Didn’t even crack the skull.”

“Experienced,” John says mildly. “Not that I’d know.”

“Sounds like someone dangerous.”

“Or deliberate.”

There’s a silence between them, sharp and pressurized. The kind that buzzes under the skin. John can feel it building behind his ribs - not tension, not exactly. Anticipation. The breath before an explosion.

He’s used to that now. It’s where he lives.

He wasn’t sure exactly how she’d react, certainly not like this. Cool. Coiled. Fucking surgical with it.

He shouldn’t enjoy it. But part of him does.

This back-and-forth - he’s in control. She’s sharp, but he’s sharper. She has steel, but he’s carrying orders.

And anyway, she’s just a civilian now.

He reminds himself of that.

Kelli leans forward and murmurs, “You know, hypothetically, someone who did that would have to be pretty confident no one in this clinic would report it. That they’d stay neutral. Maybe even be counting on it.”

John’s voice drops. “Hypothetically, they’d have to trust the doctor wouldn’t ask questions she already knows the answers to.”

Her gaze sharpens. “That’s a hell of a gamble.”

“Only if I’m wrong.”

Kelli straightens, eyes hard, lips pressed together. Then she steps back and crosses her arms. “This isn’t your jurisdiction.”

“No. But it’s your roof. And if he calls anyone, that’s what’s going to burn.”

Before she can answer, Rains’ voice cuts in, “Okay, but real talk - how the fuck does this help me?”

John turns slightly.

Kelli closes her eyes for a moment.

Rains pushes himself up with a grunt, smirking through a wince.

“No offense, Price, but you are here to extract me, and this-” he gestures toward the Butcher. “this is not the protection I was promised.”

“This is exactly the protection you were promised,” John says calmly. “You want him calling Zaman’s men, telling them where we are?”

Rains pouts slightly and John wants to smack it off his face.

“People notice when guys like that go dark, man. And when they notice, they don’t check nicely.” He points at himself. “I’m the one with the bullseye on his forehead.”

John takes a small step toward Rains. He examines the dark look in his eyes - eyes that have seen things. Things that are why he’s here in the first place.

He’s a kid, 20-nothing. He’s scared. Understandable. But there’s something so fucking annoying about his tone - as if John doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing, exactly what could happen. As if Rains is the only one in danger. As if John doesn’t already have a man down because of this fucking mission.

“Bit late for that, mate. You’ve already got a bullseye.”

“We have protocols, Rains,” Kelli says, glancing at him. “If someone comes-”

“If someone comes,” Rains snaps at her. “I’m the reason they’re coming. Your protocols won’t mean shit”

He laughs once - short, brittle. For once, John agrees with him - Kelli must know that.

Rains glances between him and Kelli.

“You think you’re Switzerland, but this isn’t Europe. I don’t want to get killed because you two can’t decide which war to fight.”

Kelli’s eyes are fixed on Rains now. Searching. She glances at John.

“What did you do, Nico?” she says, asking the question that’s been bounding around in the back of John’s brain too. “Why are you so scared?”

Nico scowls.

“It’s smart to be scared.”

Deflection.

“Unlike some people, I don’t have the luxury of faith.” He glances at John. “Some of us don’t get second chances.”

That hangs. Longer than it should.

John shifts his stance. Jaw flexing. The regret lands like a gut punch.

Soap didn’t get one either.

And for all the men John’s lost, it’s the ones he could’ve saved that haunt him the most.

He could’ve let Soap kill Makarov when they had the chance. He could have moved that line. He could have -

Too late.

But not this time.

“He stays,” John says, voice even. “Neither of you have to like it. But it’s the only way any of us walks out of here alive.”

Kelli shakes her head, slowly. “If word gets out that MSF harbored a prisoner, we lose everything. The safe zone. The air corridor. Our neutrality.”

“Then no one hears about it.”

Kelli sighs, runs a hand over her forehead.

“I don’t need more enemies.” She says, a little cryptically. John wonders what she means. He tucks it away.

“He won’t be an enemy. Not if he knows what’s good for him.”

“You think I’m going to let you interrogate someone in my clinic?”

John doesn’t blink. “You think I need to?”

She gives him a look like he’s lost his mind.

He steps closer. “You wanted to help people. I’m telling you how.”

She doesn’t move. But something in her eyes flickers. Doubt. Anger. Maybe recognition.

“You’ve put me in a position I can’t defend,” she says, quieter now.

“No,” John replies. “I’ve put you in a position where you have to choose.”

Her jaw tightens. “And if I choose wrong?”

John’s expression doesn’t shift.

“Then we all get another lesson in how fast things fall apart.”

For a moment, no one speaks.

“He stays,” Kelli says. “But no interrogations. No games. You don’t touch him unless I say so.”

It’s not permission. It’s surrender by inches.

John nods once. “Deal.”

They hold each other’s gaze a moment longer. Uneasy. Measured. Shared.

Finally, Kelli tongues a molar, shakes her head and turns back to Ghost.

“You’re going to need stitches for that arm,” she says as she checks Ghost’s vitals.

John looks down at his arm. Still bleeding, still on fire, background noise, like the headaches, like the nausea. He knows he does, wants to resist. He’d be surprised she’s offering so quickly but this new Kelli seems less volatile than the old Kelli. More measured. Less erratic.

He examines the set of her shoulders - not relaxed by any means, but not coiled like they used to be. As if she was a spring ready to unload.

Kelli used to pretend to be calm. Hold herself together by sheer force.

Now? This calmness seems more genuine. As if she is in control of herself, despite the situation. She seems like someone who’s done the work.

It’s unsettling, not in a bad way. Just unfamiliar.

“You offering?”

Kelli pauses, still facing away from him.

“I haven't decided yet,” she says, before resuming her scribbling. The silence extends, save for the rough scratch of her pen and the beep of the oxygen monitor.

The silence stretches a little too long.

Then, footsteps on the stairs. Gaz pokes his head through the curtain.

“Sir?” he says, stepping halfway into the room. He pauses when he clocks the butcher slumped in the chair, the blood. “Woah. I uh…assume that’s intentional.”

“More or less,” John says.

Gaz nods like he doesn’t want to know. “Would I be right in thinking it may have interfered with getting the fuel?”

John nods, just once.

“Right. Okay. Well we can deal with that in a bit.” He gives John a once over, eyes lingering on his bloody arm. He turns to Rains. “Rains. I need a hand. Generator needs some tinkering. You’re not unconscious, bleeding or a doctor, so congratulations - you’ve just been promoted to electrical assistant.”

“I have an injured knee,” Rains protests.

“You also have hands,” Gaz says flatly. “Come on.”

Rains throws a glance at Kelli, then John, clearly weighing his options. Whatever he sees in their expressions convinces him it’s safer in the supply room.

“Fine,” he mutters, levering himself up.

“Don’t let him touch anything important,” John says, following Rains’ limp with his eyes.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Captain,” Gaz says.

The curtain flaps closed behind them both. The room falls into silence again.

Kelli finishes her checks, then pauses. She turns slightly and gestures toward the trolley on the other side of the room, opposite the Butcher, where Rains had camped out.

“Sit. Arm out.”

John grunts.

“S’fine,” he says, automatically.

She just looks at him. He expects her to insist. He expects her to fuss. He expects her to drag him over by his fucking ear.

But she doesn’t. Instead, she shrugs and says sardonically: “You’re the boss.”

John hesitates. He weighs his options. He doesn’t want to be near her, he really doesn’t want to have to ask for help.

But pride is a luxury he can’t afford, and it hurts like hell. It already slowed him against the Butcher. The smart thing would be to get it looked at while he has a second.

“Fine.”

Kelli arches her brow as she watches him trudge over and drop down next to the trolley.

She shakes her head, just slightly, then gathers a fistful of medical gear and dumps it on the tray. Tugs on a pair of gloves. Rolls the lamp over.

Then she pulls up an old office chair - the seat faded and fraying - sits down and rolls herself over. He knees slot neatly between his legs. This close, he can smell her shampoo again. Floral. Peppery. Familiar.

He exhales evenly from his nose, trying to flush it out.

She takes his arm and places it gently, wound side up, along his thigh. She shines the harsh medical lamp over the skin.

He watches her carefully unwind the bloodied bandage - hisses as she pulls it away from the open wound. It’s a gruesome sight. The initial cut has grown a few centimeters, the edges jagged. It’s still bleeding a little, but most of the blood is clotted.

“How did this happen?” she asks.

He grunts. “Accident with the antenna.”

Kelli nods, clicking her tongue. “Seem to be a lot of accidents happening tonight.”

She takes a syringe and flushes the wound with water.

“Well you hand’s still working so that’s good.” She swivels to grab a packet of gauze and her knee presses against his thigh. She looks up at him, “no trouble with grip?”

He shakes his head.

“Good.”

He flexes slightly. Not in pain, but tension - electric.

This push and pull that they’ve always danced around seems heightened now. The youthful edges sharpened with age.

Time has matured him in many ways. He knows himself now, even if he doesn’t like what he sees.

He thinks this new Kelli might be the same.

The bones of the woman he knew are there, but there is something different about her now. Self-assured in a way she wasn’t before. Out here all alone. Not hiding behind herself or some other man.

Calculating. Composed. Dangerous in a way that demands respect.

“I assume you don’t care about anesthetic?”

He shakes his head, “just get it done.”

He watches her wipe the cut. His arm twitches, not from pain, but from the instinct to pull away.

He trusts her hands. Her? No chance in hell.

Still. There’s something in her that pulls at him. Against all sense. All training.

He’s always found her attractive - but this is different. It’s like she’s evolved in the same direction he has.

Like time carved matching edges into them both.

Which makes this the worst possible time, and her the worst possible person.

He had thought he was over it, and maybe he would be if Soap’s death wasn’t still hanging over his conscious like a specter, fraying the edges of his resolve. Maybe he would be if Kelli hadn’t changed.

But he suspects she has, and that adds a whole new layer of urgency to getting the fuck out of here.

She grabs fresh gauze. Takes his arm again, cleaning around the wound. Her fingers are long, practiced - gentle.

“I’m sorry,” she says without looking up, her voice low. “For leaving back then, for being a coward.”

He stares down at her.

He doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t know what to feel, but he feels it anyway - sadness, surprise, anger.

His instinct is to brush it off, ignore it. Shut it down. But this might be the only time he hears it.

Part of him has always wanted her to understand just how much she fucked him up.

“You’re about 10 years too late.”

“I know.” She pauses, then looks up at him, her eyes blue like West Wittering in the summertime. “But I’m saying it anyway. I know its not the right time. But there’s never a right time.”

She starts swabbing the wound with iodine. It stings - fitting, he thinks.

“I meant it, you know.” She says. “The kiss. I wanted you so badly despite it all, and I shouldn’t have walked. After Riggs. After that night. You didn’t deserve that.”

John’s jaw tightens. He still doesn't understand how Riggs out of everybody, was the one to make her spiral. He doesn’t respond for a moment.

Kelli threads a curved needle with the suture.

“You didn’t just walk Kelli,” he says, “You vanished.”

Kelli pauses, her hands hovering over his arm, light glinting off the needle.

“No note. No call. Just gone.”

She takes a breath. For the procedure, for what she wants to say - he’s not sure.

“I was a mess-”

“Another cop out,” he snaps.

He clenches his jaw. Doesn’t even feel the needle go in. All he feels is anger.

“We were all a mess Kelli. Difference is, I didn’t leave you to deal with it alone.”

That lands. Her hands pause just slightly before trying off the stitch.

“It’s not a cop out,” she says glancing up at him. “Just a reason. You were the only thing holding me together back then. I was-”

“You don’t get to say that. Not now.”

His voice rises. He stares at her, his heart pounding in his chest. Never once had he expected Kelli to be honest with him like this. He’d long accepted that whatever he felt for her didn’t matter - not to her, not to anyone. He’d buried what he felt. Drowned it.

Now she’s digging it up, and he doesn’t know if it’s closure or collapse crawling up his throat.

“Okay.”

She doesn’t argue. Just goes quiet.

He looks at the wall - anywhere but her face. Somehow her silence is worse than an argument.

He didn’t think he wanted to talk about it. It still burns too much, but all of a sudden, he can’t help himself.

“You know what really pisses me off?”

She pauses, meeting his gaze.

“I didn’t even get to be angry at you properly. Couldn’t.” He clenches his jaw. “Because I kept telling myself you had your reasons. That you were hurting. That it wasn’t personal.”

He shift in his chair, dragging her forceps with him. He feels the pain, grimaces, but he doesn’t fucking care. She reaches to steady his arm - he grabs her wrist instead.

More tightly than he should.

“But it was.” He insists roughly. “You left me Kelli. Me . You must’ve known what you meant to me. And you still left.”

Kelli is looking at him. She looks ashamed - good. She doesn't try to remove his hand, doesn’t move period.

“I’m sorry.”

“Doesn’t change what you did.”

“I know that.” She says. “I know I don’t deserve anything from you.” She pauses, glancing down at his hand around her wrist.

“Especially since…you didn’t take advantage of me that night. I was- I didn’t know what to do with that.”

John huffs out an incredulous laugh.

He wishes what she was saying made him a good man. But he’s not sure it does any more. Hes fucked plenty of women since then, never unconsenting, but he wouldn't say he had cared that much about how they felt about the experience.

They stare at each other, his hand still gripping her wrist. He knows he should just let her go, then she can finish up and he can get the hell away from her orbit - it’s felt like the longest hour of his fucking life.

But his past restraint doesn’t seem to offer the same moral clarity that it used to. Some dark part of him wants her to understand how much she hurt him.

Kelli’s brow furrows as his grip tightens. A flicker of pain in her eyes.

He wants her to understand what it is to be abandoned - to mean nothing. He wants to punish her. Make her feel it.

The abyss yawns up in front of him, the urge rising, bitter and sharp - and it scares him. Clarifies him.

He’s done terrible things - killed, maimed, tortured - and always told himself it was for the greater good. It must be.

He still tells himself killing Shepherd was righteous. But it wasn’t. It was revenge.

The pulse in Kelli’s wrist races against his thumb.

He wonders if that the kind of man he wants to become?

He releases her. She breathes out silently. She rubs her wrist. He doesn’t apologise, just shuffles, readjusts his bad arm on his leg.

Kelli hesitates, just for a second, but after a moment she resumes her stitching. They sit in silence as she finishes up. She wraps the arm carefully, more gently than he expects.

He watches her hands. When she finishes, she doesn't meet his eye - just rolls away from him, fetches a keyring from a hook by the door and holds it out to him.

“There’s a jerry can of diesel in the jeep out back.” She says, glancing at him. There is something in her eyes, not fear, not shame, just regret.

“Thanks.”

“Least I could do.”

She flinches away when their fingers brush and something tightens in his chest. He’s not going to apologize, but he feels like shit.

It’s par for the course these days, but again. Fucking again - something about it being her makes it feel worse.

He nods, then steps out the back door.

The night has chilled another degree. The alley behind the clinic is narrow and half-lit by a bulb over the back door.

The white MSF jeep parked crooked next to the clinic wall, on a slight angle from the uneven terrain. John glances around, scanning shadows. The night is still silent, still eerie. His gaze catches movement in the second-story window above a chipped green door.

He frowns. Doesn't move his gaze.

After a moment, dark brown eyes slide into view and Darya sheepishly waves at him from behind a curtain.

He blinks. He shakes his head at her pointedly, mouthing ‘go’. He swears she pouts as she disappears behind the yellow gauze. That fucking kid - he’s certain shes barely moved.

John knows no mission is uncomplicated - not really. Sure, the logistics can be simple, the objective, straightforward. But every mission has fallout, every mission has a cost. Sometimes the cost deserves every bullet they fucking get - best case.

Most of the time, people get caught in the crossfire. None of the civvies in Afghanistan, Urzikstan, or any of the fucking countries he’s operated in deserved the missiles and bombs.

He copes, he knows, by detachment - never connect unless it’s tactical. Sure, there are exceptions - Farah, Nikolai. But those are exceptions to the rule. The focus must only be on the mission. The mission and his men. The quagmire of never-ending conflict is dangerous enough without distractions.

He pops open the trunk of the jeep and unlatches the jerry can. It scrapes against the metal as he heaves it out - heavier than it should be.

His forearm burns. He doesn’t grimace but it stings all the same.

Kelli would have clocked it immediately, grimace or not. She has a sixth sense for damage.

Back then, she’d be a whirlwind - smack him with a roll of gauze. Now?

Now she sighs with patient eyes.

He hates how much worse that makes him feel.

The diesel sloshes as he sets it down on the dirt. The cold night air bites through his sleeves. The village is silent. Still. Too still. His fingers find the latch on the jeep’s boot and hover.

He needs to focus.

But those words -

“I’m sorry.”

The worst part - she’d meant it.

He closes the boot without sound. Doesn't slam it, even though he wants to. Doesn't give in to the coil of frustration tightening low in his ribs.

She wanted him. All that time - she had wanted him. He had always suspected she did, but the way she reacted - so abrupt, ghosting him like he was some leave hookup.

And now this. Now she says she wanted him all along?

He grits his teeth. More questions, no answers. Why leave? Why move on with some civvie? Why say nothing?

Why say fucking nothing?

A sound interrupts the thought - low, distant. A hum rising from the road below.

He stiffens.

He clenches his jaw. His head turns.

It’s just a car, just one. But it’s 3am, and the butcher made a call.

He hauls the jerry can his good arm, the diesel sloshing as he sets it by the clinic door. He takes two steps toward the edge of the alley. Slides behind a rusted drum and watches.

The clinic sits along the main road. A one lane wide dirt path that cuts a jagged line up the ridge, a ribbon of packed dirt and loose gravel. The car climbs slowly. Headlights flare, then cut.

His pulse ticks up.

His fingers curl tighter on the rifle grip.

The car slows to a crawl as it approaches the clinic. John counts two in the front seats.

Just pass by. Just go to the butcher’s. Instead, the car rolls to a stop. It’s engine idles then dies and three men get out. Khazari milita by the looks of thing, all armed. Not full assult, a scouting party - still lethal.

They’re not here to check nicely.

Of course the General’s goons traced the number. Of course they were smart enough to figure out where their informant lived.

But it’s only three men, easy enough even with the separation. Kelli’s no operator, but shes clever, and Gaz is a menace in close quarters.

The real issue is noise. And fallout. There’s no hiding this for long.

They’re already on borrowed time.

The driver mutters something to one of the others gesturing toward the side of the clinic. John’s side. The man nods, pulls his weapon and starts stalking over to his corner. Silently, John eases back toward the jeep. Muscles coiled. He slips behind the back wheel. His eyes track the man’s feet as he moves toward the back door, his heavy boots crunching in the gravel.

Not a clean angle. He’ll see him coming. Noise discipline is shot.

He takes a silent breath. Pin the arm. Hit the throat, no air, no noise. Simple. Quickly. One breath, one fuck-up and it’s done.

Then-

A sound. Small. Deliberate.

From above.

A scrape of ceramic from the second story window.

The man hesitates, turns.

John moves.

It’s quick. Choke-hold around the neck, hand clamped over the mouth. The man’s gun drops into the dirt with a muffled thud. A few seconds of struggle. A crunch. Then dead weight.

John lowers him silently to the ground.

He doesn’t want to look up. But he does.

He meets her eyes.

Darya stands in the window. The shutter open. A broken flower pot shattered on the street below. Her face is washed in moonlight. She watches, eyes wide, scared. But what tears into him - what hollows him out - is that she doesn’t looked shocked in the slightest.

Not even a little.

It’s not the look of a girl who’s just seen her first kill.

It’s the look of someone that’s seen this before.

From round the corner, he hears banging on the clinic door.

Kelli .

He drags the man’s body into the space between the jeep and the clinic. The door is silent as he slowly pushes it open.

“-help you?”

“We’re looking for someone.”

John takes three silent steps over toward the curtain, sliding over to one side. He takes out his sidearm, quickly screws on the silencer.

