Ghost Protocol: Meet the Civilian

Chapter 12: The End?

"And in other news, eight weeks later,the debate continues.Eyewitnesses remain adamantthat the object was some sort of aircraft,but officials with the Department of Defenseinsist it was simply a meteor large enough to be visible during daylight."

Kat watched the news report absently not really paying it much heed, as her thoughts wandered. She wondered if this was what it was like to be Ethan, or Jane, or Benji... or Brandt. They put their lives at risk to save people only for it to all disappear into the shadows, them included, as the people they'd saved didn't even know they'd been in danger in the first place.

"Kat!"

Kat turned, startled out of her thoughts to see Bella pouting at her.

"You're no listening!" Bella scolded, and Kat smiled.

"Sorry," she replied sheepishly, "I got distracted."

"By that?" Kat's mother, Abigail, asked as she nodded at the TV. "That's a silly old debate; one of those upstarts trying to prove aliens exist or something."

"Aliens do exist." Bella argued immediately. "And ghosts! I've seen one."

"Of course you have, dearie." Abigail replied without missing a beat. She'd long since learnt not to argue with Bella about these kinds of matters; fifteen years would teach anyone that Bella Williams could be more stubborn than even Kat's father.

"Huh, but that is a load of bull." Kat's father, Mike, commented as he gestured at the news. "I mean, really, why would an aircraft go flying across the San Francisco Bay?"

"It could mean the aliens are invading." Bella replied seriously. "Maybe it's why Kat's been so distracted lately!"

"Now, Bella," Abigail said severely, "Kat's been through a rough time after what happened at the Kremlin, and getting lost in the middle of Russia because of a mistake in paperwork at the hospital, with no passport and no way home. She was lucky that kind man offered to help her, oh, what was his name again, Kat?"

"...James." Kat answered absently, and Abigail nodded.

"That was it." She said. "It just goes to show that there are good souls in the world..."

Kat tuned her mother out, staring blankly ahead. It had been eight weeks. Eight weeks, since that whole IMF fiasco. And yet, time had never seemed to move so slowly. It had only been eight weeks, and yet it had been eight whole weeks.

'Maybe because you never got to say goodbye.' Kat thought sadly. She'd woken up, alone, in a hospital in Russia. According to the doctors, she had been moved there after emergency surgery in India, before it was deemed safe enough to bring her back under Mr Unreasonable of all people, or Sidorov's, guidance.

He'd grown on her during the time he'd apologized though- probably because he spilled that Ethan had been hospitalized with her for a while, which prompted her to ask the nurses. After a little pushing, the nurse admitted there had been a man, not Ethan, who watched over her dutifully until just before she woke up, when both he and Ethan disappeared. And Kat knew exactly who, and why.

She thought, given his response to her surprising kiss, that he returned her feelings and she was pretty sure it wasn't rejection. And if she was honest, she'd expected as much, knowing – particularly after Brandt's story about Ethan's wife – that she could never contact them again. But... but she had hoped they might at least have said goodbye, before they left.

Suddenly, Kat was blinking back tears and the room seemed stuffy, and hard to breathe in.

"I'm just going to go outside." Kat muttered, interrupting her mother.