Liability [Simon Ghost Riley]

he's gone

Phoebe holds her hose tightly in her hand as she sprays her blooming flowers with water. The sun was beginning to set and she felt at peace. Allowing her mind to wash away the stress of the day. The sunlight hits her face and she sighs, imaging that somewhere in the world, Simon was looking at the same beautiful sky. She recalled their conversation earlier that day, a small smile coming to her lips as she remembered his voice.

She stood in the kitchen, intensely focused on her measuring cup as she attempted to fill it with the correct amount of water. She turns off the water after allowing it to reach ⅓ and carefully moves over to her mixing bowl. She dumps the water in and moves the mixer down, flipping the switch and watching as her kitchen aid whips the cake mix together. The loud noise drowns out the sound of her phone ringing and she carries on. A few minutes later she finishes putting the batter into a pan and throws it into the oven, hoping that a lemon cake would distract her from how much she missed Simon. She looks down at her small ragdoll kitten who plays with her feet and laughs, she picks him up and kisses his little face gently. Still deciding how she was gonna come clean about adopting a pet without permission.

It had been two weeks since he'd gone. So far she'd been doing better than she expected, managing to keep herself quite busy all day. It was the nights that were the hardest. She struggled to sleep without him. She tried to pretend like her body pillow was the same, but nothing could beat the feeling of his arms wrapped around her. When she came across a post about the little guy needing a home, she volunteered without a second thought.

He was quite good about calling, he would try to call every other day when in between missions. But as they got new intel he wouldn't be able to reach out for several days at a time. This week she had not heard from him once. She knew he was going on their first mission. Phoebe worried about him, she knew that he could handle himself, better than anyone in the world.

Phoebe picks up her phone to set a timer when she realizes she'd missed his call. Her heart drops and she calls him back instantly.

"Si?" she asks anxiously

"Hey love"

"Oh thank god, I thought something may have happened. I'm so sorry I didn't hear my phone I was baking and it was on silent"

"Don't worry about it, I don't expect you to pick up every time I call"

"Of course I will" she says

"How are you doing darling?"

"I'm doing good, I decided to bake a cake for whatever reason" she says staring at the mess of flower and egg shells on the counter.

Simon chuckles and leans back in his chair as he imagines her in the kitchen trying to bake. Tears fill his eyes and he attempts to keep his voice steady.

"Is my kitchen still standing?" he asks

"The kitchen smells wonderful thank you very much" she responds

"What have you been up to this week? Catch me up"

"I wanna talk about you, where have you been the past week? Are you any closer to coming home? How are you doing? How are the boys?" she says rapid firing her questions

"We're all good. But I don't wanna talk about work, tell me about you distract me"

Phoebe nods to herself, understanding that he didn't want to talk about it, meaning that their mission didn't go as planned. "What do you want me to talk about?"

"just talk to me love, anything"

"Well it's been pretty gloomy today so I started reading a new book, it's about grief. I've only read a few chapters but so far it's been very reassuring and comforting to know that grief isn't linear, you go through ups and downs just like anything else"