Just a Ghost

4

Three days. Three days since the mission. Three days Brylie has been unconscious. After being put in immediately surgery from the bits of glass and treatment for the gash on her thigh. It was going to leave a scar, but everyone knew it wasn't going to matter to Brylie whether she woke up or not. She lost a lot of blood, and had the face of death in front of her.

Ghost was mess, he couldn't hide it. They had to sedate him to get him on the plane to come back home, they left Soap with her in their base in Norway after transporting her body. He refused to leave her side, but by Captain's orders he had to.

"How is she doing?" Ghost asks, on his daily video call with Soap who now spent every waking moment in the infirmary with her. It had now been five days, three since the transport and the operation.

"Still breathing." Soap responded.

"Is she awake?"

"No."

Ghost frowned and looked down at his lap, where he fidgeted with his fingers. "Is uh...is anything broken?"

"They finally looked her over. A minor fracture in her ribs from before we came to Ukraine. No one knows how that happened. Her leg had an infection, they got it cleaned out. Got all the glass out of her skin, stitches in her head are going to be taken out in two days time."

"How...how is her face looking?" He asks.

"Swelling went down." Soap didn't dare say she was going to be fine, nor mention the fact that her breathing was starting to become raspier. It wasn't looking good.

"So she's healing?" Ghost finally had am emotion in his voice. It broke Soaps heart to lie, but at this point it would only save him the pain.

"Yes. She's healing."

"Thank god."

Soap didn't say anything, but then the doctor walked in.

"Mister McTavish. May I speak with you?" Soap looked at Ghost, who nodded. Soap turned off the call, and followed the doctor into the hallway.

"Brylie's breathing seems bad now, but in time it will get better. She took in a lot of smoke, which is going to affect her lungs. In two days her stitches will come out and if she's awake, she could go home to America."

Soap let out a breath of relief. "So she'll make it?"

"There's only one problem...amnesia. She could have it, she very well may not. She already has PTSD, this is going to add to it when we did a brain scan. When she wakes up, she may have difficulty putting sentences together, so one word lines may be all she could handle. Don't push her to speak more than she wants to."

Soap frowned, he could only imagine the hurt Ghost would go through if Brylie didn't remember him.

"Thank you...for telling me."

"There's something else you should know. During her operation she woke up briefly, mumbling something about a ghost?" Soap smiled, now he knew she didn't have amnesia.

"One of our operators ran back for her. Ghost is his name."

"Oh. Okay."

___________________________________

Three days later, Brylie woke up abruptly and started coughing. Soap jumped to his feet out of a deep sleep and rushed to her side. He turned on the lamp beside the bed and sat her up a little bit. She gasped for air, finally able to breathe. She looked around in a panic, the machine beside the bed that measured her heart beat beeped rapidly.

"Hey, hey. Relax. You're okay. Everything is fine." Soap said softly, planting both hands on her shoulders as he sat down on the bed beside her. She took deep breaths, becoming concerned with her breathing. She placed her hand over her heart, and coughed.