Warning! This fic is slash, so if you don't like that, don't read. I should probably also warn that there will be a fair bit of swearing.

Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with Soap, Ghost, or any other part of Modern Warfare as they all belong to Infinity Ward. I'm just amateur writer who likes to borrow them a little.

Note from Sassy: Thank you so so much for your awesome reviews! Seriously, the number of people who have said they like my writing makes me feel so honoured! I'm going to try and reply to them all here too since you all took the time to write something! :)

VerityA: First I'm glad you noticed my Roach/Ghost story, in all honesty it was inspired by you telling me to bring Roach back *nods*. And thank you so much! I am generally terrified about being a bit too descriptive with my writing so that meant so much to me. As for Ghost…well I always had him down as a dirty blonde hair colour, but it was a complete guess so I am most likely very wrong. And as for Soap, well he is nothing without his authority and Ghost knows it ;)

GubbleBum96: Thank you! You might have noticed that I love the pairing too :P

Reeserella: Dominating!Ghost is very sexy and I think Soap might agree with you secretly on that one. And thank you! I always get worried that my kissing scenes are a bit awkward…

xGhostxStealth: I honestly don't think thank you covers how sweet that review was! Seriously. *blushes* But thank you so much. I am definitely not going to stop writing this story anytime soon, and I just hope that you enjoy the rest of it just as much. And yay you love the constant flashbacks! Haha, please rant all you like, you made my day with that comment. Keep telling me what you think :)

xStealthxSniperx: Why thank you so much! I get a bit self conscious about my style sometimes (because it doesn't always work well with fanfic) so that means so much to me. :)

UrgentOrange: I am honoured that you still liked my style even though you don't like slash. I will write non slash too at some point. Thank you :)

Dunedain789: Thank you so much! I'm really glad you're enjoying it.

Greenyfox: I think you're so right. I see Soap as a very tough, masculine guy, but he's only human so he's got to struggle sometimes with emotions like everyone else. I hope I wrote this chapter fast enough for you! Lol :)

Again, I love you all eternally for your comments. Enjoy Chapter 5!

Lt. Simon Riley, 2016.

His good left hand outstretched, Soap brushed his fingers across the words. Compared to the cold, stale air of the medical bay around him, the pages of the book felt strangely warm, almost alive. Soap shifted awkwardly in his bed, leaning more on the uninjured side of his body, his back hunched over the small book. The last thing he needed was Ghost or Price walking in now, or even one of Nikolai's men. This small, leather bound book was so very important to Soap, but it was also a symbol of his weakness, a sure sign of his still beating compassion. He couldn't afford for anyone to know of its existence except himself…

Slowly, but surely Soap found himself tracing Ghost's name with his index finger. He could still remember the day he'd written it; still remember experiencing every single human emotion in the space of minutes. But most of all he remembered the wrath and anger, a heady mix that had made his mind spin and his body shake. He remembered everything feeling so lost, so confused. The world had been turned on its head, and so suddenly had he found himself living in a world short of friends. He was on the run, a rogue soldier, a man purely driven by revenge and the insane belief that the truth he represented was all that he had left. He'd become a man overcome by bitter guilt, by mind numbing loss. After all losing men was one thing. But for them to be betrayed by someone he'd told them to trust? That was bitterest pill he had ever had to swallow.

To this day he still believed that Shepherd hadn't suffered enough for what he had done.

Whilst he was fighting for his life in the bone yard, Soap hadn't the chance to truly think about Shepherd's betrayal or the emptiness on the radio where once Roach and Ghost had been. Caught up in all the running, Soap had merely become an animal, resorting to his base instincts with which to survive. Mactavish had been in enough battles to know that when things got really frantic, your adrenaline took over, your reflexes sharpened and everything else just seemed to fade into obscurity. So much so that Soap could barely even remember the majority of the days fighting. What he could remember however, was the feeling afterwards, the sudden realisation of everything that had happened. He remembered it feeling like a bullet to stomach…

Climbing out of the jeep, Soap desperately tried to catch his breath, his mind buzzing. He glanced quickly to the driver's side, where Rook's lifeless body lay, the dashboard and windscreen splattered with blood. Rook had barely been with them longer than 3 months…

Sick to his stomach he staggered away from the jeep, leaning against the plane wall. His vision was darkening, the need to breathe overpowering. But every time he did so, there was the same metallic stench of blood, of death, billowing up his nostrils like a constant reminder. He groaned, rubbing at his face with his gloved hands and sliding down the plane wall behind him. In a mere hour, the most elite task force in the world had been demolished to little more than himself and Price. But why?

"You hit?" Price said suddenly, standing in front of Soap's crumpled body. He knelt down, eyes quickly scanning him for any visible wounds.

"No, sir."

"Good." The older Captain nodded, his hand giving Mactavish a quick pat on the shoulder. His own hands had lost their gloves, and the knuckles were red and raw, fingers stained with blood. "We were lucky."

"Lucky?" Soap shook his head, indicating over to the jeep where Rook's body still lay. "I don't think so."

"We're alive and we know the truth." He smiled softly. "Makes us very dangerous don't you think?"

"Why?"

"Four words, Soap. We. Will. Kill. Him." Price nodded quickly, straightening up. "I'll see to Rook. You go brief, Nikolai. We haven't much time." He offered out a hand to Soap, helping him up.

"Sir."

"Soap…" Once he was stood, Price kept a tight grip of Mactavish's wrist, forcing him to look him in the eye. When he spoke again, he was still the strong Price that Soap was proud to call his mentor, except this time his eyes were filled with a fresh kind of concern and almost fatherly affection. "I don't need to tell you that we're not going to make it out of this alive…"

"As long as we bring down Shepherd with us…" Soap smiled weakly. "That's good enough for me."

Later, Soap was hunched in a dark corner of the plane, alone for the first time since that morning's events. He was pale, his hands shaking, knees tightly tucked beneath his chin. Resting on them was his black leather book, in his right hand a mundane black biro. And yet with every new word he wrote, Soap could feel a fresh stab of pain in the pit of his stomach, a new wave of anger throwing itself across his vision, causing him to clamp his eyes tightly shut until it passed. Rook, Archer, Ozone, Scarecrow, Roach…The list of men felt like it would never end. Men who were his friends, men who saved his life, men who he had saved himself. Men he'd trained himself, men who despite being a lower rank had even managed to teach him something. All gone. All betrayed.

When he reached the final name on the list, Mactavish's stomach flipped, a heavy lump rising in his throat. He wanted to be sick, but he choked it back, tensing his shoulders and forbidding his body to show anymore emotion than it had to. In his eyes were stale tears, but he was too proud, too strong to actually let them fall. Instead he merely blinked hard repetitively, pushing them away as he finally forced his hands to write the words he'd been dreading… Lt. Simon Riley. Simply seeing them written was too much of an affirmation, and Soap let out a choked, primal noise, a dull scream that he managed to muffle as much as possible behind his hand. He couldn't show weakness, not now. Not even to Price.

He couldn't even bring himself to write 'Ghost'. After all, the word was suddenly a better description than it ever had been before.

So here we are again! A short chapter this one, but I still hope that you enjoyed it! And I should probably apologise for all the flashbacks as I know too many of them can make a story hard to follow. I am doing it for a reason I promise. Either way, your reviews make me write, so if you have the chance, I would love to hear what you think! :)

-x-S-x-