The number was meant for emergencies, he’d said, not for you to text him whenever you saw fit. It was highly inappropriate to text your Lieutenant, anyway. But no matter how many half-assed, annoyed replies Ghost gave you, you didn’t back down, seeing that you were slowly, very slowly, opening a breach in your superior’s walls.

It became even clearer to you when you departed on your first mission, and Ghost would make sure to receive constant updates on the status of your mission; and of course, making sure that you were okay. After all, it should’ve been a simple recon mission, you were supposed to get back to base in a couple of days.

Until you stopped texting. At first, the Lieutenant was worried you were mad at him, that his excessive sarcasm had finally gotten to you. Then, he became paranoid, since you had gone MIA, and he kept blowing up your phone. But finally, you had reached out.

“Simon? Simon please please come find me. I can’t do this I can’t there’s so many of them! I don’t know where I am, and they speak Russian I don’t understand what they’re saying!”

Simon had served for many years, seen countless men fall during in the field, and he knew better than to form ties that had knots too tight; it spared him the guilt, the grief. But to know that you were alive, alone and scared, and worst of all, in Russian hands, it drove him crazy.

“It’s going to be fine, Laswell is going to locate your phone. You trust me, right? Be brave for me, I’m coming to get you out of there.”