“If you’re wounded, I’ll treat you. Otherwise, you need to leave.”

“You think we care about your foreign laws?” Kelli lets out a huff as something, someone, knocks into her, “move.”

“Check the back.”

“Fuck this.”

There’s a sharp, metallic crack - something heavy slamming into bone. A stifled yell. A body hits the floor hard, and then -

Gaz’s voice, low and lethal: “Don’t.” A whisper of steel. Then another grunt - pain, not fear.

Another yell. Then a cry - Kelli’s voice. A chair shatters, a thud as a body slams into the wall. Kelli lets out a pained gasp. A groan.

John cracks the curtain. Quickly assesses. He steps in. Sees the man standing over her - gun raised, too slow

Double tap.

One round to center mass. One to the skull.

The man crumples to the ground.

Gaz is standing over the second guy, his knife bloody. His breath barely above a light jog.

“Seems like the party’s getting started.” He says, dryly. Rains peers out from behind him.

“I told you they’d come!” he says. John shoots him a look which seems to shut him up.

He slides over to Kelli, kneels down next to her. She rolls over with a groan. Her eyes are half closed, blood trickling down the side of her head. But what worries him more is the odd angle of her shoulder.

“I’m fine.” She says sitting up and cradling her arm.

“You’re not fine.”

“I will be fine. It’s out, not broken.” She grits her teeth, looking around. She sees the two dead men.

“Fuck.”

“Yeah,” agrees Gaz, stepping into the middle of the room. “Two more bodies, sure this ain’t a morgue doc?”

The look Kelli gives him could kill. Gaz grimaces.

“Sorry.”

“Three more bodies,” John corrects, his eyes still fixed on Kelli, “One round the back. Took him out getting the fuel.”

He leaves the part out about Darya being an accomplice. Kelli is in enough pain as it is.

Rains is staring at her. “You’re arm is dislocated.”

Kelli rolls onto her knees and hisses. “Yeah no shit Nico.”

“Here.” John steadies her as she tries to rise. She wobbles, sways. Her face is gray.

He brushes her blood-matted hair back, smearing blood across her forehead.

She glares at him. “God John, I’m fine.”

He arches an eyebrow.

“Yeah? And what? Planning to stitch with your teeth?”

Kelli stares at him, her eyes wide with something - surprise, recognition, amusement. For a moment it’s 2008 again. That godforsaken HALO drop, except the roles are reversed and there’s no medical facility to scan her arm. He doubts MSF would have an x ray - not that there’s time anyway.

After a moment she sucks at her teeth.

“You’re going to have to help me with it,” she relents. “You remember how I did yours?”

“Yeah, you said, ‘Sit down, shut up and don’t be a baby.”

Kelli grimaces out a smirk.

“Right hand on my shoulder,” she instructs, her breathing shallow.

He places a palm on her shoulder. It feels uncanny, unsettling. He’s done stuff like this before in the field, necessary of course. But theres a part of him that has always hate delivering medical aid.

He’s trained to kill, not mend.

He wonders how he could have wanted to hurt her so badly not even 10 minutes ago.

That sits ugly in his gut. Too fresh to bury.

“Brace it. Harder.”

He presses his fingers into the muscle.

He cradles her forearm and elbow, supporting her should like he remembers. It’s been 15 years, but he still remembers that morning, clear as anything.

He stares into her eyes. “On three.”

“One-”

He rotates the arm - slow, steady - then a sudden shift. A pop like a breaking branch. She gasps, sharp and ragged, and grabs his shoulder hard enough to leave marks.

“Fuck! Goddamn John-”

John holds her still. Doesn’t move away. He doesn't want to let her go, not just yet, not until hes sure-

Kelli leans forward, rests her forehead against his shoulder. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Just keeps her close, feeling her breath warm through the fabric, anchoring him in a way he doesn’t have time to unpack. He should still be furious. Maybe he is. But right now, all he can feel is the weight of her - heavy, human, real.

“Back in place, isn’t it?

He nods.

“Yeah,” shes breathes.

“Fucking hell,” Gaz breathes.

John glances over at him. Rains looks a little green.

Then-

The back door opens. A voice cuts through the clinic, sharp, worried, French.

Benoît.

“What’s going on Kelli? Where-”

John glances up. And feels Kelli sway.

She exhales, slow and shaky. Her weight shifts against him.

“Kell?”

But her knees are already weak, buckling. She slumps against him, dead weight.

Benoît’s footsteps draw nearer - louder, angrier.

“Shit.” Gaz lurches forward in alarm.

Rains glances at the curtain, backing away, eyes wide.

John catches her, lowering her to the floor gently, cradling her head as Benoît bursts through the curtain.

John doesn't flinch.

He stays where he is, crouched over Kelli’s unconscious body, bloody, breathless and limp in his arms.

Benoît takes in the scene - bodies, blood, broken furniture.

His eyes land on John. His expression twists.

“What the fuck did you do?”

Chapter Text

Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan. 2010

Emma chews him out when he asks.

“She’s gone on leave John, I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Maybe why shes gone on leave?”

Emma stops walking away from him so abruptly that he smacks into the back of her. Dust kicks up from the dirt floor of the medical tent.

“Jesus, sorry-”

“Are you for real?”

John stares at her as she turns. He shakes his head slightly.

Emma sighs. The look she gives him is somewhere between tired and scathing - like she’s explaining basic maths to someone who failed the same test twice. Black’s injury probably doesn’t help. But shes looking at him like he’s the last straw.

“I thought you two were friends.” She says, then clicks her tongue. Almost under her breath she mutters, “suppose that’s half the problem innit.”

“What are you talking about?”

Emma peers at him for a moment. She appears to be considering just how much of whatever it is to tell him.

“She really told you nothing?”

John shakes his head.

“Last time I saw her she was upset because I stopped her from sticking her tongue down my throat. Now shes on leave.”

He knows that’s unfair. Knows it’s more - way more - than that. But admitting it would mean saying, out loud, how badly he wanted her to stay.

Wants to see her.

Emma raises an eyebrow.

“As I was told it, you were sticking your tongue down her throat too.”

John grits his teeth. He hates that she knows that. He don’t know why he’s surprised.

“Sure. Fine.” He says. “It was mutual. But don’t change the fact that she freaked out when I stopped it.”

Emma glances away for a moment, then her gaze returns. She runs a hand over her chin.

“Look. John, I wish I could tell you but to be honest, one, I barely know whats going on it that head of hers, and two, it’s not really my place to tell you. I only know because-” she pauses before thinking twice about whatever it is she was going to say “- if she’s not told you then, she’s not told you.”

He steps forward.

“Told me what?”

Emma doesn’t shrink from his ire. Shes tiny, all things considered - a full head and a half shorter than him - but she looks at him like a guard dog.

“John, she’s not a piece of kit. You don’t get a sit-rep just ‘cause you want one.”

He frowns.

“I know that.”

Emma arches an eyebrow.

“Do you?” she questions, “because either you’re very good at pretending you don’t understand, or you actually don’t understand.”

John clenches his jaw.

”What are you talking about?”

“Christ, John,” Emma lets out a bitter laugh. “You really don’t get it do you?”

“If you’ve got something to say Ronan-”

Emma throws up her arms.

“Didn’t you notice she was getting worse?” she says peering at him incredulously.

She’s been drowning for months. Hell, years. You didn’t see it. Or maybe you didn’t want to. And now she’s gone, and you’re standing here like you’re owed an explanation.”

John swallows. “She kissed me.”

“Yeah. And you made her feel like shit for it.”

“That is completely unfair,” he snaps, “she was fucked after that mission. I didn’t-” he lets out a frustrated grunt, then mutters, “I didn’t want it to be like that. I wanted it to be…good.”

Emma’s face changes for a moment, to something softer. She examines him with sympathy in her dark eyes, but it could equally be pity. He can’t tell. He can’t stand it.

She sighs. Her voice softens - not gentle, just tired.

“You’re a good guy John,” she says, “I honestly believe you. But-” she sighs again, longer, exasperated. “-You’re good - too good - at tuning out what you think doesn’t matter. Noise. Distractions. You do it with people too.”

Its an observation that seems a little too cutting to come from someone like Emma.

“You don’t have any idea what I’m good at.” He says, defensive.

Emma raising an eyebrow.

“Don’t I?” She says. “Just because we aren’t best friends doesn't mean I’m not close with two of yours. Just because you act like you’ve got the emotional range of a pea doesn’t mean other people do.”

He looks away for a moment. “Right.”

She shakes her head, exasperation, maybe irritation.

“Look,” she says. “I don’t know everything. But I’ve known her long enough to see when she’s faking it. And I’ve watched you, too. How you let her put on a brave face, because it was easier than asking the hard questions.”

“Emma.”

She folds her arms over each other and raises her chin at him.

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

John says nothing.

He’s always known Kelli was great at pretending everything was fine. He thought he was being respectful by letting her keep it up. But now he wonders if that was just cowardice.

If letting her pretend meant letting her drown.

“Why didn’t you ever ask her out?” Emma says after a long moment.

“How is that relevant?”

Emma blinks at him.

“Well that tells me everything I need to know.”

John scowls. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Emma let out another sigh.

“You really don’t think I’ve seen it? The way you moon over her when you think no one’s watching?” She holds up a hand when he opens his mouth. “I’m not saying it to take the piss, John. I’m saying it because you’ve spent years pretending it doesn’t mean anything, when clearly it does. And now it’s too fucking late.”

John swallows down the reality of his situation.

“I didn’t want to ruin it.”

Emma looks at him. Just looks.

“Well you did anyway.”

Her words hit harder than he wants to admit.

He’s spent his whole life reading rooms, reading hostiles, scoping allies, assessing risks.

But somehow, he missed Kelli.

Emma is still watching him.

“No choice is still a choice, John,” she says. “You know that better than most right? It’s no different to combat - inaction gets you killed.”

Silence stretches between them.

“Don’t get me wrong John. I missed a lot too.” She pauses as if she really wants to tell him more. He really wants to ask, but he knows it’s pointless. “She’s frustrating as fuck. But people don’t hurt in convenient ways. And I know you didn’t mean to but…she reached out, and you made her feel ashamed for it. It wasn’t about the kiss, not really.”

She exhales, frustrated with herself.

“That’s all I’ll say.”

Then she turns and walks off.

John doesn’t move. Just stands there, jaw tight, hands useless at his sides.

——————————————

The light in his base cubicle flickers once, then steadies.

Its past midnight. The camp is quiet - no boots on the sand, no barked orders. Just the faint hum of a generator, like a wall of static that pressed in on the edges of his thoughts.

John sits alone. Eyes strained against the sting of the too-bright monitor screen. His fingers hover over the keyboard, shoulder hunches like the weight of every fucking mission hes ever been on is still sitting there, grinding to the bone.

The cursor blinks at him.

Waiting.

He exhales through his nose, types a word, deletes it. Tries again.

Kelli -

(no, too cold)

Hey -

(too casual)

Hi Kelli-

(Fucks sake)

Dear Kelli-

He scrubs a hand down his face. The skin beneath his eyes feels raw.

You left (yeah, no shit).

Are you okay? I’m sorry. Please be okay. Is everything okay?

(what a fucking stupid question.)

You left so quickly, did something happen?

(he knows exactly what happened)

Emma says you have other stuff going on. Is it your mum? Did something happen? Is she okay?

(deflection. jesus)

He pauses. His fingers tap restlessly on the table.

I hope she’s alright, if that’s what it was.

Emma’s being a bitch won’t say. Says it’s yours to tell. What ever it is.

She’s annoying…

a good friend.

(a fucking pain in the ass.)

She chewed me out about what happened. Why did you tell her - I wish you didn’t tell her.

(it’s fucking embarrassing)

I wish you told me about whatever it is you have going on.I want to be there for you. Even though I never text back properly.

Not the way you want. Not the way I should.

You’ve seemed off over the last year. I thought it was about him.

I wanted to kill him so many times.

But I didn’t say anything. Because you don’t like people prying.

(great fucking excuse…)

He leans back in the chair. The room creaks. He stares at the ceiling, lets silence settle for a moment, thick like dust. Every time he tries to write, the words come out scrambled. Like tuning into a dead channel.

I’m sorry.

Did you leave because of me?

(he knows she did.)

(or maybe that’s what he wants to believe. So it’s not worse, that she just gave up.)

I hope you’re doing okay.

I can’t stop thinking about it

(about you).

Didn’t sleep. Not because of you

(lie)

He types, deletes, retypes. Then gives up and just lets it pour out.

You were upset after the other night. Of course you were.

You reached out, and I made you feel like it was your fault.

God.

Is it about the mission?

(he knows it’s not just about the mission)

I’m sorry about that prick Riggs. I know you blame yourself for some insane reason but it really isn’t your fault

(it was his fault. He was his man) .

He ran off like a fucking cowboy and got himself shot.

Not your fault.

He never took anything seriously. Not one bloody thing.

Surprised it didn’t happen sooner, to be honest.

(not that he deserved to die.)

Men like that-

(don’t go there)

I’m sorry. I know you hate me.

I didn’t mean to hurt you.

You kissed me. Or maybe I kissed you. Didn’t matter. Shouldn’t have happened.

(he should have done it years ago).

Now I can’t stop thinking about you

(not that he ever did stop.)

I need you to understand that I’ve wanted you since that fucking HALO drop I didn’t stop because I don’t want you.

I stopped because I didn’t want you to regret it.

Kelli, you’ve always understood me. Better than anyone else. You make me feel like I’m more than just the job. I never told you that. Should have.

Every damned day.

You’re sharp, and funny, and too fucking smart for your own good.

And yeah, okay, you’re gorgeous.

You’re a pain in the ass.

You talk too much when you’re nervous.

Your laugh makes me forget what I was pissed about.

It’s annoying.

It’s distracting.

It’s-

(She’s in his head all the time.)

I’m just trying to say that I did want to fuck you not trying to be inappropriate or whatever. I know I’ve got no right to say any of this.

But you have this way of showing up in my head at the worst times, like when I’m trying to sleep, or focus, or breathe.

(christ. He wants her so badly it’s pathetic.)

I just didn’t want to break it.

Didn’t want to wreck the only thing that ever felt easy.

I just didn’t want you to regret it. You mean everything a lot to me.

You don’t have to write back. I just needed to say that I-

(fuck)

I’m sorry.

Take care.

(this wasn’t how he wanted to say any of it.)

– John

The cursor blinks at the bottom of the draft.

He reads it twice. Hates it, but doesn't change a word.

For a moment, just one, he almost hits send.

Then he closes the laptop.

It sits in his drafts for three days.

Then he deletes it.

——————————————

Aden, Yemen. 2011

Safehouses never feel safe to John.

He’s been in hundreds, liked less than a handful. He understands the utility - the pause in physical danger. An opportunity to regroup, to assess, to plan.

But once the job is secure, when there’s nothing else to think about and you just have to play the waiting game? Then the quiet turns.

Theres only so many times to reassess a plan or clean a gun.

Sometimes he spends time with the lads, playing cards, bantering about stupid shit, but there’s always a barrier. Hes a Captain now. He’s in charge. He cares about his men, they respect him, but no matter the familiarity, the power imbalance is there.

He scans the room.

It is dimly lit, a bare bulb flickering faintly on the ceiling. A ceiling fan clacks slowly overhead, dragging the haze of dust and cigarette in a lazy spin. In the distance he can hear dogs bark, motor cycles and the call to prayer hanging in the heat.

The team is scattered around.

Reeves is on a cot, his leg bloody and bruised - the only injury, sustained during exfill. Not bad, barley a scratch, but a lot of blood. The others lounge about, low voices, cleaning gear. Black offers him a lemon sherbet - John’s favorite.

He takes it absently. Doesn’t eat it. Just holds it.

The unit is new to him, except for Hobbs and Black - both earning an attachment with ease after Herrick 8. Black took some time off after his injury, but somehow managed to come back stronger. He said that the break was good for him.

The rest seem like good men, reliable, but John barely knows half of them.

And so, as John often does, he ends up at one end of the room. His thoughts gathering like a summer storm. And he stews - on command politics, which exfil will leave behind the least amount of body bags, the argument he had with Jess about missing her birthday - again.

And somehow always Kelli.

Nowhere turns his mind against him like a safehouse.

“Fucking hell,” Reeves complains from the cot. “Did you have to do it so tight Black. Didn’t you insert with the med corps? Thought you would have learned some tricks.”

Black shakes his head, turning back to face Reeves. “The trick is not letting the idiot who got himself shot die.” He pops a sweet in his mouth, inclines his head. “Easier said than done when you’re involved Reeves.”

“Chin up mate,” says Waddington, stretching out against the wall, crossing his legs in front of him. The smoke from his cigarette drifts up toward the tarp covered window. “Injury like that? You’ve struck gold, mate. Few weeks on light duties, find yourself a pretty nurse to spoon-feed you codeine and wipe your arse.”

Hobbs clicks his tongue, grinning as he wipes down his rifle. “Pfft. Reeves couldn’t get a number in line at the fucking deli.”

Theres a chorus of soft snickers.

“Piss off,” Reeves sits up, grimacing but not enough to stop the indignation. “When was the last time you even talked to a bird Hobbs?”

Hobbs grins, unfazed. “Married, aren’t I? That’s the trick. Lock one down before she clocks your personality.

Reeves huffs.

“Forget a nurse,” Waddington mutters, dragging on a cigarette. “Had this medic on my last tour. Irish right? Red hair, legs up to here.” He gestures broadly. “Bloke in my section took a round to the foot just to have her check his pulse.”

Hobbs frowns.

“Didn’t she deck a lad for slapping her arse?”

“Aye, and looked hot while she did it,” Waddington says with a grin. “Would’ve taken a boot in the bollocks for a squeeze of that.”

He whistles.

More laughter now. Looser.

John stays silent. Lets it roll. He should probably shut it down. But he’s too tired. Too far away in his head.

Jess would probably say something about calling out toxic locker room culture. Feminist theory or whatever it was she was studying the last time they spoke.

But Jess hadn’t seen blood in her tea or friends die face-down in gravel, so he lets the lads have their fun.

“You know you can just talk to women right?” Says Black dryly, eying them both.

“Yeah, but then you’ve got to listen, don’t you?” Reeves shrugs. “I’m not after a chat, mate. I just want a turn.”

“Christ,” Black mutters.

John doesn’t move. He just exhales slowly through his nose. Same shit, different day.

Then Waddington says, “What about that Welsh doc back in Redgrave, the one who was shagging her CO? She had that look, you know - dead behind the eyes, like she’d seen some shit. Bet she’d ride you like she wanted to forget it.”

The words drop like a mortar round.

John freezes.

It’s exactly what she did. That night in the tent, her hands, her mouth, the panic in her eyes when he stopped it.

She wasn’t reaching for him. She was running from something. And he let himself believe - just for a second - that it meant more.

And now some prick with a fag hanging out his mouth has reduced it to the punchline of a story.

His jaw aches. He doesn’t even remember standing. Doesn’t remember slamming his fist into the table.

The entire room is staring at him.

He tell himself that they don’t know. They don’t know any of the history. That they’re just saying it because they’re dogs - like Riggs, like the rest. But the disrespect cuts a hell of a lot deeper when its about her.

Black’s voice cuts in, quiet but sharp. “Knock it off.”

“What?” Waddington laughs nervously, glancing between John and Black. “We’re just talking.”

Black shakes his head once, looking at them both.

“They’re there to keep you breathing, not star in your wank fantasies.”

“Christ,” Waddington mutters, as if they’re killing the mood at a birthday party. “You know her or something?”

Black folds his arms.

“Actually yes I do you fucks,“ He says grimly, not even looking at John. His voice is flat. “And my fiancé’s fucking RAMC nurse.”

John lets out a silent breath. The back of his neck burns, but his face stays still. There is a moment. He straightens, then takes three strides and walks out. No one stops him.

“-fuck.”

“Yeah fuck.”

