It All Comes Crashing Down
Pairing: Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader
She presses the metal radio against her lips and mumbles her final words, hoping that although he has not spoken, he would hear.
A/N: The classic 'bomb my location' fic you've all been waiting for! This has been sitting in my drafts for weeks, so I'm glad I finally got it out- I'm thinking about a part 2 where she wakes up and it's some extra fluff, maybe?
She takes a shaky breath in as her hands grip her rifle tighter, but when she speaks her voice is as steady and firm as ever.
The words are acrid on her tongue, but they feel right to her heart. Her mind is in disarray, trying to piece together any other solution that won't have her ending up under dead under pounds of rubble, but she knows deep down that there's no other way out of this.
An entire enemy organisation eliminated at the expense of one soldier.
It was a win-win for everyone but her.
And that was alright. She's made her peace with it, made it the moment she signed her name on those documents giving her life away to the tang of blood and the scent of gunsmoke.
"Level the building." She continues, wincing at another hail of fire that rains upon her. Heavy footsteps and orders barked in Russian move around her location. Steadily being surrounded, there was little hope for a smooth extraction or escape anyway. "Have Soap blow the charges, Captain. Then send in the airship and raze this hellhole to the ground."
"Like hell we're doing that." Gaz's voice comes through her comms, frustrated. "We're not leaving her, Price." They must have rendezvoused successfully, because Gaz doesn't speak through the comms, rather it sounds as if he's turning away his head to speak to the man directly.
It brings a small smile to her face despite the circumstances. Her boys would get out of this, at least.
Simon. Her mind flashes to her Simon and she thanks whoever's above that they had split up before everything went to shit.
It had been fine at first. She was setting the charges they needed to bring the building down while he fetched the intel from somewhere else, and really, she should have been suspicious when it all went smoothly.
She'd planted the last charge before the enemy started closing in.
Like rats, they seemed to emerge out of nowhere shooting her down and pinning her until she had no choice but to slip away and barricade herself in one of the nearby rooms. The entrance and exits were likely swarmed with people and here she sat, in the heart of it all.
Unreachable, untouchable.
She sort of tunes out the muted conversation on the other end, lets the ringing on her head take over. Loud angry cursing, yelling in distinctive Scottish, the harsh rasp of her Captain telling everyone to calm down...it all floats through her mind.
She doesn't hear his voice...but he was alive, wasn't he? She'd seen him slip out of the building through the window in front of her, so she knows he must have gotten out. The thought makes her gut curl up, brings her back to the present.
"Negative, Sergeant." Price's voice cuts through her thoughts, much louder than the others. "We're mapping out a route to come get you-"
"Price, it'll be suicide." Perhaps it's the way her voice softens and quiets, the gentle way she talks so different from the harsh way she's spoken earlier. It's as if she's accepted it, is content to lay down and allow herself to be swallowed by the dirt she came from. "I'm one soldier. Don't make yourself visit more than one coffin."
There's a beat of silence, painstaking silence where nobody speaks. Even the gunfire outside the room she's barricaded in seems to fade out for a moment.
A death sentence coming from the man she considered family.
It cracks a smile out of her. She squeezes her eyes shut, lets her head fall against the blood spattered wall behind her.
"Make sure my replacement's just as much a pain in the ass to you, alright?" If the way her voice breaks at the end of her last sentence is noticed, it's not brought up. "Simon's gotta have someone to push around, yeah?"
"There's no replacing you."
There's arguing. Soap and Gaz are yelling, and it's startling because she's never heard either of them shout the way they are, at their Captain nonetheless.
It's comforting to know she was cared for, even if she's about to die.
A sudden bang on her door makes her jump. Muffled Russian filters through the old wood. Someone ramming at it with something, trying to break it down.
But it doesn't really matter, does it? She'll be going out on her own terms even if they find her now.
Ghost...Simon. Where was he? If there was one thing that'd settle her mind right now it'd be hearing that gravelly voice, even if it was merely yelling at her, telling her how stupid it was to suggest what she has.
A desperation claws at her chest, deep down. She wants Simon, wants to spend the night in his bed again, wants to hug him, feel his skin, wants to see those rare smiles of his one more time.
Just one more time before she-
"Charges setting off in 5-"
She hopes Simon knows that she didn't mean to leave him. That she wanted him to go on without her, to not fall into the void of 'what-if's.' It wasn't his fault.
Her eyes burn but she refuses to let out the helpless sob clawing its way up her throat. She wants...she wants so much. Wants to do so much more, wants to live, and breathe and smile and laugh and experience and live. Simon. She wants to tell him so much more.
