Christmas was always a sore spot for you.

You didn’t have any family to go home to, or anyone special to celebrate with besides the Task Force.

But this year, Price and Ghost had to be away for a mission, Roach was participating in a recruit training program as a drill instructor on another base, and Gaz had gone home to his parents and myriad of cousins.

Leaving just you and Soap.

It was well-known that Soap had a large, tight-knit family, all with mouths as big as the Scotsman’s and personalities just as “braw,” as he liked to put it.

There was his mother and father, his grandparents, an elder sister, her husband, and their two wee bairns, along with Johnny’s younger brother. That wasn’t even mentioning all the aunts, uncles, and family friends that would be visiting for the holidays.

So nearly every year, he would go home for the holidays to bonny old Scotland to spend his one-week leave from Christmas Eve to New Years Eve, so that he could sing both Jingle Bells and Auld Lang Syne. ( He liked to think that he was an excellent baritone. )

However, this year was different. Soap, shedding his soldier persona to become the slightly less raunchy but just as brass and bold Johnny, had convinced you to come with him.

You had protested greatly, but he had been adamant. And so now you find yourself standing on the front stoop of a lovely old two-story home, quivering in trepidation.

It’s a large place, built for housing extended relatives, and there’s a paddock out back with a small flock of sheep. Gorse and Heather grow thickly and freely along the cold Scottish hillocks.

You could face heavily-armed hostiles with calm collectiveness, but the thought of Johnny’s family judging you was enough to make you feel faint. You haven’t been in a family setting since you were eighteen, and your first thought was that they would judge you. Really, you shouldn’t care, but in the back of your mind, you were worried that Johnny would stop liking you if his parents disapproved of you as their son’s friend.

“Och, dinnae look so frightened,” Johnny teases, nudging you with his elbow as he pounds loudly on the door. “It’s me, ye bonnie son! Mind openin’ the door afore Ah die o’ the wet and cold?”

Feeling strangely naked in your civilian clothes, you recoil behind Johnny as the door is thrown open to reveal a plump, red-faced woman in her fifties wearing an apron covered in flower, her greyed hair pulled into a low, messy bun.

The woman instantly envelopes Johnny in a hug, exclaiming something in Scots Gaelic with an accent so thick that you think for a second that she might be having a stroke. She’s kissing him on the cheek and, in universal mother fashion, saying something along the lines of “It’s been so long since ye’ve been home!”

Her warm hazel eyes widen as she catches sight of you. She’s a bit wary, since you do look admittedly antisocial, with your short military haircut and tensed stature, and the fact that you’re still wearing your SAS-issued winter coat with your Task Force 141 patch on the sleeve. “An’ who’s this? Ye’ve brought a friend?”