He leaves before they can see anything crack, though it already had. Not because he’s angry, though he is. But anger’s manageable. What comes after isn’t.

The protectiveness. The longing. That whisper of a different life. One where she hadn't walked away.

Shes not theirs to talk about, not like that. Not at all.

But he doesn't want to picture her. He doesn't want to hear her name. Not when his traitorous brain still whispers: it should’ve been you.

That’s what stings most. Not the comment, but the fact that it landed.

That it hit something still raw.

He takes the stairwell two at a time. He needs air, even if the air down here is thick like smoke. The heat’s oppressive. Diesel fumes and the sweat of a city cling to his nose. But it still feels better than staying in that room.

He reaches the second story, leans against the concrete wall, jaw locked, arms folded. He’s tired. Bone-tired.

Anger, guilt, shame. They stack in his chest like spent shell casings. Loud. Useless. He still thinks about her.

Too much.

Its been a year, one year, and still silence. Nothing.

Black tells him shes doing better, still struggling, but discharge has been good for her. Shes applying for medical school now, wants to be a real doctor.

John doesn’t doubt it. She was always too smart, too fast, too much fire in her to burn out quietly.

Black tells John that he should reach out, Jess says the same.

Its been long enough.

But John is stubborn. He might want to, but she left.

She left and didn’t look back. Didn’t write. Didn’t call.

Its the cold war all over again, except theres none of the thrill, the want, only anger and betrayal.

He leans his head back against the concrete. The air is too warm to breath properly, but that might equally be his emotions.

He can’t let this get the better of him.

After a few moments he can hear them laughing again. Someone has broken the tension. It’s like none of it sticks. He supposes it doesn't on the surface.

If she can stay gone, so can he.

His hand drifts to his back pouch. Instinct. He already knows what he’s looking for.

The second phone, his burner one, tucked in a battered case he barely opens. Not unless something hurts enough to make him stupid.

He takes it out, stares down at it.

Her name is still there. Kelli. No last name. He could never bring himself to delete the contact. As if someday she might call. As if someday he’d answer.

It’s just a name. Just pixels.

But somehow, still, it hurts.

He imagines what Black would say: that he’s running, that he’s scared, that he’s choosing the safest option because it keeps him in control.

And maybe that’s true.

But control keeps people alive. He doesn’t need her face surfacing when he’s trying to keep other people breathing.

It’s a distraction. A version of himself he can't afford to be.

He stares at the phone.

Still just pixels.

Just a contact. Just a door he’s left cracked open for far too long.

No choice is still a choice, Emma had said.

Fine. Then he’s choosing.

He taps once.

Holds.

Deletes.

John stares down at the tiny screen. Empty now.

It’s the right call. Thats what he tells himself.

Still feels like he’s bleeding out slow.

——————————————

Hawthorn Ridge Cemetery, Northumberland 2014

Hawthorn Ridge is a harsh place to be buried.

Rows of simple markers, plaques. Trinkets dot the graves - poppies, photos and old dog tags. The silence is heavy no matter the time of day. It carries the kind of atmosphere where the quiet makes every sound - every thought- seem louder than it is. He hasn’t been back here since before Herrick ended.

Didn’t come after the debrief. Didn’t go to the memorial. Didn’t want to see the final tally laid out in stone.

Maybe that’s why he came now. Like closing a door he never opened in the first place.

A low fog clings to the ground, swirling round his boots with every step. It is cold and still. The sun is only just peeking over the horizon, shadows cast in dim blue-grey. John pulls his beanie down over his ears. He tugs at his collar. But the chill remains. His breath comes out like smoke as he winds his way between fallen comrades. He looks across the rows of graves, recognizing name after name - some only half-remembered, others etched into his ribs.

He slows.

Ahead of him, 10 or so meters before the section with his mates, is a woman hunched over a grave.

He frowns. He came at this ungodly hour to be alone. Company is like a weight, even if it is unacknowledged. Simply knowing someone else is near puts him on edge.

He wanted to be alone.

She stands. Glances at him as his boots crunch along the gravel path.

She is not so old on closer inspection - her face is cracked with with hard lines. Her eyes are sad, hollow almost.

She nods at him as he approaches. She feels familiar to him in some way he cannot place.

Then he sees the name on the tombstone: William Connors.

John swallows down something like guilt, but it could just as easily be regret.

He doesn’t feel grief anymore. Not like he used to. It’s all dulled now - like a wooden sword. Blunted. Ineffective.

Now it’s just anger. Or worse; the empty kind of quiet that echoes.

There are still bad nights. Weeks, even.

He hasn’t slept more than four hours in a row since the last op in Lashkar Gah. Since Matthis. Since Hobbs almost didn’t make it back.

He hasn’t stopped drinking, either.

Not enough to black out. Just enough to blur.

But there are certain deaths that still sting.

Connors had been so cocky about his first bullet scar.

The second time, there had been no scar.

Bullet to the neck. No hope.

They hadn’t even called for medevac. No point.

John had been lead again.

John can still remember the hollow look in her eyes when she knew - knew - he was gone.

Not his mother.

The one who was there. In the dust and blood.

Who felt it.

He buries it. Forces it down like he’s swallowing glass.

He nods.

“Mrs Connors,” he says.

The short, plump woman smiles at him through glassy eyes.

“Sergeant Price,” she greets.

John isn’t about to correct her on rank, so he glances down at Connors’ grave.

She’s placed a fresh bunch of poppies in a small ceramic vase. A photo of Connors is propped against it.

He’s laughing, must’ve been on leave. The girl at his side is unfamiliar, but John remembers Connors talking about a girlfriend.

He exhales slowly through his nose.

Mrs Connors looks up at him again.

“He always spoke well of you,” she says, soft, gentle. “Said you always looked out for him.”

John clears his throat. Not well enough.

“He was a good lad,” he says.

Her lip trembles and John wishes he didn’t say anything at all. Christ. How can he have more dead mates than alive ones and still not know what to say to a grieving parent?

Mrs Connor scrambles for a tissue from her sleeve. Her hands shake as she smears away the tears.

“He was,” she agrees, her voice wavering. “My baby.” She bends down to touch the headstone, her hand gentle, reverent.

John stands, watches her for a moment.

He tries to feel something. Waits for it.

There’s a flicker of it, shame, maybe. Then it dies again.

He feels worse for wondering why she makes it sound like it happened yesterday.

Four years.

But people don’t hurt in convenient ways.

She straightens, sighs.

“You take care of yourself Sergeant,” she says, then turns and walks slowly into the fog.

John watches her go, before turning to the row of familiar names.

Connors.

Allen.

Riggs.

Men he had led. Men he’d broken bread with.

Somehow death flattens all feeling - even the animosity. It seems pointless to care about personal conflict when the man is six feet underground.

He doesn’t ache anymore.

He used to, even when he suppressed it to cope. Years ago, he’d wake up drowning in faces. Not the faces are blurry, dulled with time and repetition. Eroded and undercut, like waves beating against a cliff.

Like standing in the wind without sound.

He remembers how she felt grief.

She didn’t flinch from it. Let it wreck her, sometimes.

She had cried for Connors. Hadn’t even known him that long, but she cried like it was family.

He’d hated that. Not because it was weakness - but because it reminded him of what he couldn’t do anymore. What he couldn’t afford to do.

She used to talk to him about grief. About the ones they couldn’t save. She said she needed to remember. That remembering gave the pain purpose.

To save lives.

He remembers brushing her off. A nod. A grunt. A changed subject. She looked at him like she could see through it. Maybe she could.

He hates her now.

Her name always surfaces in his memories. She ruins him in memory. Every thought another crack forming on the surface of the walls he had built to keep it all at bay.

He can’t afford cracks.

But he can’t seem to think about that time, not even to wallow in the death of his comrades, without her resurfacing.

He thinks about the mission that ended it all. About the explosion. The wrong call. The silence that followed.

He thinks about the tent. Her voice. That moment.

And the sound of the tent flap closing.

Feelings don’t help on the next mission.

Grief will not keep his men breathing.

He tugs his coat tighter. The sun peeks over the large grey oak, but it hasn’t burned off the cold. Or the fog.

He thinks about going home, but home is an empty flat, with dirty dishes and a bed he hasn’t slept in sober in weeks.

He thinks about calling Black. Maybe meeting for a drink, just to pretend like things aren’t quiet. Black will needle him, but the beer will dull the ache.

The thought passes.

Like everything else.

The sun pushes weakly over the treeline.

He doesn’t know where he’s going.

Just that he can’t stay where grief can find him.

————————————

It finds him anyway. Two weeks later. 2am. In the quiet. In the dark.

He calls Black. Doesn’t remember doing it. Just remembers the sound of his own voice cracking. The pressure behind his ribs breaking open.

For the first time in his adult life, he cries. And he doesn’t stop.

————————————

Bromley, Southeast London 2015

Time passes in fits and starts and before John can even blink Jess is turning twenty one. The evening is warm. The sun beginning to set against the backdrop of the clouded sky.

John hesitates at the gate to his parent’s old brick house. The cul-de-sac is quiet, but faint music drifts over from the garden out back. The large elm tree in the front yard whispers in the breeze. His childhood swing creaks slightly.

If feels familiar and foreign all at the same time.

He unlatches the gate, heads round the side. The collar of his button down, bought one hour ago, scratches against his neck. The box in his hands weights him down, despite not weighing anything at all.

John doesn’t get many calls, but Jess still makes it a point to talk to him every chance she gets. He thought she might get tired of it once she hit her late teens. He was certain of it once she started at UCL. John thinks that a young woman like Jess has better things to do than call her moody older brother. But no. She’s persisted for years. He probably hears from her more than their mother. Definitely more than his father.

He’s not sure if it’s a blessing or a curse.

She’d been talking his ear off about the party for months - the marquee, the food, the little party favours she’d spent weeks DIY-ing from left over loo-roll tubes and candle making kits. It’d all seemed utterly pointless to John but he can recognize when somethings important. He can pretend.

He might be a moody bastard, but if one thing he’s learned the hard way, it’s to pay attention to the people you care about. Even when you feel like a freak.

He’s not making the same mistake twice.

“Jonathan!”

His mother’s eyes sparkle with true delight as she rushes forward and wraps her arms around him.

“You’re late,” she chides in his ear, but it has no real bite.

She steps back and gives him a once-over.

“Have you lost weight?”

John’s jaw tightens. Of course she’d fuss.

“No, Mum.”

“He looks great,” says cousin Henry, stepping forward and shaking his hand. John sees his hand almost twitch toward a salute.

“Henry.” John greets, he nods at the off-white sling around his left arm. "Heard you buggered your shoulder showing off in the gym. Nice work."

Henry grins.

“Tried to out-bench a bootneck. Shoulder lost, but pride intact. Fucker bet a twenty I couldn’t beat two eighty.”

He shrugs with one shoulder.

“Joke’s on him. I won.”

Then, he winks. “Still more action than you’ve seen this side of Kandahar.”

John raises an eyebrow.

“So you fucked him too?”

His mum makes a strangled noise halfway between outrage and despair.

“Jesus Jonathan. Language.”

She pinches the bridge of her nose, muttering: “Every bloody man in this family needs a muzzle.”

Then louder, with a sharp look at the both. “Don’t talk like that in front of Jess.”

Henry grins. “Shes heard worse.”

“Yes and she shouldn’t have. Honestly. No shop, no vulgarity. Just be nice boys for the party okay?”

Both men nod in perfect unison.

“Yes, ma’am.”

John looks around. He nods at a few familiar faces.

The garden sparkles. Guests mill about, chatting in the warm June evening. Chatter blends into the music thumping from the speakers.

Over in the corner is his father. He sits at a table, one that John can tell has been carefully curated for him. Placed in the quietest part of the garden, away from the speakers, half hidden behind a bush. He is talking to an uncle, Henry’s father.

John used to think that the military must have a hidden siren song - one that attracts soldiers to each other. But now he thinks that its civilian life that repels. It is off putting to him - too safe, too calm, too frivolous.

Fourteen years in uniform, and whatever instincts he had for connection got burned out long ago. At least with normal people. Men like Henry, freaks like him, he has no issue with.

He clocks the exists, unchanged, but his parents have put in a new back door. The crowd is sizable - not as big as his nans funeral, but the family is all the same. Some of Jess’ uni friends are milling about by the food, glancing at him with a familiar kind of interest.

Everything feels too loud, too soft. Too easy.

Jess’ friends get her attention, they giggle. Jess flushes, scowls at them, hits one the shoulder, and then turns to him.

Her face breaks out into sunshine and suddenly he is glad he came.

She darts out from the group and dashes toward him. He catches her as she collides with his chest, wrapping her arms around him.

“Grump!” she exclaims. “You came!”

There is a slight edge in her voice, as if maybe she thought he wouldn’t. He lifts her up, shes so light, so fragile.

“Of course I came.” He says, before placing her back down on the ground gently. “I don’t need you trying to shoot me on top of everyone else.”

Jess lets out a pfft. “I’m a pacifist,” she says, “any shooting would be emotional.”

John grins crookedly, “yeah that’s what I’m afraid of.”

He holds out the small box. Jess looks down, something tugs at her face.

“You got me a gift?”

The tone in her voice - the surprise laced with wonder - does something to his chest.

“Of course I did.” He says, “I’m not a total deadbeat brother.”

Jess hugs him again, her arms tighter this time.

“I’ll open it later,” she says, “first, come meet my friends!”

Jess’ friends are all variations on the same 20-something girl she is: bright-eyed, intelligent and far too young. They crowd around with plastic glasses of rosé and sun-warmed skin. They ask him in awkward fits and starts about his job. Not really delving in too deeply and he can tell they feel weird about it. One of the girls - Soraya - keeps narrowing her eyes at him. He clocks it as immediately threatening. Though he knows she’s hardly a threat. But the years have attuned him. He knows when someone has a problem with him.

They keep speaking in half-finished jokes and class gossip he doesn’t follow. Their words stack too fast. Too much slang he doesn’t recognize. The rhythm is strange, like there’s a shared code he’s missed.

It’s not his scene - thank Christ it’s not his scene. Its both banal and academic at the same time. Giggling gossip and lecture discussions seem to blend into something he can’t follow.

He spends the next half hour nodding, smiling when it seems expected. Unable to extradite himself - Jess tugs on his arm every time he moves. He’d always thought girls this age were flightier, all selfies and surface, but Jess clearly has a type. They’re sharp. Articulate. Bouncing around from debating something called “He for She” to why cultural appropriation is apparently cancel worthy.

John doesn’t really understand what any of those things are.

He never made it past GCSEs, but he doesn’t think he ever stopped learning. Just learned different things. Things that leave scars.

Still, it’s hard not to feel the gap. Hard not to feel like someone let the wrong man in through the side gate.

Then Harper, the redhead, American, all elbows and overconfident charm, suddenly lifts her glass and says, too loudly: “Okay trolley problem. You’re at the switch. Do you pull it?”

The others groan. Sarah rolls her eyes. “I already said I’m not killing anyone just because some psycho set up a death train.”

“But five lives for one Sar,” says Harper, “- the math is easy. You have to pull it.”

“Doesn’t matter,” says Sarah. “You can’t justify doing something wrong just because it helps more people in the end.”

Soraya nods, “Exactly. If you cross that line once, it all falls apart. That’s why deontology matters. You have to follow the principle, no matter the outcome.”

John takes a long sip of his beer. He watches as they all nod in agreement - even Harper, the devil’s advocate.

“So you’d all let five people just die?” he says, “for the deontology?”

Sarah and Soraya turn to him, as if they had forgotten he was there.

“Deontology is the theory,” Soraya says, in a way that pisses him off. “Its not the deontology.”

“That’s my point innit,” John says, “Its a theory. Real word doesn’t care about the rules. You save who you can. Sometimes that means doing the wrong thing so someone else gets to live."

The silence is broken only by the low hum of the music, and the conversations around them.

Soraya stares at him, like shes only really seeing him for the first time. He’s not sure why shes so shocked.

“Lines are there for a reason.” She says. “You can’t move them because you feel like it, that’s how war crimes happen."

"War crimes also happen when no one does anything.” He counters.

Soraya peers at him through narrowed eyes.

"So no hesitation? You’d pull the lever, no matter who’s on the tracks?"

John shrugs.

“If it saved people.”

"Right. But still, killing someone, even for the greater good, that’s a moral failure, isn’t it?"

John stares at her for a long moment.

“Moral failure is watching civilians bleed out in the dirt because you wanted to feel righteous.”

A silence spreads across the group. Somewhere across the garden, the music changes.

Harper tries to break the tension with a weak laugh. “Okay, and that’s why we don’t invite real-life soldiers to ethics class.”

No one joins in.

Soraya’s eyes narrow slightly. “And how many civilians did you leave bleeding out?”

John’s jaw tightens.

“You’re not asking that because you care,” he says. “You’re asking to score a point.”

“I’m asking,” she says, voice flat, “because some of them were my family.”

Jess goes very still beside him.

“Kunduz,” Soraya adds, quietly. “2010. Wrong compound. Five dead, two of them kids.”

She doesn’t raise her voice. Doesn’t have to. It cuts anyway.

John’s face doesn’t move, but something in him stiffens. The old coil of guilt and anger that never really leaves.

“That wasn’t us.”

“Does it matter?” she asks.

He takes a slow breath. “No, of course not.” He concedes. “But don’t mistake your coursework for the battlefield.”

Soraya crosses her arms. “And maybe don’t mistake a uniform for moral authority.”

He nods, just once. “I don’t wear it for authority. I wear it so you can sit around in you cozy ethics class, debating which lever I should pull on a trolley that’s already left the station.”

Soraya’s mouth tightens. Jess puts a hand lightly on his arm.

“John-”

He drains the last of his drink. His voice is low, barely above the music.

“You can throw theory at a body. Doesn’t mean it’ll stop bleeding.”

And then he turns, and walks away - jaw clenched, hands shaking.

Part of him wants to leave. The other part doesn’t trust himself to be alone yet.

“What the fuck John.”

He glances over his shoulder at Jess. She’d followed him, of course. He shrugs.

“She started it,” he says, “what am I meant to say?”

“I dunno, just like be normal and don’t start talking about bleeding civilians?”

He shrugs her off. He’s not normal. Never has been.

He looks away. The fairy lights strung up along the hedges blink gently in the dusk. Voices buzz around him, but none of it sticks. Just chatter, like static on a loop. He drains another drink. His hand’s shaking, just a little. Enough to notice. Enough to hate.

Jess rubs her arm and looks out across the garden. Her tone softens.

“You don’t have to prove anything, you know. Soraya’s hurt, not that I blame her in the slightest. But-” she pauses, looking guilty. “I just want you here.” She gazes at him. “I’m glad you’re here.”

John doesn’t answer. He wants to. But the words catch somewhere in his throat and stay there.

He needs another drink.

He spots the drinks table, but before he can reach it, a familiar voice cuts through the buzz- “Ah! The lovely birthday girl! And her strapping brother!”

Aunt Josephine appears. She sways ever so slightly, cheeks pink and eye bright.

“Hi aunt Jo,” says Jess through a tight jaw.

“Been so long since we saw you last John,” Aunt Jo says beaming, her words slightly slurred, “not since mum’s funeral.”

He doesn’t have the patience to correct her - she never remembers the brief visits.

“Work keeps me busy,” he says.

“I’m sure it does! Keeping us safe from those Islamic terrorists,” she barrels on, loud enough that people glance over.

John says nothing. Jess stiffens beside him, “Jesus.”

“I tell everyone at Pilates that my nephew’s in the SAS. Even had them google it. Apparently you’re all very secretive.

“That’s sort of the point,” John mutters.

“Hmm?” she says, then breezes on. “Did you bring that nice girl with you again? What was her name? Kayla? Kylie?”

John’s throat tightens. He says nothing - can’t say anything. She means Kelli. Of course she fucking does. John had thought he was past someone bringing up fucking Kelli at a family event.

So nice. So clever.

Did you ever get together?

You should’ve locked that down.