If she could go back in time and fill their silences with all the words she wants him to know right now, she'd do it in a heartbeat.
It's an impulsive decision, how her hand shoots up to grab at her radio frantically. Switching it to the private line between just the two of them, she presses the metal against her lips and mumbles her final words, hoping that although he has not spoken, he would hear.
The ground crumbles beneath her, the world turns to black.
· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
Slipping out of the small shed, he tucks the papers into his vest. For a multi-national organisation, they sure were stupid as hell when hiding their intel.
Scanning the grounds for any movement, Ghost moves out, keeping to the shadows until he reaches the edge of the field that morphed into the woods farther down.
"Intel secured, moving to rendezvous point now." He says into his comms. He frowns when he doesn't get an answer back, grabbing his radio and speaking again, casting a glance back into the foliage in the distance where he knows the others have staked their place to operate from.
Price, Gaz, and Soap were operating remotely, dealing with drones and distant detonation devices, whereas the other two had infiltrated the building separately.
Plant the charges and secure the intel. Simple tasks made difficult when they both realised that the intel wasn't in the building, but instead in the shed attached to the side of the complex instead. Splitting up had been the most logical thing to do, even when Ghost had refused at first.
"It'll be fine. Quick and easy, right?" She'd told him with a grin. "Get that intel before I'm out of the building and maybe I'll give you an extra treat when we get back." Ghost had rolled his eyes at her suggestive wink.
"Does anyone copy?" He says into the object. He's met with nothing but muffled crackling and garbled speech, tinny and indecipherable. Ghost scowls at the machine, ripping it off of his vest and turning it over. It crackles and pops with bursts of sound but nothing cohesive enough to interpret
"Fucking thing's busted." He mumbles to himself, shoving the item back into his vest, his hand brushing against the folder of intel he's successfully recovered from the shed attached to the main building.
He can spot one of the convoy vehicles near the edge of the woods, but he doesn't let his guard down even as he crosses the field towards it.
Ghost barely takes a step through the dead grass before the building behind him goes up in an explosion that makes even him unsteady with the force of it. Flames lick up the east side of the massive structure and Ghost takes a second to watch as it crumbles in on itself sending up clouds of dust and debris.
He's looking forward to getting the hell out of this place once he rendezvous with everyone else. This mission had stretched on for far longer than it should have, the elusive bastards slipping away through their fingers time and time again with dirty, underhanded tactics.
The foliage grows thicker as he steps into the woods, rifle at the ready. A click of a safety had him raising his weapon and spinning around immediately.
When he sees a very familiar mohawk, however, he lowers his weapon instantly. "Blue!" He says loudly, bringing up a hand to half Soap. "Just me, Johnny."
Soap follows suit and lowers his weapon, his shoulders visibly relaxing the tiniest bit. "Welcome back." He says, but something about his voice makes Ghost uneasy. "Price and...and the others are prepping exfil." He gestures towards the clearing.
"Everyone else made it back?" He asks as they push through the meager trees and into the open space where soldiers are rushing around tying up loose ends.
Ghost would question it, but he's too busy doing a sweep of the clearing, putting names to faces. Price and Gaz were there, going back and forth over something. It strikes him a little odd how furious Gaz looks, Price looking so resigned but he pushes it away in favour of catching a glimpse of the person he's more inclined to spot.
"We tried what we could, but she was pinned down." Soap breaks the silence, misinterpreting the reason behind his silent staring at Gaz and Price. "We didn't...Laswell's insisting immediate evac, but Gaz wants to at least find a body to bury." A bitter laugh that makes Ghost's stomach drop like a stone.
Soap rakes a bloody hand through his hair, shakes his head, and continues on like he's in some sort of shock. "I don't want to. I think she'd rather us leave her buried there than dig out bits and pieces and bury her again." His voice cracks.
There's only one woman in their team.
There's only one person he hasn't accounted for in the clearing.
There's only one person he hasn't reached on his comms before they broke.
The world spins, his mind screams and falls silent, a crescendo of noise and denial. The ground shifts beneath his feet, rocking him into a state that makes him feel like he's walking on string.
"MacTavish." His words are so calm and even, it's eerie. "Is my girl still in the building?" He feels detached from himself, perhaps a way to distance himself from the pain of the implied.
Soap looks at him for a long moment, then croaks out one, broken word.
And it all comes crashing down.
He's been through torture before. Had his skin marred, his fingernails torn off, been hung from his ribs but nothing, nothing has ever come close to the way his heart twists.
Nothing had ever made him panic in a way that has his throat closing up.