He stares at the hedge beyond Aunt Jo’s shoulder, jaw flexing.

“What was her name again?” she furrows her brow, “so pretty, and friendly. Not like you at all!”

She cackles at her own joke.

“Kelli,” supplies Jess, glancing sideways at John.

“Oh! Yes Kelli!” Josephine exclaims, delighted. “Is she here? She gave me some excellent advice about magnesium supplements. I always thought you two made a handsome couple.”

She looks a John in a way that makes John want to sink into the floor.

His fingers tighten around his glass.

“She’s not around anymore.” He says, clipped.

“Oh?” Jo looks genuinely confused. “Shame. I always hoped you’d settle down with someone like that. She had such a calming influence. That one Christmas, you didn’t even argue with your dad!”

She lets out a laugh, fond and oblivious. “I thought maybe she’d civilise you a bit. Like beauty taming the beast.”

John smiles, but there’s no humour in it. The irony, he thinks, is that Kelli was a crazy as he was - maybe even more so.

“Yeah,” he says flatly. “Well. Didn’t stick around long enough to sort anyone out, did she.”

Jo falters. Her wine glass halts midair.

John doesn't stop.

“But thanks for the concern. How’s your divorce going?”

Jess hisses under her breath. “Jesus, John.”

Aunt Jo blinks, then lets out a brittle laugh.

“Oh, well. These things happen.”

“Yeah,” John says, tone flat. “Some people aren’t cut out for sticking around.”

Jess moves quickly. “I think mum’s might be looking for you, Aunt Jo. She wanted to show you the extension plans?”

“Right,” Jo murmurs, voice a little quieter. “Right.” She totters off.

Jess turns to him, glaring.

“What the actual hell, John.”

“What?”

“You didn’t have to bite her head off.”

“She brought it up.”

“She brings everything up. She’s Aunt Jo.”

He shrugs, suddenly exhausted. He feels like an asshole, but he can’t bring himself to care.

Jess give him a poke on the shoulder. “Could you like not ruin my birthday party by upsetting every single person you talk to please?”

“I didn’t upset Henry, or mum.”

Jess rolls her eyes.

“Henry’s as cracked as you are, and Mum would flay you alive if you ever spoke to her the way you just spoke to Aunt Jo.”

John clenches his jaw again.

“She brought it up,” he says, “just like your fucking friends thought it would be fun to debate ethics with a fucking SAS soldier.“

“They probably don’t even know what SAS is John.”

“They know I’m a soldier.” He says “Soraya certainly did.”

Jess folds her arms. “And that justifies being an arsehole?”

He doesn’t answer.

She sighs, sharp and fed up. “Jesus, what is your problem lately? I thought you were doing better after that counselor. But you’re still walking around like you’ve got a stick up your ass.”

John’s silence hardens. He looks past her, jaw working.

The therapy had been mandated. A cover-your-ass move by the brass, after Black all but forced him to flag it with his CO. John doesn’t think for a second that they actually cared about him beyond keeping him ‘fit for command’. But he can’t deny his mind’s been quieter lately and not in a numb way. Just in the way that he doesn’t feel like hes spiraling out of control as much any more.

Its been good for the work.

Its been good for his relationships.

Hes still an asshole. But at least hes articulating it better.

“And what was that with Aunt Jo?” she presses, quieter now, a different kind of irritated. “Why do you still act like Kelli’s name is some kind of threat?”

John flinches. He doesn't mean to.

Jess looks at him for a long time.

“It’s not normal, John. To be this hung up, after all this time.”

He could hear the therapist’s voice in his head, the one who looked like she’d never seen a body drop in her life but always seemed to see through him. He hadn’t really told her about Kelli yet, probably never will. Thats one door he refuses to open.

“I’m not normal.” He says.

“Yeah,” Jess breathes, “no shit.”

There’s a long pause, the hum of chatter, crossing signals with the music. A peal of laughter drifts across from the marquee.

“She’s in London, you know.”

John’s heart jerks behind his ribs.

“What do you mean?”

“She’s starting her NHS placement. St Thomas’, I think.”

He turns to her sharply. His voice goes cold. Panic rises in his chest. “And you know this why?”

Jess lifts her chin, like she was waiting for him to go there.

“She was basically a family friend.”

A beat. Then she shrugs, a gesture that tries and fails to be casual.

“She helped me get into UCL. Helped with the scholarship.”

Of course she did. John had always known Jess adored Kelli. Knew Kelli adored Jess, too. After the funeral, when Kelli had hung around more, they’d developed their own shorthand. Their own rhythm. It used to make him happy, watching them laugh, watching them light each other up. Even when Jess used to obnoxiously try and push them together.

Now it just scares him.

He doesn’t say anything.

Jess crosses her arms again. “She’d probably like to hear from you, you know.”

John doesn’t answer. His jaw is set too tight for words.

Jess sighs, not angry now, just tired.

“You think being broken makes you dangerous, John. But really it just makes you cruel.”

That one lands. He blinks, looks away. Finds something incredibly important in the hedge lights.

He wants to say she’s wrong. That he never meant to hurt anyone.

But meaning doesn’t change much, does it?

You made her feel like it was her fault.

Jess watches him for a moment longer, then draws in a breath and plasters on a party smile.

“Well,” she says brightly, clapping her hands once, “it’s my birthday, and I’m not doing this with you.”

She jabs him in the chest, not hard. A familiar, affectionate warning.

“So you’d better shape up. Or fuck off.”

She turns and walks away, her braid bouncing behind her. John watches her go.

He stares out across the party, observing.

Jess’ friends are all chattering again. His mother is patting a glassy eyed Aunt Jo on the shoulder. Someone drops a glass and the shout of ‘taxi’ goes up.

He steps around the side of the house to get some air. The garden is darker here, the sun has long since set.

He stops as he sees his father standing by the rose bushes, smoking alone.

He nods at John. The silence stretches.

Eventually his father speaks.

“Your sister means well.” He says. “Just doesn’t get it.”

John exhales through his nose. The glow of the cigarette tip pulses faintly in the dark, like a heartbeat.

“She shouldn’t have to.”

His father hums.

“She’s lucky,” he adds after a beat. “Still thinks it matters. Right and wrong. All that.”

He breathes out a slow plume of cigarette smoke. “She’ll grow out of it.”

John folds his arms. “Jesus, Dad.”

A faint chuckle. Bone dry.

“What?” He says. “I’m right.”

John’s voice is flat. “She shouldn’t need to grow out of it. I’d rather if she didn’t.”

His father doesn’t answer. Just exhales smoke. A long, measured silence.

John reaches out and absently runs a finger along one of the rose stems. “That’s the whole point.”

His father eyes him. Carefully. Like he’s measuring something.

“You always did carry it different.”

John finally turns to look at him. There’s an edge now, dull and jagged.

“What does that mean?”

His father shrugs. “Some men go to war to take orders. Some go to give ’em. Some go ’cause they like the chaos.”

He pauses.

“You go like it’s got to count. Like it needs to mean something.”

John’s jaw tightens. “I suppose you think that’s naive.”

His father flicks ash, not looking at him.

“Didn’t say that.”

John steps closer, his voice lower now.

“You ever think maybe there’s value in giving a damn?”

“I think giving a damn’s rare,” his father says. “Easy to burn through.”

He glances at him now - really looks.

“You’re looking a little burned, son.”

John stares back. “Everyone gets burned.”

The old man shrugs.

“Same end either way.”

He flicks the cigarette ash into the flowerbed. Doesn’t look at him.

“You’ve been off since before Herrick. Thought maybe it was the funerals. Thought maybe it was the work.”

A longer pause.

The unspoken sits between them. Not Kelli’s name, never her name, but her absence. His father has been the only one that ever respected the unspoken. The space she left in John that he can’t quite patch over.

Sometimes John wonders if that says something about it - that in all things except this, he hates his father’s approach.

His father nods once. More gesture than statement.

“You’re not broken. But you’re bloody close.”

A pause.

“Don’t let that be permanent.”

He stubs the cigarette out on the brick. Doesn’t look back. Just walks off.

Leaves John alone, in the dark, with the roses and the ash.

John means to leave as soon as possible after that.

But when he heads back into the light and the hum, every time Jess smiles, it makes staying feel a little more like penance and a little less like a burden.

He stays outside until the noise becomes unbearable. Nods along with a group of cousins, avoids Jess’ friends who avoid him back. Just hovers like a specter until the cold seeps in just enough to remind him he's still got skin. Then he heads into the house, ends up in the kitchen, dim light, quiet corners. A moment’s peace.

At a loss he starts washing cutlery for the cake. Somehow, his mother could buy an Ikea’s worth of spoons and still manage to run out.

He is grateful for the quiet. The noise is a gentle hum compared to the artillery he is used to, but somehow it grates like radio static.

He looks up as someone walks into the kitchen.

It’s Aunt Jo.

She startles. “Oh. John.”

Her voice is thinner now. Sober. More cautious. She carries a pile of dirty plates.

They stare at each other for a moment. She looks at him like he is dangerous.

He opens his mouth. He pauses.

Jo clears her throat. “Listen earlier. I didn’t mean to-”

He cuts her off. “Its alright.”

She blinks. Surprised.

The voice of his therapist echoes in his mind.

“I was a prick,” he admits, “I didn’t mean to- but I was. It…wasn’t about you.”

Jo gives him a small nod. “Well. You’ve had a rough few years.”

John huffs out something like a laugh. “That’s one way to put it.”

He leans over the sink for a moment, stares into he suds.

When he looks up, Aunt Jo is gazing at him. She seems sad.

“You were right, you know. About the divorce.”

John frowns.

“He didn’t want to stick around.”

John wipes his hands on a tea towel and takes the dirt dishes from her hands.

“I could slip his name onto the terror watchlist you know.” He says, raising an eyebrow.

Aunt Jo’s mouth drops open.

“You can do that?”

John doesn’t have the heart to shatter what he started, so he simply raises his eyebrows.

Aunt Jo gasps.

“Could you? No, you couldn’t.” She giggles and for the first time that night John feels like he’s actually glad to be there, not obligated. “No John, that’s too much!”

She opens the fridge to fetch another bowl of dips.

“No,” she says, peering at him from behind the door. “No?”

When she shuts the door she looks very thoughtful.

“No, you can’t do that.” She says in a final tone. “Tempting though - that asshole.”

They stand there in the kitchen, awkward but not hostile.

Then she steps forward and pats his arm - brisk, familiar. “Still a gobshite, but you’ve got some heart under there.”

John’s pretty sure thats about the level of acknowledgment he deserves.

“Think about it,” he says with a nod.

She giggles again, and he smiles. A moment after she leaves, Jess appears. She staring back into the corridor, with a curious expression. When she turns to John she says, “What on earth did you say to Aunt Jo?”

John levels a look at her.

“I said I’d put Uncle Barry on a watchlist for her.”

Jess snorts.

“God, that is such a you apology.”

“Who said it was an apology?”

Jess rolls her eyes but some of the fondness has returned.

“Can I open it?” She says, holding up the little box.

John’s stomach turns, nervous. He’d wanted to prepare himself for this moment but now it’s happening. He tried so damn hard to find something, thought about it for months.

“Go on then.”

Jess puts the box down on the counter. John has the sudden, irrational urge to stop her. To say never mind. He’s suddenly scared she’ll hate it.

But she’s already untying the ribbon, lifting the lid. Nestled inside, on a square of black velvet, is a delicate silver necklace. The pendant catches the light - a tiny teardrop of something pale and iridescent, shifting blue to violet depending on the angle.

Her fingers are gentle as she lifts it out. “Is this… moonstone?”

“Bloke at the stall said so,” John mutters. “Said it was your birthstone. Could’ve been lying. But it looked like you.”

Jess blinks at him. “You got this abroad?”

He nods. “Some trader in-” he stops. “Doesn’t matter. Just… saw it. Thought it was your sort of thing.”

“Paid extra.” He adds. “Fair trade and all that.”

Jess stares at him for a long moment. Then she lurches forward and wraps her arms around him.

“I know you don’t say things,” she mumbles. “But I see you trying. I see it.”

John says nothing. But his hand lingers a moment longer on her back before he lets go.

“Thankyou Grump.”

He grunts. He is glad he came.

Chapter Text

0330 hours, Al-Hafir, Kharzari. 2023

It’s been years since John was close enough to count Kelli’s freckles - sprinkled across her cheekbones like camo splatter. Even longer since she’d wanted him that close.

It seems cruelly fitting that it has only happened now because she’s unconscious and bleeding.

He brushes a smear of blood away from her temple with his thumb. Doesn’t think about how soft the skin is underneath.

Kelli has always hated her freckles. She had told him her grandmother had hated them first - called it dirty skin.

“Boys like peaches, not speckled eggs.”

Kelli used to say it like a joke. But he remembered how quiet she’d go after.

He still loves them. Even now, even as the anger and danger simmers, as the heavy air stinks of blood and antiseptic.

Even as Benoit’s voice cuts through the haze.

“Fucking hell, what the hell did you do?!”

Gaz’s voice is low, controlled. “Might want to watch the volume, mate.”

“Don’t ‘mate’ me.”

John looks up at them.

Gaz’ gaze is cold, cutting as he stares down Benoit, one hand on his forearm.

The Frenchman glares at him with contempt. He shrugs off his hand, but he doesn’t move.

He holds Gaz’ gaze for a moment longer, then thrusts a finger down at John.

“What the fuck did you do?”

“Back off.”

The words are quiet, but something in his tone makes even Gaz shift.

Benoît stares down at him, wild-eyed, jaw clenched tight. The Frenchman’s face is somewhere between panic and fury.

Gaz shift a hand to his rifle. He glances at John. His eyes are sharp - protective and alert.

“Back off?” Benoit repeats, mocking him. “As if I’m the one up to my knees in cadavers.”

John sets Kelli down slow, reluctant to let go. She’s not going anywhere. But the urge to shield her is still there. Like muscle memory.

Johns on his feet before he’s conscious of the movement, stepping between them, body tight and still.

“She’s fine.”

“Let me look at her.”

John glances at him. Gaz inclines his head towards Benoit, a suggestion. His eyes are not insubordinate, but he’s suggesting what John knows it the logical action.

Deescalate.

John clenches his jaw.

“I reset her shoulder, she fainted,” he says tightly, stepping sideways. “That’s all. She’s not fucking dead.”

“Yeah, lucky for you,” Benoit mutters, crouching beside her. He checks her pulse, muttering in fast, clipped French.

John watches him, fists flexing. He can’t help the flicker of dark amusement. Benoît’s taller than him, but light. Too light. Not a killer either.

Wouldn’t last long.

He doesn’t move.

Benoit rolls her onto her side.

“She’ll come too.” He says, glancing over his shoulder. His voice is flat, sour. He mutters. “I told her this would happen.”

John shrugs.

“She made her own call.”

Benoit lets out a short laugh, turning in his heel to face them both.

“Pff. Tell yourself that if it helps you sleep.”

John narrows his eyes.

“They came for him,” John nods at Rains, who has been hovering, silent in the corner since the men came. “We handled it.”

Benoit lets out a very loud and very high-pitched bark of laughter. It grates on John’s nerves, like metal on glass.

“You handled it?! Are you insane-”

He lets out a long string of very profane French in a thick southern dialect that John can’t quite parse efficiently. John doesn’t need to, to pick out the profanities.

Benoît thrusts a finger at Kelli.

“Just like you handled her.”

Gaz shifts next to John. “Temper the tone Doc.” His voice is clipped, eyes on Benoît. He steps half-forward, just enough to make Benoît notice, doesn’t look at John. Doesn’t need to.

Just steps in, calm as you like, like he’s done a hundred times before.

John doesn’t thank him. But he lets the words sit. Gives him space to think.

If it’s just pain, Kelli won’t be out for long. She’ll wake up, set Benoît straight. Then they can all get the fuck out of each other’s lives.

But there’s pressure building in his chest now. Has been since they got here. Spiking every time someone mouths off.

And Benoît-

He seems like the kind of man who says the wrong thing just to see what’ll happen.

Benoît rises, flicks his gaze flicks between John and Gaz.

“I may not know who you are, but I know her. And I know him.” He jabs a finger at Rains. “Always stirring shit wherever he goes.”

Nico raises his hands. “Wasn’t me this time.”

Benoit scoffs, “Ah oui? And I’m the Queen of fucking England.” He mutters again in French - too fast and low - then turns back to John, voice rising. He gives them both a once over, raises an eyebrow.

“So, what is it then? MI6? CIA? Some psychopathic, self-righteous spook with a half-dead team and a guilt complex?”

John’s jaw ticks.

“Old flame?” Benoît needles. “Dragged yourself out the desert to haunt her? Guilt her into helping you. Bit late for that, non?”

John’s voice is low, flat.

“That’s none of your business.”

Benoit lets out another laugh and John wants to punch him.

He flexes his fingers. “What is so fucking funny?”

Benoit raises his eyebrows.

“Are you serious?” He snaps. “It’s all my business! Three corpses in my clinic, villagers shitting themselves. All for what?”

“Those men weren’t here for a check- up,” John cuts in. “If we hadn’t been here, you’d be bagging Kelli’s body.”

Benoit waves a hand about. “You’re why they’re here!”

He steps forward, getting in John’s space. John wants to shove him. Slam him into the concrete. Just to make him shut up. But he knows that Kelli’s support is hanging on a knife’s edge as it is - he’s not convinced she wouldn’t just throw it all in if she woke up to her colleague covered in his own blood.

Gaz shifts, must see something in his face. “Cap,” he mutters under his breath, just loud enough. A warning, or a reminder. John clenches his jaw. He doesn’t need a damn babysitter.

He doesn’t move, but he switches his gaze back to Benoit and one hand drops toward his weapon.

Benoît glances at the motion. Scoffs.

“So that’s how it is? You bring the war, you bring the guns, and we’re meant to smile and thank you?”

John opens his mouth. Closes it. The mission was clean - until it wasn’t.

He clamps down on the thought. “We protect people like you.”

Benoit laughs again - bitter this time.

“Foutaise,” he spits, poking a finger at John’s chest. “Bullshit.”

He leans closer.

“Men like you… you leave blood in your footprints. Always. When the killing’s done, you disappear. And we are the ones left explaining the bodies to the children.”

He pauses.

“If they’re still alive.”

“You have no idea what this is.” John snaps, “No idea how important this mission is.”

Benoit huffs out a laugh. He glances over at Rains.

“Oh, I know the price of secrets. But at least be real with yourself hm? Maybe ask yourself why you stayed when you should’ve run-” he pauses. “If this mission is so important.”

“If you’ve got something to say-”

“I’ve got nothing to say to a man like you,” he spits. “You’ll figure it out when it’s too late.”

Benoit nods toward the back room, towards Ghost.

There is a beat.

John clenches his jaw. He knows what Benoit is implying.

“I don’t abandon my men.”

Benoit examines his face.

“Non, I’m sure you don’t,” he says, “That’s why you’ve spent the last hour haunting this clinic and not extracting your target.”

John’s jaw flexes. He hates it, but Benoit is right.

If this were just about the mission, they’d be gone already. Ghost left behind with Kelli. Rains in hand. Out of jamming range.

Clean. Efficient.

It would have felt wrong, but Ghost would have been in the same position he was now. Better even, because Kelli would be awake. Kelli wouldn't be injured, unconscious - because of him.

He drowns the guilt as quickly as it surfaces.

He made the call. He’d make it again.

But it’s harder to sell the mission line when Benoît keeps shining a light straight through it.

He glances away - for just a moment.

Benoît sees it. He tilts his head.

“Quoi? Didn’t like that?”

He steps closer.

“Watch it Doc,” mutters Gaz, his voice hard.

Benoit glances over at him. When he turns back to John there is something dark in his eyes, predatory almost, like a shark who’s smelled blood in the water.

“So, it is personal.”

John doesn’t answer.

Benoît pushes.

“What happened? Did you lose someone?”

John’s eyes stay flat. “Back off.”