"Christ." Johnny breathes, and it's a sound that drags him back from the brink of something horrible. Soap's eyes are fixed on the empty spot on his vest that holds his radio on normal days, horrified. "You didn't bloody know." He states.
Wasting time answering is useless. Talking, speaking breathing is useless because not a moment later Ghost is sprinting towards the rubble.
The rubble that he had just watched fallen. The building he'd stood there and watched fall down, had felt pride and relief in seeing.
His gear digs into him, the air thickens with smoke and dust but he doesn't stop. Vaguely he hears people yelling after him, hears Price and Gaz and Soap and every other motherfucker who stood by and detonated the charges. Friend or foe it didn't matter to him right now. If someone dared to get in his way he'd mow them all down, grind them into nothing and keep going.
The airship would be here any minute to finish the job.
No, he'd get to her by then. Ghost slams down into the ground somewhere near where they split off. He'd find her by then, and he'd bring her back, bring her to medical and she'd be fine in a week or two.
There was no other fucking option.
The debris rakes off the fabric of his gloves, splits the skin on his fingertips as he hauls and pushes and pulls and digs through stone and metal and wood, leaving evidence of his efforts in the form of his own blood behind.
Not her. Not like his mother, not like his brother, not like his nephew.
He digs, calls out her name until his voice is hoarse, pulls away piece after piece of rubble until his fingers are torn to shreds.
Just as he hears the sounds of incoming aircraft, he spots something that makes the knot in his chest slam against his ribcage in pure and utter terror.
It's been a while since Simon has felt fear this pure.
Hair that he's familiar with, strands that he's gripped and gently soothes his fingers through peek out from under the piece of metal he's just lifted.
Unable to breathe, his attempts at moving the earth increase tenfold. He picks off stone after stone, brick after brick until more of her body is uncovered. Still, unmoving, bleeding. Once he's gotten her top half free, he hesitates for one horrible moment because what if he looks down to see a still chest?
Steeling himself, he bites the bullet and curls an arm around her waist, pulling her out of the debris.
The relief that slams into him when he feels her shallow, breaths against his palm is almost enough to send him to his knees.
"I've got you, love." He mumbles, half to himself as he adjusts her in his arms. She's dead weight, pulse barely there but present.
Cuts and bruises, Ghost can name at least five lacerations and countless other places she's bleeding from, a broken arm, leg, and who knows what kind of internal bleeding.
And that was enough because like hell Ghost was going to let the one good thing in his life slip through his fingers ever again. He'd drag whoever he needed to her aid, he'd go to hell and back just to make sure she got to open her eyes again.
With limps that ache and a heart that's heavy, he quickly moves them out of the rubble, just in time to see two aircraft circling their location. They hadn't dropped any explosives yet, which a far part of Simon's brain thinks might be Price's doing.
Uncaring of whoever was watching, because frankly everyone could fuck off right now and it would be preferable, Ghost presses his lips to her hair as he moves into the clearing with her.
"Medic!" He barks out. "Right fucking now!"
He ignores Gaz's strangled gasp, ignores the way the entire team approaches them and tries to help. Ghost is a little concerned that if he let the adrenaline that's pumping through his veins go, he might just collapse as well, and that was unacceptable at the moment.
A weak hand grasps at the front of his vest, his eyes snapping immediately to her at the movement.
"S...'mon?" She says, words so faint he barely hears them?
"I'm here." He confirms, pressing his face to her hair harder. "I've got you, darling." He whispers. "I've got you."
It soothes her, because she nods against him and lets herself relax. It's only then that Simon notices she's holding something in her good hand in a deathly tight grip.
Upon closer inspection, it's a radio.
Fucking hell. His grip on her tightens.
She'd been trying to contact him in what she thought were her last moments, and he'd never have known because his fucking radio was broken.
It doesn't matter, he tells himself, chants it over and over again in his mind. He's got her again, and like hell is he ever letting go now.
When the medics bring out a stretcher, Price has to talk him into letting her go down into him, practically ordering him to let the bloody medics do their jobs. He doesn't stray far, however, keeping a hand on her at all times. Sat next to where they were working on her in the helicopter back, never once do his eyes stray from her unconscious form.
She wakes up once or twice, whines, and fights against the medic's hands with a panic-induced haze. Every time Simon is there, holding her hand, muttering rough, soothing praise and assurances.
It calms her down immediately, the trust in those far away pain-addled eyes when they meet his is enough to make his heart twist.
Simon stays with her the entire time, and then takes residence in a seat next to her hospital bed on base, ready for when she wakes up.
Hell would freeze over before Simon would ever let them be apart again.
If that makes him selfish, then so be it.
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