“You couldn’t save the last one,” Benoît presses. “So now you’re-”

“I said back off.”

John voice is low, dangerous. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I?” Benoît says quietly.

Silence.

“You think if you save this one, it wipes the blood off your hands?”

“Shut your mouth.”

“It won’t.”

John moves - fast. Two quick steps. Benoit backs up quickly almost trips over one of the bodies. He sucks in a sharp breath as his back hits the wall.

John’s fingers twitch by his side. He doesn’t touch him, but for the first time, Benoit looks rattled.

“Say one more word,” John hisses, voice like a knife. “And I’ll show you just how much blood I can get on my hands.”

And then-

BEEPBEEPBEEP.

The alarm rips through the silence, sharp and insistent.

“Shit,” Gaz says, already moving.

Benoît’s eyes flick past him.

“Sounds like he needs a doctor,” he mutters. “Lucky me.”

“If he dies-”

“You’ll what? Kill me?” He sneers. “Like I haven’t heard that one before.”

John leans in.

“There are worse things than death.”

He spins Benoît toward the back room and shoves him forward.

Ghost is pale - paler than he was ten minutes ago. His chest is rising too fast, too shallow. The monitor shrieks - sharp, relentless. John’s pulse climbs with it, throat tight, every muscle coiled. He can’t slow it. Can’t think. Just watches the numbers spike and knows it’s bad. Worse than before.

Benoit stumbles forward, but his attitude drops like a guillotine the second he sees the scene. He moves fast, efficient. Pulling on gloves, muttering curses in French.

“What’s wrong with him?”

Benoît doesn’t answer. Already checking vitals. Pulling out his stethoscope and pressing it against Ghost’s chest.

John steps forward, staring at Benoit.

His voice sharpens - louder now. “What the fuck is wrong with him?

Still nothing - Benoit just frowns as he listens.

John steps in. Too close. “Say something, or I swear-”

“You want me to save him, non?” Benoît cuts in, glancing up. “Then stop fucking breathing down my neck and let me work.”

John grits his teeth so hard his jaw pops.

He wants to punch him. Just once. Just to feel something crack.

There’s a ragged cough from the doorway.

Kelli is clutching the wall with one white knuckled hand. Her face is pale; her hair and headband matted with dried blood. But her eyes are sharp.

She takes one look at Ghost’s chest, then at Benoît. “Blockage in the line?”

Benoît glances up, jaw tight. The look of relief on his face when he sees Kelli matches the relief in John’s chest. “I think he’s bleeding into the pericardium again.”

She grabs a pair of gloves and pulls them on, staggers over to the bed, stumbling a little as she does.

Gaz reaches out to steady her. “Careful Doc.”

She waves him off.

“You shouldn’t be standing Kelli.” Benoit comments, watching her. “You fainted.”

“I’m fine,” she says, brushing him off. “You going to flush it?”

Benoit hesitates, then shakes his head. He flicks the valve, “No time. I think I’m going to have to re-enter. Same site.”

He glances at John, switches to French. This time John makes out enough: “Haven’t done this since medical school, I need your help.”

Kelli glances at John, mutters something, this time in Khazari.

Benoit freezes for a moment, swallows. He doesn’t look at John.

John’s voice is ice-cold. “Something wrong?”

Kelli sighs. “He’s never done it blind. Not without an ultrasound.”

John stares at her. “You did it.”

“I’m a trauma specialist John. Benoit’s a general practitioner.”

John jerks his chin. “Fine. Then you do it.”

She lifts a hand. Trembling. “I’m not the one you want poking a needle in your boy’s chest right now.”

John turns back to Benoît. His fists curl tight, cracking. His breath is sharp in his ears.

Of course, Benoit’s never done it. Of course.

This man, this smug, moralizing prick, was ready to lecture him to hell and back, and now he’s hesitating over the only thing that matters.

John wants to shove him aside. Wants to force Kelli to do it. Hell, do it himself.

But he’s helpless.

All he can do is stand here and let a man he doesn’t trust, who doesn’t even trust himself, try not to kill the only person John can’t lose.

“That line better go in clean,” he says. “Because if it doesn’t, I’m not chalking it up to nerves.”

Benoit shakes his head, contempt curing at his lip.

“You think I’d botch it on purpose? Just to spite you?” He scoffs, spits even.

John stares at him.

“No,” he says, “but you might let a man die.”

Benoît lets out a sharp exhale.

“And what would that do? Punish you?” He tapes down the line. “You think I’m vengeful? Cruel? Like you hm?”

John flexes his fist.

“I think you’ll sleep better pretending you didn’t mean to let him die.”

Benoit rips the casing from a syringe.

“I’m not going to let someone die when I can stop it.” He snaps. “I don’t get to be selective - I took an oath.”

John laughs, bitterly.

“Yeah. So did I.” He spits. “But I don’t pretend mine makes me special.”

Kelli looks at John. Not surprised. Just tired.

“We don’t have time for this,” she says, and nods toward the table. “Someone hold his shoulder.”

“I’ve got it,” Gaz says, stepping in.

Benoit scowls. He mutters and John catches the French: “Where do you find these assholes?”

Kelli throws him a look but says nothing.

She drags a stool toward the table and braces herself against it. She’s swaying slightly, she should be in bed. But she’s here.

If she can’t do the procedure, John needs her close. Needs her eyes on it. Her judgment. Something steady.

Kelli wipes the site. “Shallow angle,” she says. “He’s shifted. Sac might be rotated.”

Benoît adjusts the needle, mutters, “I know.”

John watches him with his jaw clenched. There’s something off. The way Benoît’s hands hover too long.

Kelli’s tone sharpens. “You’re hesitating Benoit.”

“It’s fine.”

She catches the subtle tremble in his wrist. “You’re too medial. You’ll hit the myocardium.”

Benoît frowns, and then, for just a moment, freezes. The pressure spikes on the monitor. Ghost’s pulse alarms.

John steps forward.

Kelli’s hand lands on his forearm. Her touch grounds him, just for a moment. Her warm fingers tethering his panic to something real.

She raises her voice, her tone is calm, commanding but controlled.

She doesn’t take her eyes off Ghost’s chest.

“Focus. Withdraw one millimetre. Re-angle. You’re too steep.”

Benoît swallows. He takes a breath, the follows her instructions.

“Now.”

The needle slides in. Benoit meets resistance. Then there is a soft give.

The collection chamber darkens with blood.

Ghost exhales, a weak, rasping cough.

The monitor steadies.

Kelli exhales slowly. Her shoulders ease a fraction. She drops her hand from his skin.

Benoît glances at the drain, then at the monitor.

“Pericardial pressure’s dropping. We bought him time.”

John should feel relief. Instead, he just feels rage - at Benoît, at the situation, at himself. Ghost nearly died, and it wasn't John's hand that saved him. It was Benoît's. He should be grateful, but he can’t. It galls more than he wants to admit.

Highlights his failure.

“He’s okay?” he asks, low.

Benoît doesn’t answer. He secures the new drain, taping it down with brisk efficiency.

“For now.” Kelli says, looking over at him with that look in her eyes again.

Benoit finally glances over at Kelli.

“You really should be lying down.”

She raises a hand to wave him off, but the movement unbalances her. She stumbles. He moves before he thinks. Hands on her arms, holding her steady.

For a moment, she is near him again, her warmth burning through his gloves. He breathes her in. Too familiar. Too close.

And for half a second, everything else stops.

He almost believes she might lean into it.

Then she shrugs him off.

“I’m fine,” she says, not looking at him, but her face is pale, and her hands are still shaky.

“Here,” Gaz appears next to her, wheeling one of the office chairs over.

Kelli looks over at him, surprise on her face.

“Thanks.” She says slowly, then slumps down next to Ghost. “Didn’t know black ops encouraged thoughtfulness.”

Gaz smiles crookedly.

“It doesn’t,” he says, “but I have experience in keeping stubborn bastards alive.”

Kelli glances at John, her expression inscrutable.

John scowls.

He tries to temper the disappointment that flares in his chest - she shrugs him off but accepts Gaz’s help. The jealousy is juvenile, and he hates that he feels it. He hates that he is being affected by her presence. He hates it because whatever bullshit he is feeling won’t make a difference, but it exists all the same.

Pointless emotion that does nothing except distract him.

“There’s a jerry can out there,” he says, poking his chin toward the back door.

Gaz immediately sharpens.

“Yes,” he exclaims, already moving toward the door. He pulls it open, glances to the right and pauses. When he returns, jerry can in one hand, his mouth is in a thin line.

“We should probably do something about the bodies sir,” he says, his eyes lingering on Benoit, who is once again scowling.

“Negative,” John says, “comms first. Ghost needs that MEDVAC. It won’t be quiet for long - we’re on borrowed time.”

Gaz hesitates for just a moment, but then he nods- “On it,” and hurries toward the generator room.

He doesn’t argue, doesn't moralize, and John thanks whatever God is listening for good men.

He looks down at Ghost’s face, pallid behind the oxygen mask. John would kill for good men. He will kill if he needs to.

He cannot lose another good man.

Kelli is watching him quietly, that expression on her face again. Benoit comes over with a needle.

Kelli shakes her head.

“You need something. “ Benoit insists, “We’ve got morphine, tramadol-”

“No opioids,” Kelli mutters, quietly. “Do we still have some Lidocaine?”

Benoit nods, but his lips are thin. He places the syringe down on one of the metal trays and starts shuffles through a cupboard.

Kelli looks up at John.

“I assume you will be the one cleaning up the bodies then?” she says with a raised eyebrow.

John has known Kelli long enough to know what she’s trying to distract him. He glances over at the syringe.

Refusing the morphine - that’s not about pride. That’s something else. Thats the sort of refusal that comes with history.

John’s seen men twice his size beg for the stuff, just to reprieve the pain. He remembers Kelli’s words at that fucking wedding reception:

“You have no idea what I had to crawl out of.”

He clenches his jaw as the picture finally begins to form in his head. Its none of his business. Not now.

But.

Eyes blown wide, twitchy hands, breathing fast - too fast.

It suddenly seems like all of his business.

“What’s wrong with the morphine Kelli?”

Kelli refuses to meet his eyes.

“Nothing.”

“Then take it.” He says, taking a small step forward. “You’re in pain. I need you focused.”

Kelli glances at him for a moment. Her eyes narrow, just slightly.

“That’s rich.” She says. “You need me focused?”

John’s mouth twists. Distractions.

He nods.

“Focused.” He repeats. “Take it.”

“No.”

John has far bigger problems to deal with. Bigger fish to fry. He still needs to deal with whatever game Rains is playing at, get the generator up, finally contact Laswell for extraction, get Ghost to a goddamn surgeon - everything else is objectively more important.

But for a moment, everything else fades. Doesn’t matter. Just her, sitting there, refusing to tell him the whole story.

Again.

“Why not?”

Kelli says nothing. Refuses to look at him again.

He wants her to say it. To admit it. To trust him with the truth the way he’s trusted her with Ghost’s life. But she won’t. She looks at him like a stranger, and it makes his skin crawl.

John takes a step forward and grasps her chin in his hand. Not hard, not soft, just insistent. Forces her to look at him.

Kelli’s hand snaps up to grasp at his wrist.

He knows it’s a shit thing to do. Knows the second his hands on her, it’s not okay - but he needs to know. Needs something true in a room full of lies.

He barely registers Benoît’s sharp noise of protest.

He bends low. Voice rough. “Why not, Kelli?”

He does not expect the sheer desperation in his voice.

Kelli’s chin raises in his hand.

Her voice is ice - “I’m not one of your suspects, John. Get your fucking hand off me.”

John opens his mouth but then-

A groan.

“Oh shit.”

Rains has jumped away from the butcher, who is writhing sluggishly, blinking in the light of the clinic.

John clenches his jaw.

He looks back down at Kelli. She eyes the butcher, then eyes him.

“You made a deal, John.” She says in a low voice. “No interrogations, no games.”

He releases her.

He made that deal. Not because it was strategic, but because she asked - because he wanted to give her something.

Now? Now he doesn’t want to give her anything.

“I made that deal before three men came to kill us.”

Kelli scoffs.

“You don’t get to move the line because it’s convenient for you.”

“I’ll move the line wherever I damn well please.” He says. He pauses, lowers his voice. “He knew who Ghost was, he called it in because of Ghost. Coincidences like that don’t just happen. I need to know why.”

He should have to justify himself. He doesn't. Not to anyone in this room.

But Kelli - Kelli sees through everything. And maybe that’s why it matters.

“Justify it all you want,” Kelli says, “But I won’t endorse torture.”

They stare at each other for a long moment.

He leans down.

“I don’t need torture to get what I want,” he murmurs in her ear.

He releases her then turns on his heel, takes two steps toward the butcher and kicks his chair.

The man jolts violently, his eyes sharpening in confusion and fear. He lets out a string of muffled and panicked Khazari.

“Welcome back.” John’s voice cuts through the room - louder than intended, edged like a knife. He’s strung too tight, vibrating on adrenaline and fury. He needs - craves- answers to at least one of the questions that’s been bouncing around in his brain over the last hour.

He reaches out and drags the chair to face Ghost body lying prone on the bed. The scrape of metal along the concrete lets out a sharp, uncomfortable screech.

He crouches down near the man’s shoulder, yanks the gag down around his neck and turns his head to the side. Directs him to look at Ghost.

“How do you know that man?”

The Butcher mumbles something unintelligible.

“English.”

The butcher says nothing.

John increases the pressure of his grip, his fingers pressing into the man’s swollen temple.

The butcher hisses, writhes under his hand.

John shoves him deeper into the chair.

He lowers his voice. “Don’t make me ask twice.”

The Butcher looks around. He looks more confused and less angry than he did when John slammed his head into a wall. But that might be the concussion.

He finally speaks: “I don’t understand.”

John hums. His patience is already wearing thin, but he can’t lose control. He needs to remain methodical, focused. Fear is the tool, pain only confounds - a man will say anything to end the pain. A man will tell the truth if he trusts you will do what you say you will do.

He leans closer.

“This is your first and only warning - don’t play those games with me,” he says, “ask your medic friends -” he gestures to Kelli and Benoit. Kelli is watching him intently. Benoit is very deliberately busying himself with Ghost’s drain. “- I’m a very dangerous man, with a very short fuse and I don’t have time lies.”

He leans in.

“How do you know that man?”

The butcher shakes his head. “I don’t-I’ve never seen him before.” His accent’s thicker now, panic setting in.

John sighs.

“Fine.” He says and drags the man up by the scuff of his neck.

“John.” Kelli stands. John ignores her. He shoves the Butcher forward, through the curtain separating the front and back rooms.

The butcher stumbles, gets tangled in the curtain. He trips and falls forward. He lets out a pained oof as his shoulder hits hard on the concrete, his hands still restrained by the zip tie.

John sees the panic in his eyes as he clocks the dead soldiers. He rolls onto his back and stares up at him in fear. It a long way from the fury of the fight, but John assumes he feels less confident now he’s tied up and surrounded by dead men.

“Please,” the Butcher begs, “I have a wife -.”

John sneers.

“Bullshit.” He crouches. Grabs his chin, forces his gaze toward the body with the ruined face. “That’s your future, unless you start talking.”

“I can’t tell you what I don’t know!”

John sighs.

He draws his combat knife and slides it up under the butcher’s linen shirt. The fabric tears with a sharp, deliberate rip.

The man writhes, panicked.

John stands, presses a boot down on his chest, on the mottled bruise forming over his ribcage.

The butcher cries out, breathy,

“Last chance,” John says coldly. He steels himself for what he will have to do if the butcher still doesn’t crack. A dark part of him exhales, the part of him he keeps on a tight, unbreakable leash. The part that craves an outlet.

The butcher stares up at him in fear, but there is anger, defiance, lacing his gaze. Perhaps not as cowardly as John first thought.

He tongues his front teeth.

“Fine.”

Before he can move, there is a noise behind him, and the Butcher’s gaze flicks to the back room. John knows, he fucking knows, Kelli is behind him.

“Get out.” He says, without looking.

She appears beside him, glances at the knife in his hand. Then she meets his gaze and something in his eyes makes him pause. She does not look angry, or disgusted, or any of the emotions he might have expected from her.

She just looks focused.

“I thought you said you didn’t need torture to get what you want.”

“Get out,” he repeats.

“I’m not going to let you do this.” She says. Her tone is hard, final, but John is not about to let her stop him from getting what he needs.

“Don’t make me tie you up too.” He says, his voice low.

Kelli scoffs lightly.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep John.”

The comment throws him for half a second, and it’s just enough for Kelli to crouch before he can stop her.

“Arman,” she says, calm, low, but not hesitant.

The Butcher flinches when she wipes a sweaty strand of dark hair off his forehead.

She starts talking to him in Khazari. John clenches the knife in his hand.

“Kelli,” John says, a warning. He’s not entirely sure what game she’s playing, but if he’s been thrown for a loop then the Butcher looks like he’s been dropped off a fucking cliff.

The Butcher stares at Kelli, opens his mouth a few times, like a fish dropped onto the beach.

“I-I-” he swallows, then stutters out a string of Khazari.

Kelli replies. The butcher spits.

John makes out the word ‘bitch’.

Kelli cocks her head, she smiles mildly, seemingly unperturbed by the insult. She presses a finger to a small line of scar tissue on his shoulder, mutters something and raises an eyebrow.

The butcher hesitates, his face relaxes for a moment, then pulls into something resembling capitulation.

He glances up at John.

“I don’t know that man,” he says, English now. “I called because of him-” his gaze moves to the curtain separating the front and back rooms. “-the Ghost.”

John and Kelli both turn to look.

Rains is peering between them, watching them both.

At the butcher’s words his eyes widen, and he ducks out of view.

John turns back to the Butcher.

“Explain,” he growls. “Quickly.”

The Butcher hesitates. One glance at Kelli, then back to John.

“I saw him skulking around,” he says, “before, with the other soldier - the Afrīqī. I’ve seen him before. He worked with us.”

“Us?”

“The resistance.”

Kelli scoffs.

“The coup you mean.” She says.

The Butcher scowls, somehow defiant on this, despite it all.

“President Haidar doesn’t care about his people,” he says.

“And the General does?”

The Butcher lifts his chin. “The General is for the people.”

Kelli huffs out a laugh.

“Sure,” she says. “That’s why he bombs schools and blames it on Haidar. The General is for himself.”

The Butcher spits.

“Haidar murdered my wife,” he says, “my child.”

There is silence. For a moment Kelli looks stricken.

John wishes he cared more about the Butcher’s tragic backstory - but he doesn’t. There’s no time for it. No time for any of this.

All Intel points toward the general as being as bloodthirsty and power hungry as Haidar. Both are banal, evil men, after nothing except their own ends - but that detail on Rains? That mission-critical, omitted detail?

That makes his blood curdle.

He leans closer. “What did Rains do?”

The butcher coughs.

“I don’t know,” he says, “but he came through here. Not often. Never stayed. Always at night - like a Ghost.”

At the name, John’s eyes flick to Kelli. She looks just as thrown - brows pinched, mouth parted. That lands as a relief. If she’d known and kept it quiet… he’s not sure what he would’ve done.

But then she leans back on her heels.

“Wait.” She says slowly. “Ghost, as in the Ghost?”

John doesn’t speak. Just watches her. Whatever she’s piecing together, he doesn’t like being three steps behind. It needles at him. Sharpens the anger that’s already crawling under his skin.

The butcher stares at her, after a long moment he nods.

“Fuck.”

She stands, paces across the room.

“Kelli.” John rises, voice low. His eyes follow her, narrowed. “What do you know?”

She turns to him. Her teeth are clenched; her brows pinched in anger. She looks furious.

“That motherfucker lied to my face,” she says.

John steps in. Slides his knife back into its sheath with more force than needed.

“Kelli.” His tone hardens. “Tell me.”

“The Ghost.” She says, her breath hitching slightly. “It was just a rumour, stories from the outer villagers when I went on rounds. Like Arman said, came through villages. Locals started called him the Ghost because bad things followed him - soldiers, fires, disappearances. Not always right away. But always.”

John folds his arms. The motion is tight, rigid.

“You’re telling me Rains worked for the general. This whole time.”

Kelli shrugs, bitter.

“Apparently so.” She glances toward the back room, like she could burn a hole through the wall.

Rain must be hearing all this.

She lowers her voice. “Didn’t come up on your intel?

John runs a hand over his chin, jaw clenched. It does nothing to cool the heat burning behind his sternum.

“Just said he was an intel runner. Confirmed eyes on the weapons transfer. That’s all Laswell gave me.”

Kelli huffs a dry, mirthless laugh.

“Understatement of the century.”

She shakes her head, jaw tightening.

“I knew something was off. First time he showed up here with knife wound. Didn’t say who hit him. Second time, a burn. Claimed it was cooking fuel. Told him to be more careful.”

She exhales, loud and shaky.

“Christ. I should’ve asked more questions.” Her hands go to her hips, but it’s a defensive stance now. “I shouldn’t have helped him.”

John steps in, voice low and clipped, not calm, exactly, but quieter.

“That’s your job. Doesn’t mean it’s clean.”

Kelli lifts her gaze. Her look is flat. Dry. She looks around the room - the bodies, the Butcher still slumped and watching them with dried blood on his cheek.

“Yeah,” she mutters. “And look how that turned out.”

John doesn’t argue. He doesn’t have it in him. He just stands there, jaw tight. He presses a thumb to the scar on his knuckle, counting seconds. He has to calm himself down before he confronts Rains. He’s running so hot, it’s a wonder he hasn’t set anything alight yet.

He though Benoit was the worst of it, but now Rains is a worse war criminal than he is, and Kelli is looking at him like she’s about to have another go.

He needs to calm the fuck down.

“Would you have done it John?” She asks, gesturing to the butcher. “How long would you have gone before accepting Arman didn’t know who Ghost was?”

John shrugs, guarded. He tries to breathe.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

Her voice cuts clean, it’s not loud, but sharp enough to hurt.

“It’s irrelevant,” he says, “especially right now.”

He tries to step past her, but Kelli blocks him.

“Don’t-”

Kelli’s voice lowers. “Is that really who you want to be?”

John feels the spike in his chest. Heat, twisted with shame and defiance.

“It’s who I’ve always been.”

“Bullshit.” She spits the word. “You used to know where the line was. You used to care when you crossed it. You used to tell me yourself, just how important it was.”

John lets out a low, humourless laugh.

“You don’t know who I am anymore, Kelli. It’s been ten years.”

She moves even closer, too close, close enough for him to feel her heat. He hates that his body reacts before his brain can stop it.

“People don’t change that much, John,” she says. “Not unless they’re trying to forget.” A pause, a glance away. “Trust me, I know.”

He doesn’t respond, just breathes. Tries to temper the strange mixture of fear, anger and heat that coalesces inside his veins. Maybe he is trying to forget.

“You don’t scare me, you know,” she continues, peering up at him with those bright blue eyes, “Never have. 10 years, 20 years, I’d still know you.”

She studies his face, slow, deliberate. Like she’s trying to read something buried behind the scowl and the beard and the decade of ghosts.

“You’re the man that comforted my mum for hours at dad’s funeral, who respected me, backed me, when every other prick just saw a pair of tits-” she pauses, “Who didn’t take advantage of me when I threw myself at him.”

John’s lets out a low breath.

It should make him feel good, proud maybe. But all it does is remind him of how far he has fallen.

“Who ignored Mullen’s bullshit - let you drown,” he reminds her,” who ghosted you for 5 years because I was so fucking angry at you I stopped knowing what it was to feel. Who tore you down in Zanzibar because I was jealous of that fucking fiancé you fished out of a Harrods catalogue.”

It’s probably the most honest with her he’s been since they first met.

Kelli’s breath hitches, but her gaze is still strong. She laughs softly.

“You want to frighten everyone else into thinking you’re cold. Unshakable. But I know what it looks like when you're scared. And this? I don’t for a second think it’s really about me, but-”

She lifts a hand, almost touches his chest, then thinks better of it.

“-this looks a hell of a lot like fear.”

John swallows thickly.

For a moment, just a breath, he lets himself imagine if he just let go. Imagines if he closed the space between them.

Grabbed the hand that almost touched him.

Kissed her.

Maybe it would fix something. Maybe it wouldn’t. She might punch him again. But it would feel like something real.

Like the man he used to be, the one she still swears is under there - like fool.

Because she’s foolish if she really thinks nothing changed. So much is still the same - the same want, the same pull, he’s never felt the need to orbit someone as much as he feels it with Kelli Purcell. And sure, he cares about the line. Grapples with it every damn day. He tries so damned hard for his violence to have a point, to mean something.

But he is a stubborn man.

Despite what she thinks - he is cold, he is ruthless, and he is broken.

And the only thing he really has left in the world that he inhabits - not the civilian world where he is not welcome, where he is a freak, a spectre - is the men around him.

The men that stand by him.

That trust him to lead them.

He has changed because he needed to. It can’t be helped.

And Kelli - well like always, she distracts.

“Tell me,” he says, voice turned to grit. “If people don’t change, does that mean you’re still not going to tell me the truth?”

Her expression flickers. A crack in the armour.

“Don’t-”

“No?” He lowers his voice, doesn't let her speak. “You were happy enough to let me bleed out in 2010 without a fucking word about what you were using to get through the day. Was that righteous, too?”

Her mouth opens, but nothing comes out.

The silence hangs - scorched earth between them.

“I don’t need this.” John says. He doesn’t mean to say it out loud.

He pushes past her. Doesn’t wait to see if she follows, doesn’t care. His hands are fists, his jaw like iron. He wants to scream. He wants to lash out so hard that something breaks. But he can’t do that. He can’t even take it out on the Butcher - despite what Benoit might think, he’s a soldier, not a thug. Fear and violence are a tool. The Frenchman is probably right, maybe he’s a psychopath - at least he is a principled psychopath.

But his ears are ringing. His vision has that hard, narrow focus - like he’s back in that subway, Soap’s blood on his gloves.

He shoves the curtain aside.

Rains is standing too close to the medical gear. Like he thinks proximity to Ghost might earn him absolution.

John stops just short of him.

“Think very carefully about the next thing that comes out of your mouth.”

Rains blinks. Freezes.

“I-what?”

“How long did you think you could get away with lying to me?”

“I don’t-”

“Don’t play stupid,” John snarls. “That man-” he jabs a finger toward Ghost, “-is dying because you didn’t think we needed the full story.”

“I didn’t know they’d find us-”

“But you knew what you were,” John says. “You knew what you were running from. What would follow you. Didn’t you?” Rains says nothing. John grabs him by the collar and slams him up against the wall.

“Didn’t you!”

Rains sucks in breath like he’s been winded.

“I was trying to make it right.” He wheezes. “I defected. I told Laswell what mattered-”

“No. You told her just enough.”

John’s voice is low now. Cold. Measured.

“That’s your gift, right? Knowing where the line is. Stopping just short of it. Letting someone else take the fucking hit.”

The rage surges in John’s chest and before he can stop himself, he steps back, just enough space to draw his sidearm.

He raises it, presses it against Rains’ forehead.

The world sharpens. Time slows.

He shouldn’t be doing this. He knows that. But knowing doesn’t stop it.

Rains doesn’t move.

“John.” Kelli says, her voice somewhere to his left. “He’s not worth it.”

John sniffs. He doesn’t look at her. He’s not entirely convinced he wouldn't point it at her if he did.

“I know.”

He doesn’t move. The weight of the pistol feels natural. Comforting.

But in the space between breath and trigger, he sees Soap. Sees him laughing at something stupid. Sees him rolling his eyes at one of Ghost’s god-awful dad jokes. Sees him snarling at Makarov in the fucking helicopter when they all got played for fools, begging John to let him do it.

“But Ghost is.”

The entire room holds its breath.

Rains presses his eyes shut.

Ghost’s monitor ticks on and John’s heart thunders in his chest.

Then-

The roar of the generator kicks like thunder. A second later, the comms crackle to life, broken static resolving into a voice.

“Bravo, this is Laswell. How copy?”

Everyone jumps.

Her voice is low, tight. Controlled, but John knows Kate too well to miss the tension underneath.

He doesn’t take his eyes off Rains, who’s still pressed against the wall, pale and shaking. John waits a beat. Then lowers the pistol. Doesn’t holster it.

“Kate.” He says.

There is a pause.

“John, thank God.” The relief in her voice is palpable. She only uses his name like that when it’s personal. “Talk to me.”

“We’ve still got the asset,” he says. “And Ghost is alive. Barely.”

“I heard. You alright?”

“Fine.”

“Doesn’t sound like it.”

“Doesn’t matter.” His eyes lock on Rains. “We’ve got what you need. That’s what matters.”

Laswell is silent for a moment. Her voice shifts.

“I’ve got your position confirmed.” She pauses. “But you’re not going to like this, John. General’s men are en route. Ten-plus, moving fast. Thirty minutes, max.”

John’s jaw tightens. He glances at Ghost, then at Kelli - who’s staring at Rains like she might throttle him herself.

“Copy,” he says. His voice is flat. Controlled. “Can you get evac to our position?”

There’s a pause on the line. Laswell sighs, low and grim.

“Negative. Closest bird’s out of range. They won’t make it in time.”

That lands hard. John's stomach goes cold.

Silence stretches. The room is heavy as John can feel the weight of everyone’s eyes on him.

“Then we buy time.”

Chapter Text

Zanzibar City, Zanzibar, 2018

Humid air rolls lazily from the ceiling fan, just enough to stick John’s shirt to the back of his neck. The room smells faintly of aftershave and pressed linen, but he can still feel the grime on his skin, gun oil and blood. Twenty four hours ago he was flying out of some Urzikstani FOB. Now, he’s at a beach resort - all turquoise water and postcard sand.

When Black had first told him he and Emma were splurging on a destination Zanzibar wedding, John had thought they were barking mad, but now that he’s here, its actually pretty nice.

Almost nice enough for him to relax.

Almost.

He sits back in the plush yellow lounge chair and fidgets with the cufflinks Black gave him the night before - polished silver, inlaid with a small blue stone. Sapphire. John’s eye is not the most discerning, but they look nice. It feels nice too - to be given a gift, as if he’s actually done anything the help with the wedding. But Black had insisted - “the fact that you’re even here is all I care about mate.”

John’s tried to not to let the guilt simmer, but it does all the same.

He glances across the room. Opposite him, Johnny wrestles with a tie, forming it into something vaguely resembling a Windsor knot, his tongue sticking out like he does when hes trying to rig up a particularly difficult explosive.

Black’s leans back in his wheelchair with a drink. Whats left of his legs sticks out from beneath the kilt. Bare, but ready for the carbon fibre - his ‘dress legs’. He smirks at Johnny in the mirror.

Johnny scowls. “Enjoying the show?”

“Always enjoy watching you struggle Shampoo.” Black says. “But it makes me wonder how you ever passed uniform.”

Johnny glances at him in the mirror, smirks. “Guess Cap had a soft spot for me.”

Black scoffs. “Doubt that. John’s never been nice to a greenie in his life.”

John lets out a soft snort. He remembers first meeting Johnny when he was twelve. Back then, he was just Black’s cousin from the Highlands, the cheeky kid who followed them around like a stray dog.

Always asking questions. Always talking about joining up.

John had seen it plenty of times before - that look. The look the young guys got when the job for into their bloodstream before they were old enough to vote.

John knows that he had the same look, the same determination.

“I felt bad for you Johnny.” He says, letting his hands fall back onto the armrests, “Seemed a waste of talent to fail you on your tie.”

Johnny pouts, but there’s nothing in it, just that feral cheekiness he’s always had, ever since John trained him during selection.

The kid was a natural, even then. The kind of candidate that any evaluator dreamed of scoring - scary good. John had driven him hard, partly to shape him but partly because he wanted to see if he’d break.

He hadn’t.

Johnny fiddles a little bit more before John stands. “Need a hand?”

Johnny hesitate but then sighs and whips the tie over his head and tosses it to John. “Please don’t tell the lads you had to help me with my tie.”

John catches it, untangling the mess and stepping over.

“Wouldn’t dream of it Johnny,” he says, his mouth quirking. “Only thing more embarrassing than that would be not knowing how to do it in the first place.”

Johnny rolls his eyes. “I don’t attends as many soirees as you COs do,” he says. “Or dress up for my dates.”

John draws in a breath as he ties the blue silk around Johnny’s collar. Feels it catch halfway down.

“No harm in making an effort,” he says, gruff. He finishes the knot off, gives Johnny a pat and steps back. “Wouldn’t dream of letting you go out there looking like that. Think of Emma’s photos.”

Black grins.

“Speaking of-” Black whips his wheelchair round. “- John, I need you to keep an eye on Alistair. For the photos, speeches, cake cutting - all that crap. He’s not stopped drinking since he landed. ”

John watches Black carefully. “That bad?”

What little John knows about Emma’s brother is that he’s a bootneck, he drinks more than him, Johnny and Black combined, and that Black doesn’t like him. Emma’s parents and grandparents are all dead so he’s also the only immediate family that she has at the wedding.

Black shrugs, he takes a deceptive sip of his drink, but John knows hes reigning it in. “Emma wants him in the pictures. If he disappears, she’ll notice. If he face-plants, she’ll notice. If he makes a fuss, she’ll notice. Easier if you make sure she doesn’t.”

John nods. He can hear the weight behind Black’s voice. He also hears what Black doesn’t say - that Alistair might require a heavier hand.

Johnny looks up from fussing with his shirt cuff. “Better you than me, Cap. Last time I tried to keep a drunk bootneck upright, he nearly flattened me.”

Black snorts. “That’s because you’ve got no weight Shampoo. Takes someone meaner than you to keep a Marine on his feet.”

“Should give him to the bridesmaids then,” Johnny says. “You know Kelli asked me if I lost a fight with a lawn mower.”

Black bursts out laughing. Johnny’s eccentricity has never been a secret - John supposes he’s a Black-MacTavish after all - but he’s always had to keep things reigned in during training. The day after his promotion, he rocked up to base sporting a fucking Mohawk of all things. Basically dared Halford to sanction him.

John grins at the memory and the quip, but it feels tight. His brain catches involuntarily on her name.

Black had told him about Kelli being maid of honour a year ago, at the same time as he asked John to be his best man. The way Black had looked at him back them had seemed like a question, but John was confident - he wasn’t about to let Black down, and it had been eight years. Eight years since that fucking mission. Eight years of getting over it - even if he’s not fully convinced he has. Eight years of letting memory fade into the back of his mind.

He’d never brought her up to his old therapist, even though Jess hounded him about it. But he was confident it didn’t matter. She barely featured in his mind anymore, not like she used to.

He clenches his jaw; he can survive one weekend.

Black nods at Johnny, gesturing over at his dress shirt, rumpled on a coat hanger. “Give that an iron would you?”

Johnny mock curtsies. “Yes, your majesty.”

John tracks over to the balcony, gazes out and takes a breath.

He doesn’t remember the last time he stood still without scanning a horizon. The view’s a nice change from rooftops and kill zones, but he’s still clocking angles and exits by reflex.

He flexes his hand, consciously redirects his thoughts - it’s not the time. His best mate is getting married to the girl of his dreams, on a beach with perfect weather and a stocked bar. It’s been a long time coming, would have come sooner, if Black hadn’t been caught in another IED blast.

That time, he didn’t walk it off. Not like the last time.

Black says he likes the wheelchair, like being a battering ram, likes finally living up to his nickname. He wears the legs too. Competed in the Invictus Games last year - even met Prince Harry. He smiles like nothings been taken.

John’s not sure he believes that, but he is happy Black’s found some kind of peace. Someone he knows should be able to make it out, even if he didn’t make it out whole.

The fan squeaks again. Same beat. John fiddles with his watch. Checks the time, an hour still until the ceremony.

Johnny flaps out the dress shirt, examining it with the same focus he does when defusing a bomb.

Black licks his top lip. “Missed a spot Shampoo.”

Johnny drops the shirt on the ironing board and tosses the empty coat hanger at Black. “Shove off.”

Black retaliates by flicking the yellow umbrella in his drink at him.

“I’m getting married Shampoo,” Black says, “You gotta make sure I look good. That’s your job.”

“Nah mate, that’s Cap’s job,” Johnny says, steaming the shirt again. “That’s why you stand next to him. If you stood next to me, it’d be over. Everyone knows I’m the hotter cousin.”

Black raises an eyebrow. “Hotter to who exactly? You’ve got the bone structure of a collapsed tent.”

Johnny hooks the dress shirt on the hanger. He examines it closely.

“Some chicks are into that.”

“Oh yes?” Black says. “And where are these chicks?”

Johnny side-eyes Black with a sly grin.

“All I’ll says is that Emma’s got good taste in friends.”

Black levels a look at Johnny. “None of them are interested in you - I 100% guarantee it.”

Johnny pouts. “What is the point of being a groomsman if I can’t get in with a bridesmaid?” Then he grins and John knows him well enough to know hes being deliberately stupid. “Ain’t that right Cap?”

John clenches his jaw. He’s confident he will be able to manage being back in Kelli’s orbit for one weekend, but he could probably do without Johnny putting thoughts in his head.

He’s tried to find someone. Dates, dinners, fleeting things that never lasted.

He knows he’s got a lot working against him - his schedule, the way he can be blunt to the point of rudeness, the dawning realisation that when people ask about his hobbies, all he has is reading and the gym.

But mostly, it’s that he can’t seem to connect meaningfully with anyone who hasn’t been shot at at least once.

“If I wanted to get fucked I would have stayed at work.”

Both Johnny and Black laugh.

“Too fucking true,” Johnny says with a sigh. “Got your speech done at least?”

“It’s getting there.” John says flatly.

“You were saying that in Ramandi,” Johnny says. “Not much time left.”

John rolls his eyes.

He’s been telling himself he’d get it done. Working on it for months, in between the missions and flights and constant distractions. Normally, he’d barely blink at the idea of speaking in front of a crowd - hes briefed hundreds of solders, presented intelligence reports to some of the top brass in the country. Hell, he was once brought in to sell enlistment to a gymnasium of rowdy teenagers. But that was work. This is personal.

There is so much he thinks he could say, to and about Black, and yet the words get tied up in his pen. He’s spent most of the time staring at a blank page, wondering if he’d always been so inept at telling people how he feels.

He has. He knows this.

Thats why Black’s getting married and he isn’t.

Johns phone buzzes in his pocket, a short, abrupt vibration that sets him on edge. A small spike of adrenaline pulses in his chest before he even checks the screen. He leans over to grab it from his pocket and glances at the message. A simple: call me.

Halford.

“Work?” Black is watching him carefully.

John nods. “It’s nothing,” he says automatically, but he’s already standing, phone in his hand.

Black peers at him over his sunglasses. “It’s my wedding day mate. The world ain’t gonna stop spinning if you don’t reply.”

“You know that’s not how it works,” John says, his voice flat. He slips the spare key care from the table. “Be right back, promise.”

Black exhales, annoyed but not surprised. “Tell Halford to fuck off.”

John doesn’t answer. He’s already halfway down the hall.

The air outside of his room is only marginally cooler, but he feels the relief of it anyway.

His shirt sticks to his back. He forces himself to slow down, to count steps and focus on something tactile as he heads out to the small balcony at the end of the hallway. From here, he can see the western sweep of the resort grounds - sunstruck beach, white chairs lined for the ceremony.

His phone buzzes again. He looks down: when you can.

John clears his throat. He dials Halford’s number. It picks up on the first ring.

“Price.” he says, his voice tired. “That was quick.”

“Would you like me to hang up and wait five minutes?”

Halford laughs. “No. Just need you to confirm the asset movement from Urzikstan - Kola team says Bravo still has the sat intel? The paperwork your guy submitted is a bit unclear.”

John sighs. For not the first time he wishes his lads were as good at reports as they were at extracting targets. He rattles off the details from memory, short and clipped. Quiet. It’s urgent enough that he doesn’t blame Halford for messaging him. It would irritate him more, like it does Black, if it wasn’t just how things are.

“Thanks.” Halford says, once hes done. “Give Black my congratulations.”

“Will do Sir.”

He ends the call.

He leans his head back against the plaster. The wall is cool against his scalp. The breeze from the beach below tickles along his nape. He takes a long breath. As annoying as it is, the phone call grounds him. The questions are familiar.

There is a click. John glances back into the hallway. The door closest to him opens.

And for the first time in eight long years, he sees Kelli Purcell in the flesh.

He freezes.

His breath stalls in his throat. A pulse of heat moves through his chest like a shot fired point-blank.

His hand tightens around his phone, knuckles whitening.

She’s barefoot. A soft linen robe knotted at the waist, sunglasses perched in her hair. Her hair’s grown out past her shoulders. Its been done up for the wedding. It looks wrong, it looks right. He hates that he notices. Hates that he thinks it looks good. Thinks she looks good.

Her eyes are downcast as she raises her phone up to her ear.

“Arne?” She says, “Yes, a donor match? When?… No, I understand, but you need to keep him on the list… Yes, even with the infection risk.”

Her voice is low, clipped. Christ he forgot how lyrical the accent made her sound. She always got shit for it, typical banter, but John had secretly liked it, at least on her. Theres an urgency to it now. Shes got the tone of someone who’s had to argue for a patient too many times.

He doesn’t mean to eavesdrop. He’s just stuck.

Theres no way to return the way he came without crossing her path and beyond simply not wanting to do it, interrupting her during a call like this feels wrong.

His whole body feels like it’s on a hair-trigger. Muscles taut, breath shallow. His feet won’t move. His brain screams at him to get a grip, but his body isn’t listening.

He stares down at the railing, jaw tight, the old awkwardness pulling taut under his skin.

“…Yes. I’ll send the documentation tomorrow. Please keep me updated.”

A pause. Then her tone softens, almost imperceptibly. “Thank you Arne.”

The call ends. She exhales, shoulders dropping just slightly. She turns to look out at the beach-

And freezes when she sees him on the balcony.

Their eyes meet.

Clear and blue. The same colour as the water below - bright, inviting, and a little cruel.

His breath stutters before he catches it. And for a second he can sees it hit her too.

She draws in a sharp, reflexive breath. Her fingers tighten around her phone. Her stance shifts, bracing.

John pushes off the railing. His instincts are screaming conflicting orders: move, don’t move. Speak, don’t.

“Didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”

His voice comes out rougher than he intends.

She swallows, the movement sharp in the stillness between them. She glances down at the phone in his hand.

“Work?”

He nods. Can’t seem to form a word. His jaw flexes again.

She licks her lips. Her weight shifts.

He sees the way she crosses one arm lightly over her middle - a casual gesture, but not really. A hold. A self-soothing gesture.

The kind she used to do after field ops, before the adrenaline wore off.

Shit.

He doesn’t move. Just stares.

His heart’s pounding so hard he can feel it in his fingertips.

He knows it’s strange, knows he’s holding himself too still, knows he should just leave.

They have nothing to say to each other.

And yet-

Hes dreamed of this moment in a thousand different ways and each of them pales in comparison to the woman standing before him. In the flesh. Real.

Not a memory. Not a hallucination. Not a ghost.

Kelli shifts her weight. “It’s good to see you, John.”

He lets out a short, dry laugh. “Sure.”

“How are you?”

“Fine.”

He shifts his stance, tries to relax his shoulders, but everything feels tight - compressed. His fingers twitch like they want to reach for something but don’t know what.

Kelli watches him with an expression he can’t quite decipher.

But her jaw is tight. Her breathing a little shallow. He knuckles are still pale from clutching her phone.

She’s holding it together, maybe just barely. Like he is.

The silence stretches.

Finally, she nods. “See you at the ceremony,” she says, giving him one last look before she turns back to the door.

John stays rooted to the spot, staring down at the beach.

His chest still tight. His hand still gripping the phone like it’s something solid to hold onto.

Every lie he told himself turns to shredded ribbons inside his head.

He’s fucked.

————————————

The ceremony is good, even to his utilitarian eye. The sky is clear and the soft ocean breeze takes the edge off the temperature. Orange and white tropical flowers decorate the wide wooden deck that extends from the resort and onto the beach.

He’d been glad at first he didn’t have to walk in with Kelli. But standing up front, watching her come down the aisle - it hits harder than he’d expected. Too close to the pictures he thought he’d burned out of his head. Only in those, she wasn’t scanning the crowd for her boyfriend. Wasn’t smiling at another man like that.

John keeps an eye on Alistair, passes Black a handkerchief, hauls Johnny into line. Keeps his focus anywhere but her. Keeps it on Emma instead, as she comes down - safer that way.

When it’s over, he claps and cheers with everyone else. Happy, but something feels off. He pushes it down.

The photographer is already barking instructions by the time John makes it onto the sand. Black’s in full Highland dress - kilt, sporran, jacket sharp enough to cut rope. Even the prosthetics have had a polish, carbon-fibre shining under the hem like they’re part of the uniform.

The effect is a bit disjointed against the tropical backdrop, but Black’s never cared.

John’s had enough sand for a lifetime. Dry, rough, always stinks of gunfire. But it represented something else for Black - childhood summers, holidays in Spain, the night he proposed to Emma.

So John tries to ignore how Kelli’s laughter drifts into his ear, and instead focuses on making sure Black is comfortable on the sand.

The light is just starting to go golden and the photographer is salivating over it.

She fans everyone out in a careful mess of colour - groomsmen on one side, bridesmaids on the other, Black and Emma in the middle.

“Right,” she says, “best man and maid of honour, you next. Get in close, Arms round each other.”

John freezes. He feels Kelli hesitate too, just a fractional pause.

The photographer waves impatiently. “Come on folks, its not a firing squad yeah? Look like you like each other.”

John forces himself forward. The sand is hot on his feet. He may never forgive Black for making him take his shoes of for a photo.

He steps in beside Kelli, sets his hand just below her shoulder blade. Doesn’t quite touch the linen. Feels the heat. The muscle tight under his palm - not from posing, he’d bet. Her perfume’s something light, citrus under salt. His chest tightens.

Kelli doesn’t look at him. She just tilts her head toward the lens with the polite smile of someone determined not to show her teeth. He can feel the heat radiating off her shoulder into his palm, the faintest shift in her stance when the photographer makes them squeeze in closer.

“One more!” the woman calls. “Hold it-yes, that’s good.”

The shutter clicks in quick succession. John lets go the moment they’re released, stepping back before the sand can swallow him whole.

“Alright, now big family group,” the photographer announces. “Bride’s family first, please.”

John watches from the side as Emma’s family gathers in, herded by Kelli. Emma put her in green. Brings out her eyes. Still tall, still solid, but softer now. Civilian. He doesn’t like that he notices.

John flexes his hands.

He didn’t expect it to hit this hard. Like nothing’s changed. Like everything has. He doesn’t have a name for the feeling.

The photographer’s sigh cuts through the noise. “We’re missing the brother.”

John blinks. Shit. Black doesn’t say a word, but when John glances over, he’s wearing a look that says everything.

John tears his eyes away from Kelli and scans the crowd. Sure enough, Alistair is staggering off toward the bar, half a bottle already in hand. John might have heard the stories about Alistair, but if he’s honest with himself, he didn’t really think the prick would be quite as brazen as to immediately get wasted at his sister’s wedding.

“Fuck’s sake.”

John strides over, clamps a hand on his elbow before he can vanish into the resort. “You’re up, Alistair. Pictures first, pint after.”

Alistair jerks against his grip, eyes bleary but sharp enough to take him in. “Christ. It’s Captain fucking Price.” He says the name like hes half awed half pissed. “Didn’t think Emma’s big day came with a bloody Hereford delegation.”

“No one’s on duty here Alistair,” John says hauling him back toward the sand, jaw tight.

Alistair barks a laugh that curdles into a cough. He doesn’t make it easy to drag him - he must be an inch taller, probably a touch heavier. “Is that right?” He leans in closer than he needs to, breath reeking of whisky. “I’ve heard about you Captain. Always on. Always the officer with the answers.” His eyes glint, mean but knowing. “Bet you’re not half as tidy when no one’s looking.”

John clamps down harder, steering him into place. “Shut it.”

Alistair smirks faintly, like he’s scored a point. “Aye. Thought so.”

John pushes him forward. “’s not about me mate - don’t ruin your sister’s wedding by getting wasted before the cake yeah.”

“You threatening me Price?”

John tightens his grip and mutters in Alistair’s ear. “You tell me Ronan.”

Alistair lets out a wry chuckle. “Emma already hates me mate,” he says, suddenly sounding perfectly sober. “Don’t even know why she invited me.”

John doesn’t really know what to say to that, so he just pushes Alistair toward the group again.

But Alistair’s tone troubles him. He knows the tone of a man who believes he has nothing to lose, even if that man is wrong. He also knows the tone of a man who thinks of himself as worthless - a void of emotion hidden under layers of bravado.

John suddenly realises that Black didn’t just assign him Alistair just because they’re both the biggest men at the wedding.

Its because Black knows he would get it.

He clenches his teeth.

By the time John gets Alistair slotted into the photo, the family’s arranged and smiling. Alistair sways but holds. Emma beams, seeming none the wiser.

John should feel relief at having done his part, even if he can now understand exactly why Black doesn’t like the fucker.

Instead, all he feels is the weight of it: everyone doing their share to hold the day together. Emma carrying her family, Black carrying Emma.

And him. Holding the line where he’s told. Pretending it doesn’t matter that Kelli’s three steps away, smiling at someone else.

————————————

Sunset throws the water gold and orange. Tiki lights strung over the deck. Black manic family laughs and cheers as they arrive back from their photos down on the beach.

John smiles.

Not at ease. But the best he’s managed in weeks. The beer has taken the edge off, and now he can get more. His best mate’s married, he’s survived close to an hour of photos standing near Kelli without combusting.

He’s annoyed with himself for it - that low pulse that ignores time, reason.

He pushes it down, the same way he’s been pushing it down for eight years.

Lot of good that’s done him.

He focuses on something, anything else. Grilled fish from the bar grill makes his stomach twist with hunger. He hasn’t eaten since breakfast.

The air has cooled, a breeze from the beach floating across the sand and into the outdoor function area. John picks at his shirt but it sticks less. As he enters, he clocks the exits without thinking.

The waiter directs him and Johnny to the wedding party table. John stops. Hand on the back of a chair. His name placard stares back at him.

Directly across from him is Kelli.

Shes gazing up at her boyfriend - a skinny guy in a black suit that looks half a size too small. David. A podiatrist from Sheffield. That’s what Black said. The prick wipes something from her shoulder, kisses her hair, pulls out her chair. He looks like she cut him out of a Harrods catalogue.

It turns his stomach. Not just because he tell himself that he hates them both.

They both glance up as his chair scrapes against the wooden deck. For some inexplicably stupid reason David’s face lights up and he circles to John’s side before Kelli can stop him, hand already out.

“You must be John Price?”

Firm grip. John returns it without thinking.

“David,” he adds, “Kelli’s boyfriend. Didn’t catch you last night.”

“Got in late,” he grunts.

David gives him a quick once over, puffs his own chest out. But the way he’s looking at him is less as a threat and more appreciative - like he and John share something by virtue of being men.

“Kell’s told me a lot about you.” David nods. “Always looking out for her in Afghanistan, right?”

Kelli half chokes on her Sauvignon Blanc.

John lets go of his hand.

“We didn’t work together so much, but sure,” he says. At least the lie comes easy.

Johnny peers at them both with a mouth full of bread. He’s wasted no time in diving into the table rolls - John doesn’t blame him. He’s starving.

“Wait, you worked together?” he says, sounding both surprised and in awe. He gives Kelli a once over that John knows he thinks is subtle. “You were in the army?”

Kelli cocks her head at him.

“Is that hard to believe for some reason?” she says.

Johnny shrugs.

“Not that - all Tank’s ever said is you’re a doctor.” He says. “Never said you worked with Cap.”

“We barely worked together-”

“We did four tours together in Afghanistan.”

Johnny looks between them both, mild bemusement tugging at his brow. John doesn’t look at him though. He stares at Kelli.

For the first time, she is watching him.

“Four tours right John?” she asks. Her voice is light, but her eyes are fixed on him in a way that isn’t. It’s as if she’s trying to force him to say it, to acknowledge her. Like she apparently acknowledges him - despite not reaching out once in eight years.

“Yeah,” he says, “Four tours. Plus that half one in Sangin.”

Her mouth twitches. Not quite a smile. “The HVT op.”

“Yes,” he says. “The last one before you… stepped away.”

There’s a shift in the air. Not loud, not obvious, but he can feel it at the table. He’s the only one here who knows how much was packed into those last three days.

There is a long pause.

David grins, seemingly oblivious, but theres an edge to it now. “Well, she speaks very highly of you.”

John tries not to let the surprise show on his face, just lifts his beer to take a drink. “I find that very hard to believe.”

Kelli stares at her wine like it’s got the answers.

“Nonsense.” David leans closer conspiratorially. “Frankly I’m glad she had a strong mentor to ground her.” He winks. “Who knows what trouble she would have got herself into. She’s still got all these grand ideas. Half of them would send her halfway round the world if I didn’t talk her down.”

He laughs as if theres a joke in there that John’s supposed to get. John glances over at Kelli, theres a light flush across her cheeks.

“I’m right here you know.” She says, her voice cool. Her fingers tap the stem of her wine glass - a soft, quick rhythm, like she’s biting down more words.

David smiles.

“Sorry honey,” he says, sounding not sorry at all. He saunters back over to her side and pats her shoulder. “You know how anxious I get about your little ideas.”

Kelli’s jaw tightens but she smiles up at David.

John can’t work out what the fuck’s going on.

He exhales slowly through his nose. Doesn’t say anything. But the phrase ‘talk her down’ sticks in his brain. Like she’s some kind of fire to be extinguished.

John knows he’s good at clocking people. He’s had decades of it. But he can’t quite get a read on this prick.

Cocky, sure. But not in the way men are when they’ve got something to prove. No bluster, no edge. David holds himself like a man who’s never had to check the room to see where he stands. Like it’s a given everyone in it will see things his way.

Johnny raises a hand, interrupts abruptly.

“Wait, wait-” he says, “You’re not Kelli…Purcell are you?”

Kelli nods, slow. “Yeah?”

John’s pulse spikes for a moment - he doesn’t want to know what Johnny seems to have heard about him and Kelli. Probably nothing good, probably some mutated version of events that has been pieced together in his head like a puzzle missing about half it’s pieces.

Nevertheless, Johnny’s mouth drops open. He looks from Kelli, over to John, then back to Kelli.

He opens his mouth to speak-

Then lets out a sharp yelp as Black appears out of nowhere and clips him with his wheelchair.

“Watch out Shampoo,” Black says cheerily, Emma perched on his lap like she’s exactly where she belongs. He glances over at John for half a moment. The look in his eyes is not hard to decipher.

“What the fuck Tank,” Johnny whines, rubbing his shin, “Christ, you’re more of a menace missing two limbs than you were with them.”

“I’m all about efficiency,” Black says without missing a beat. “Streamlined for maximum chaos.”

Emma leans forward, grinning. “You should see him on the dance floor. Clears it faster than a fire alarm.”

“Oh I’ve seen him on the dance floor,” Johnny says, “looks like he’s trying to get a wasp out of his kilt.”

The table laugh and John chuckles into his glass. He can’t help but look over at Kelli. They make brief eye contact and its heat filling his veins again. It’s that feeling hes been chasing with every failed date and awkward encounter.

Right here, again.

The laughter at the table settles into the easy hum of cutlery and clinking glasses. The first plates arrive - grilled fish, salad, something sweet with mango.

John digs in without thinking. It’s the first proper food he’s had all day. Across the table, Kelli’s glass catches the light as she lifts it.

David is whispering something in her ear - his mouth close to her ear.

The unwelcome mix of guilt and resentment catches in his throat again.

They’re halfway through the second course when one of the plus ones, Alice, asks Kelli what she’s doing these days.

John doesn’t look up from his fish, but he zeros in on the conversation.

“Just working at St Mary’s,” she says through a small mouthful of food. “Almost finished my residency.”

Emma pipes up. “Tell them about MSF.”

Kelli hesitates, she glances at David. His lips are pursed, just slightly and John can tell whatever it is, he doesn’t approve.

Johnny speaks up, brash but curious. “That’s a charity right?”

Kelli nods, tapping the rim of her wine class. “Doctors without Borders. They do humanitarian work.”

“Like overseas and stuff?”

Kelli takes a sip of her wine. “Yeah, they provide medicine in conflicts, disasters and the like. I’d-uh-” she glances at David again, “-I’d probably apply as a emergency doctor, given my background you know.”

Johnny grins. “That’s pretty sick.”

David clears his throat. “She’s been talking about this MSF thing for ages,” he says, topping up her wine. “Romantic sort of idea. All noble and dangerous.”

There’s a laugh in his voice, like it’s a charming quirk of hers.

The others titter politely but John doesn’t laugh. Out of the corner of his eyes he sees Emma roll her eyes.

“I keep telling her she’ll miss proper medicine.” David continues. “There’s only so much you can do without decent facilities, you know?” He laughs. “You know one of their essential criteria is working with limited resources? I mean what are you supposed to do with that?”

Emma levels her brow at him. “You’re a bleeding foot doctor for retired millionaires David, I wouldn't get too high and mighty.”

David barely falters at Emma’s barb. He just nods, slowly, like shes a child.

“We all have our specialities Emma. And I would argue that Kelli’s is serviced better in a fully equipped hospital on the other side of the Channel. One where she can actually achieve something.”

The table goes quiet for half a second. John wonders over the implications of that particular statement. He plays a little game in his head of whether David is patronising Kelli, the countries she’d work in or the MSF mission. Probably all three.

His jaw clenches.

He doesn’t know where she found this guy. He doesn’t want to know

Kelli smiles, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. Placating, diffusing. Like shes used to smoothing over David’s condescension. Its the same expression she used to wear when she justified Mullen’s bullshit to him. That hits him with unexpected intensity.

“Sometimes you make do with what you’ve got.” She says. “That’s kind of the point David. That’s why I want to help in the first place - I have experience in that.”

“I think it sounds really cool,” says Johnny around a mouthful of food. “Christ knows half the places we travel through need all the help they can get, ain’t that right Cap?”

John inclines his head but says nothing. He can feel the tension in his chest building, mirroring that at the table, but he doesn't really want to get involved.

“Need extra help once you’re done I’m sure,” says Emma, half joking but there is a cold undercurrent to her tone. John knows she has become far more critical of the western war machine since their discharge. Doubly so since Black’s accident.

As if to placate her, Black gives her a little nudge and kisses her gently on the cheek.

The mood at the table has shifted from mild small-talk and banter to something more loaded.

Alice chimes in again, her voice a little placating, but also curious. “Isn’t it really dangerous though? I’ve heard about kidnappings…”

Kelli nods, glances sideways at David again. Her jaw tightens, as if this is a line of questioning that she is all too familiar with.

“It is,” she says, “but its no less risky than getting shot at in Afghanistan. And honestly? It’s a risk I’m willing to take if it means getting help to people who don’t have it.”

She says it with conviction, but her eyes are hard - she’s bracing for another joke.

David sighs dramatically to the group. “Told you. Romantic. She’s always wants to be a hero with that Florence Nightingale streak of hers.”

He turns to Alice, like it’s charming. Like he’s blessing them all with the sound of his own smug voice.

“Hard not to love her for it, but it’s not exactly sustainable. Especially when we’re thinking about the future.”

Kelli’s frowns slightly. Emma raises an eyebrow over her wine glass. Both women look at each other.

David pats Kelli’s forearm. “I’m just hoping she grows out of this phase before she actually signs anything.”

Until now, John’s been stone silent. But this last line cuts through - the implication that something Kelli clearly wants to do is a phase.

He puts down his cutlery with quiet precision. Looks at David, but doesn’t raise his voice.

“Mate. It’s not a phase. Never was.”

Silence. Forks freeze mid-air. Every head turns to look at him.

David frowns and for the first time, looks a little irritated. A crack in the facade.

“And you would know?”

John doesn’t hesitate.

“She patched up hundreds of men under fire and always came back for more - four tours.”

He meets Kelli’s eye without meaning to.

“So yeah. I would.”

There's a beat of silence, heavier than before. Kelli’s eye move to her plate, frozen. Her shoulder shifts slightly - like she wants to say something, but can’t.

David gives a dry chuckle, shaking his head.

“Right.” He says. “Always came back… except when she didn’t.”

He says it lightly - but there's weight behind it. The implication hangs there between the syllables.

John clenches his jaw. “At least when she left, it wasn’t because someone talked her out of it.”

David leans back, voice mild. “Maybe. Or maybe she left because she knew she wasn’t cut out for that life. No shame in knowing your limits.”

Kelli’s spine goes rigid. She lets out a small exhale, like she’s been punched in the ribs. A flush creeps up her neck. She pushes her chair back quietly.

“Excuse me.”

She stands, smooths the fabric of her dress automatically, and walks toward the edge of the terrace - slow, controlled. But her fingers are trembling at her sides.

Johnny breaks the silence. “What the hell was that?”

“That was these two knobs not knowing when to shut he fuck up.” Emma says, her normally warm eyes, staring down both him and David.

David, still seated, lifts his glass like he hasn’t noticed the ripple effect. But there’s a flicker of something colder in his eyes now.

“It’s not personal Emma. We’ve all got to grow up at some point.”

Black shakes his head. “Give it a rest mate.”

The table goes quiet again. The clink of plates seems louder in the vacuum.

John takes a sip, goes back to his meal. Like nothing happened.

There’s a small pause before the table slowly goes back to a hum of muted conversation and jangling cutlery. Emma murmurs something to Black and follows Kelli with her glass of wine. David is still talking - mostly to Alice now - but John doesn’t hear a word.

Hes watching Kelli and Emma out on the beach now. He stands, he needs to get a drink.

He’s halfway to the bar when Johnny catches up beside him.

“You alright?” he asks, “You looked like you were about to punch him in the face.”

John shakes his head. “’m fine.”

He really needs to get it together. Being affected by Kelli so much is one thing, but messing up Black and Emma’s wedding because hes being affected by Kelli is a whole other thing. It’s just so fucking hard when Kelli has apparently found herself another Mullen. Christ, the Prick reminds John so much of that fucker, it’s uncanny. Where does she find these assholes?

He signals to the bartender.

“Beer thanks.”

He can tell Johnny wants to ask him more and decides to preempt the questioning. “We just worked together okay. We had a falling out.”

Johnny nods slowly. “Right.”

John glances to his other side as Black wheels up next to him. “You planning on acting like a knob again? Or am I gonna have to cut you off early.”

John looks away.

“Didn’t start it.”

“Yeah, well. You didn’t stop anything either.”

John turns to look down at Black.

“You heard that Prick.” He says. “I was trying to defend her.”

“Oh is that what you think you did?” Black says with raised brows,” because it really just seems like you pushed things just to get your word in.”

John opens his mouth to retort.

Black holds up a hand.

“No. I knew this would happen. You had eight years to deal with whatevers going on up in that munted head of yours and you didn’t. So you can keep it together just for tonight. Kelli’s a big girl, she can fuck whatever asshole she wants. What I want is for this wedding to end happy.”

There’s no anger on Black’s face, just that same calm exasperation he’s always had when John’s about to say something stupid in a emotionally high-stakes situation. John feels that sudden urge to tell Black that it’s because he wants Kelli to fuck him, he is an asshole after all - it would be very on brand. But the realisation that that is something that he still wants, sits heavy in his stomach. So instead he says, “Wasn’t planning to say anything at all.”

Black looks at him for a long moment.

“You never do.” He says finally, “That’s the problem. Honestly for someone who can run an opp with god-like precision you really are remarkably incompetent at being like, a normal human being.”

John flexes his jaw.

“You know that’s why I’m so good at it.”

He stiffens when he phone starts buzzing.

Black looks down at his pocket. He sighs quietly and raises an eyebrow.

“You gonna get that?

The way he says it makes it sound like a test. Unfair, John thinks, because there is no way to pass - he has to answer, he can’t not answer. “You know I am.”

Black sighs. “Like I said before: tell Halford to fuck off. You’re on leave.”

John waves him off and grabs his beer. He retreats to the beach end of the deck where it’s quieter, and pulls out his phone.

“Halford.”

“Price,” Halford greet. “Look, sorry about this but one of the Kola COs is disputing what your guy’s submitted. I need to you to clarify.”

John resists the urge to groan. Instead he kicks a small stone across the sand. “Sir, is this really urgent? I’m technically on leave.

Halford at least sounds apologetic. “Sorry son,” he says, “You know what these intel types are like.”

John takes a sip of his beer. “Of course Sir.”

Halford rattles off the discrepancies - a string to truly banal nonsense points that leave the mental note in John’s mind to never work with Kola again if he can help it. He should have known, the CO was the most pedantic little knob he’d ever met. Christ, its inter-unit bureaucracy at it’s finest. And during Black’s wedding too. When Halford ends the call and John stares down at the beach for a moment longer. At this end of the deck he can hear the soft sounds of the water as the waves break against the sand. It’s calm and nice.

“- at least he was sticking up for you.” The voice is Emma’s, drifting over the sand. John can see the outlines of her and Kelli hunched over one of the beach chairs further down the beach. “Not like that prick.”

John doesn’t want to know. He hurries back toward the reception, back up onto the deck.

Johnny intercepts him. “Black told me, you’re up soon for the speech. After Aunt Mags. Also-” he looks around. “-still wants us to keep an eye on Alistair.”

John scans the crowd and immediately locks onto the drunkard leaning against the bar.

“You know I didn’t realise that when Black joked about Emma’s asshole of a brother being an alcoholic, I didn’t realise he wasn’t actually joking.”

Johnny makes a face. “Yeah. It’s kind of fucked.”

They watch as Alistair tips back another beer, slow and deliberate.

“Thing is,” Johnny mutters, “he doesn’t even look like the type. I mean, Black says he was a bootneck, right? Heard he was decent too. Why would a bloke like that end up… like that?”

John takes a measured breath, Johnny is still pretty young. He’s seen a lot sure, but he’s not been jaded enough yet to fully understand that dulling the pain however you can is a perfectly reasonable response to the shit they have to see and do day in-day out.

“Because he was decent.” He says. “Once upon a time at least, maybe - I don’t fucking know. Some lads lash out Johnny. Some shut down or find a bottle, a needle, whatever it is that dulls the noise long enough to get them through the night.”

Johnny frowns, like he wants to argue but can’t.

“I’d never do that.”

John lets out a short laugh. He looks over at the twenty-two year old. Johnny is staring at Alistair, something angry in his expression, no pity, just contempt.

John’s voice stays low, even. “It’s not weakness, Johnny.”

Johnny’s jaw clenches. “Isn’t it?”

“No.” John says, “It’s what happens when you don’t deal with it and it deals with you instead.” He takes a breath, remembering how he felt curled up in the bathroom, trying to get the words out to Black at two in the morning.

He takes another look at Alistair, then back at Johnny. “And don’t think you’re immune kid. None of us are. War doesn’t care how good you are. Doesn’t matter if you’re the sharpest lad in the unit, or the daftest. It finds the cracks, it always does.”

Johnny goes quiet, mouth tugging sideways. He glances at John with a hint of unease.

John pats him once on the shoulder, more solid than gentle. “Come on. We’ve got a speech to sit through. Let Alistair be my problem.”

A few minutes later, after the crowd settles, after Kelli and Emma return, Black’s mum gets up and makes her speech.

John has always found Maggie Black to be a paradoxically severe yet good humoured woman. He supposes it comes from circumstance - Black’s father walked out when he was three years old and hasn’t been seen since. Maggie was left to raise two daughters and a son, something she attacked with ruthless efficiency and relentless optimism. John thinks it probably goes a long way to explain Black’s general attitude toward both women and life.

By the end of the speech, everyone is a little glassy eyed, and for the first time, John feels actually nervous about his own speech.

It’s a tough act to follow.

The emcee’s already calling him up before he can think about it for too long.

He stands.

He pulls a folded piece of paper from his jacket pocket, then glances down at it once.

And then, after a beat, he folds it again - slowly - and tucks it away.

He looks around the room - all friends and family. Bright faces flushed with alcohol and joy. Eyes expectant.

“Right. I’m John. Forty-eight hours ago, I was in a warehouse in central Asia getting shot at.”

There’s a few laughs, nervous ones. He probably shouldn't be announcing that, but he has the sudden urge to be actually genuine - be a human being just like Black said.

“Which, yeah. Probably not the best opener for a wedding speech. Sorry. Just…a bit hard to switch gears.

He rubs the back of his neck, scanning the crowd. A sea of faces stare back at him - faces confused, nervous, a little alarmed maybe.

Emma is staring daggers at him.

“I didn’t think I’d be here, honestly. I don’t usually make it to things like this as Black knows. Not because I don’t want to - I do - just… the job gets in the way. Always has.”

He pauses for a moment. Not for effect, but to work out what he wants to say next. Fuck why did he put the speech away? The crowd has settled a little, still nervous and unsure, but there are some friendly faces. Black’s mum smiles up at him - hesitant but encouraging.

He clears his throat.

“So when Tom asked me to be his best man, I thought… alright, maybe he’s finally lost his mind.”

That earns him a few titters.

He looks down.

“Truth is, I almost said no. Not because I didn’t want to. But because I didn’t think I could do him justice.”

The crowd is silent, faces staring at him, glancing at each other, waiting for a punchline to drop maybe.

John clenches his jaw. “I’ve known Tom a long time. Long enough to know he’s impossible to insult and harder to kill. He’s been through hell. Proper hell. And somehow he’s come out of it not just in one piece - but still smiling. Still taking the piss out of everyone. Still… him.”

The seat of nervous faces begin to soften and a few smiles start to emerge.

“I’ve led Tom into more than my fair share of bad situations. Places we weren’t supposed to survive. And yet… he always came out cracking jokes, looking out for the lads, pulling the ones who couldn’t walk. You want to know what kind of man he is?”

John pauses. Deliberate.

“He’s the kind of man who lost both his legs, and the first thing he cared about when he woke up was if everyone else made it out alive.”

Appreciative murmurs ripple across the room.

“Hes the kind of man who always stands up for people.”

John takes a breath.

“Hes the kind of man that notices when you’re struggling and pulls you out without hesitation.”

The crowd is smiling now, theres a few glassy eyes. But John doesn’t linger on any of them - he just looks at Black. Black is staring back at him like he’s about to cry.

“War has taken a lot from us. Bits of our bodies, sure. But also the quiet things. Some people get lost in it. Some don’t make it back at all.”

He pauses again. He glances across the room - his eyes land on Kelli for just a fraction of a second, then back to Black

“But somehow, Tom never lost himself. Never forgot who he was. And never stopped showing up for the rest of us - even when we didn’t deserve it.”

He breathes in slowly.

“And then… there’s Emma.”

John smiles, he shits his gaze to Emma and stumbles over his next sentence.

Gone are the daggers and instead shes looking at him like he’s some kind of vision from God - her face open and soft, her eyes glassy. Emma has never looked at him like that. Never even close.

He swallows thickly.

“Emma, you’ve been the best thing that’s ever happened to him. You make him happy, and as you would know - finding someone worth holding on to is rare in our line of work -”

His eyes catch on Kelli again before he can stop himself. It’s nothing, just half a second, but it lands heavy. She’s watching him, intent, like she’s seeing him for the first time. His chest tightens. He looks away immediately, clears his throat.

“- rarer still to keep them.”

“So here’s to you both. May life treat you better than the battlefield did. And may you keep choosing each other - even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.”

He raises his glass. “Cheers.”

The room erupts into a loud chorus of cheers.

John takes a sip then makes a beeline to get the hell off the stage. Black and Emma immediately intercept him. Emma lurches forward and wraps her arms around him.

“Hid that heart of yours well away didn’ you.” She says into his ear. “Bastard.”

John squeezes her back. He and Emma have always had a tense relationship, but he meant every word.

Black rolls up next to him, gives him a nudge with his wheel. He wipes the back of his hand over his face.

“If I knew were about to pull that out of your ass, I wouldn’t have chewed you out so hard.”

John leans down and gives him a hug, clapping him on the back a few times.

“Nah,” he says, ”you were right.”

Black laughs. He gazes up at him.

“You know I love you right man?”

John nods. He can’t quite bring himself to say it back. Even though he does.

“I know.”

He stands by the wall as Emma and Black roll over to take his place at the head of the room.

“Alright you tossers,” Black says to the room. “Not sure we can top Britain’s hardest man finally convincing me he has a heart-” theres a titter of laughter, “-so we’ll keep it short. We asked Kelli if she wanted to do a speech but she said she’d rather enlist again so we’re not doing that.”

The laughter is louder this time. The contrast tugs at John as he watches the bridesmaids make faces at Kelli, who slinks back into her chair. Emma’s family boos her good naturedly.

Instead, Black thanks his family, hands the mic to Emma who does the same, speaks for longer about how grateful she is, how happy, how in love. It’s nice, earnest and before long there’s another toast, the music starts and the room dims.

Black rolls onto the dance floor, Emma on his lap. John watches them and that familiar tug of jealousy, resentment and guilt returns.

He needs another drink.

Johnny claps him on the back as John slides in next to him at the bar.

“Can I get you to speak at my wedding?”

John looks sideways at him.

“You planning on finding a girl any time soon?”

Johnny grins. He nods over at one of Emma’s bridesmaids, trying - and failing - to be subtle. “Reckon Eve’s been giving me looks all night,” he says, “Once the music starts, it’ll be a done deal.” John turns. “No, don’t fuckin’-”

Eve is one Emma’s four bridesmaids, a slight thing with black hair, ambiguous south Asian features and a thick Liverpudlian accent.

“Isn’t she the lesbian?”

“No Alice is the lesbian,” Johnny says, “Eve’s bi.” He frowns, the bravado suddenly cracking. “I think? Maybe. Hm.”

Eve looks up and smiles at them both. Gives a small wave. John nods. She seems friendly. Cute, a little crazy based on what John observed during the wedding photos - Johnny’s type, assuming she’s not a lesbian.

What the hell. He’s feeling buoyed after the speech, and despite his tendency to brood, the alcohol is making him feel looser and not as depressed.

So he points at Johnny, raises an eyebrow, then gives a double thumbs up.

He can feel Johnny slink back into the bar. “Jesus Christ Price.”

“You said she was giving you the eye,” John says, “I’m just moving things along. Look. She’s coming over.”

Eve excuses herself from her conversation and starts walking over to them.

“Nice speech,” she says, nodding at him. “Wasn’t sure where you were going at the start, but it turned out quite nice.”

John nods.

“Thanks,” he grunts.

Eve looks him up and down - assessing, as if she already knows something about him, and is sizing him up to see if he watches with the idea shes been carrying in her head.

“I was warned about you.” She says. Her tone is level, but there’s a bite to it. John doesn’t need more than a second of eye contact to know she’s not a fan.

Johnny blinks, he looks between John and Eve.

“You were warned about him?” he says, incredulous. “What about me?”

John takes a sip of his beer.

“I don’t think she means it in the way you’re thinking Johnny.”

Johnny snots. “Then what way?”

Eve doesn't answer Johnny. She’s still looking at him, a deceptively mild expression on her face. “Kelli’s told me a few things,” she says. “Nothing bad. Actually… all good, if I’m honest. Said you looked out for her. That you were solid when it counted. But Emma-” she pauses. “-well lets just say we were told to keep any eye on you.”

John shifts his weight, thrown by the unexpected shift from softness to warning. He’s suddenly wishing he hadn’t encouraged her over at all. “It was a long time ago.”

“Maybe,” Eve says. She glances toward the table where Kelli is laughing at something David’s said, though the smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “I just… whatever happened before, don’t make tonight harder for her. She’s already… carrying a lot.”

John’s brow furrows. “I’m not-”

But Eve’s already turned away from him. Shes looking at Johnny now.

“And you,” she says, lips quirking, “you’ve got a reputation too, Shampoo.” She gives him a long, amused once-over - the kind someone might give a puppy caught stealing socks. “Don’t start trouble on the dance floor, alright? I promised Emma I’d look after the bridesmaids, not babysit the groomsmen.”

She claps him lightly on the arm, laughing, then weaves back into the crowd.

“Holy shit,” Johnny breathes, eyes wide. “She definitely fancies me.”

John shoots him an incredulous look. It figures that Johnny would get a laugh and he’d get a warning. He drowns a mouthful of beer.

Women might bamboozle him at the best of times but even he can tell Eve is not particularly interested in men. “That woman is not interested in you Johnny.”

Johnny frowns, watching Eve as she moves across the room, back to the table. “Don’t break my heart Cap.”

The music dips. The room hushes just enough for John to notice the shift. He follows the ripple of attention to the far side of the floor, where David’s taken the mic, Kelli’s hand clasped tightly in his.

“Sorry to steal the spotlight for a minute,” David says, grinning like this is all harmless fun. “But there’s something I’ve been meaning to say for a while now…”

A low cheer rolls through the room. Someone whistles.

Kelli’s smile is there, but it’s the same one she had a minute ago with David at the table - fixed at the edges, not quite reaching her eyes. John catches the small shift in her shoulders.

“First off,” David says, looking out over the crowd, “I want to thank you all for being here tonight. You’ve made this day unforgettable for Emma and Tom, and for us.” His gaze comes back to Kelli. “And, well… you’ve all made it the perfect moment.”

John feels the first prickle of unease crawl up his spine. He glances over at Black and Emma. Black looks surprised, confused. Emma looks like she wants to shoot David.

David squeezes Kelli’s hand and steps forward like he’s been waiting all night for this cue.

“Kelli,” he says, voice pitched for the room, “from the day we met, you’ve been the most brilliant, stubborn, infuriating woman I’ve ever known. You’ve kept me on my toes, made me sharper, more ambitious-” his smile widens, “-and somehow, you’ve even managed to put up with me.”

The room chuckles on cue. David lets the sound hang like applause.

John’s eyes never leave Kelli. She’s smiling, but it’s thin, polite, fixed at the corners. The kind of smile you wear when you’re not sure if you’re in on the joke or the punchline.

She holds her arm over her stomach.

David keeps going. “You’ve seen me at my worst, and you’ve still been there to remind me I can be better. You’ve been my anchor, and I think everyone here knows, with you beside me, I can handle whatever the future throws at us.”

The box comes out of David’s pocket. The crowd gasps like they’ve rehearsed it.

John’s stomach turns. He tells himself it’s the beer, the food, the heat - anything but the truth.

The truth; that the flame he told himself he’d stamped out years ago is still there. Still burning, small and stubborn in the dark, refusing to die. Maybe he kept it alive on purpose. Maybe because if it went out, that old part of him would be gone for good.

“So,” David says, sinking to one knee with all the confidence of a man certain the answer will be yes, “I’d like nothing more than to make this official. Will you marry me?”

Kelli’s eyes flick over the crowd, it’s quick, almost involuntary. Then she comes back to David. Her nod is small, hesitant, almost embarrassed. Enough to make the room erupt, but not enough to convince John she meant it.

John stays rooted to the spot, beer heavy in his hand. The distance between them feels wider than it’s ever been. Somehow wider even than the eight years of silence.