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fatal-iistic · 1 year

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Ties That Bind (Pt. 1)

Summary: Blair Moore is a war machine, recruited by John Price as part of special operative Task Force 141. What she doesn’t expect in her second chance at serving her country and the greater good is someone to break down the walls she’s built.

Pairing: Johnny “Soap” MacTavish x F!Original Character

Words: 5.4k

Warnings: Swearing, War, Civilian/Child death, Mentions of gore/injury, honestly war just sucks

March 2nd, 2020

An airfield outside of Kutaisi, Georgia

There's seldom situations where Blair Moore catches herself with second thoughts.

But standing across the globe from her home in Boston, sporting an uniform on a foreign military's airbase begins to rouse an inkling of doubt in the woman's gut.

It's a brisk spring day in the Northern foothills of Imereti. The land is ancient. Blair studies the rolling hills of the Georgian countryside, wondering if these were the hills once trekked upon by Jason and his Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece. Or were these hills once the site of battles choreographed by the ancient Romans and Persians as they sought to commandeer every furlong of this green earth.

Georgia's history in the past century, alone, is riddled with the Russian Revolution and the subsequent fall of the Soviet Union. Not to mention persistent tensions in the last decade. Even last year, with Barkov's decades-long tyranny in the Middle East and subsequent battle waged in his warehouse in Borjomi marks more demerits on Georgia's timeline.

And now another leader of terror seems to find his way into the sanctity of this battle-torn country.

Free time is cherishable for most, but dreaded by Blair. She fills the vacancy with a stroll around the outskirts of the base. With sleeves and direct sunlight, the early afternoon is enjoyable. Taking in the sights of the rolling hills of Georgian geography, Blair almost relinquishes the cumbersome burden of duty and the implications of the mission at hand.

A cool breeze burrows through Blair's layers. She hunkers her chin closer to her chest, slipping her nose under the collar of her uniform to contain her warmth. Mentally, she reminds herself to put on another layer before they depart the Kutaisi base and head seventy kilometers north.

It really is too late to back out, Blair, a voice remarks in her head. More exasperatedly it adds, Damn you, Kate and John, for convincing me back into this 'greater good' scheme.

She glances down at her watch, frowning. News reached that the flight of SAS Marines from the United Kingdom had been delayed due to technical problems. But as the time elapses and now her comrades are a full sixty minutes late, Blair feels the simmer of anxiety burrow deep within her gut.

The longer she waits, the more reasons she accumulates as to how stupid she was. The sooner they reach Tsari, the sooner they can apprehend Al-Asad.

I could've truly adopted civilian life. I was so close.

Feet keep pacing her around the base, until a low hum rings in Blair's ears. She directs her eyes to the western skyline, spotting a small dot traveling from the horizon. She doesn't need a closer observation to know it's a plane inbound for this small airstrip. And aboard is her colleagues. More specifically, Sergeant John Mactavish.

During her CIA days, it was asinine to leave things up to mystery. Every aspect of everything needed to be drawn into the light, mulled over until every last detail was eviscerated from the system. The devil was in the details. Miiss one factor, and the entire chemistry could implode. 141 is different, so Blair tells herself. Captain Price isn’t the CIA; he isn’t the American justice system. While her roles seem to parallel, Blair lies that it’s a different world, a different life (the skeletons in her closet from her CIA ops could remain lodged in their hiding place behind a big wooden door, deadbolted shut).

Captain Price trusts Sergeant Mactavish, so Blair leaves it at that. The rest would come into form by itself. No background checks. No picking apart his records before even seeing him in the flesh.

The transport lands and taxis.

Blair immediately makes a line for the plane as the passengers exit. On sight alone, the woman can pick the sergeant from the lower-ranked soldiers. The sides of his head shaved (Blair doesn't recall mohawks being back in style, but she forces that criticism from her mind). He's a brute of a man, yet his demeanor sings something entirely different; he's laid-back, friendly, even charming if Blair gives herself the allowance to regard it.

"Sergeant Mactavish?" She questions, arching an eyebrow.

"Reporting." His accent is thick. It's a voice that would make any woman in her right mind swoon, but Blair shovels that admiration out of the way and sticks strictly to business.

"Moore. Blair. Call me Rogue."

"Call me Soap." He smiles broadly.

There's a story behind every moniker. Blair flashes Soap a bemused glance before focusing on the terrain before her, hastily leading the sergeant. They both walk along the airstrip toward the main building.

What the hell kind of name is Soap? She wonders but anchors her attention back to the objective at hand.

"Commander Beridze of the Georgian Defence Forces will join us soon for a full brief. It looks like we're headed toward the mountains,” Blair informs.

Stepping out of the wind and into the admin building, Blair leads Soap to the briefing room.

"What do you know about the village?" Soap queries, his eyes fixated on the view from the conference room's windows.

“Tsari?”

“That’s where we’re headin’, no?”

The woman nods, offering a shrug in response to his previous question. "Not much. It's a pit stop for people heading to the mountains. A pretty quiet place from what I can tell – a perfect place to hunker down if you're an internationally wanted terrorist.” By instinct, her spine straightens, and she lifts her chin as if reporting to a senior officer. Everything about her screams formality and professionalism. It's a habit beaten into her since her Army days, a feature she can't corrode out of her system. Soap seems indifferent, lax to almost a flaw.

"Damn shame they come to places like this," Soap comments, shoulders anchoring. "The terrorists."

Lips curve into a deepened frown. "Hiding in plain sight can be pretty treacherous. Sometimes even the bad guys want peace and quiet," Blair offers perspective. She'd chased dozens of "bad guys" in various reaches of the earth. Through bustling, civilian-laden streets. Into remote terrains. They picked their poison, and unfortunately, it was never consistent.

"Captain Price says ya were Green Berets and CIA," Soap mentions after a contemplative pause. Cold blue eyes rest upon Blair, making her shift a bit.

"Were," she confirms. The word feels like rusted iron on her tongue. There had once been a time when Lieutenant Blair Moore, an American hero and Patriot, wore her status with pride. She’d garnered numerous accolades, things that became nothing more than items consuming space in her closet back at home. She’d met with some of the highest-ranking officials in numerous countries – hell, even slept with them.

And now? Blair isn’t quite sure where she fits on the status quo.

She’s lost just about every credential and honor worth a damn. The Army wouldn’t take her back, and the CIA had been the ones to part ways. The only reason Blair has the liberty she does now is because of Kate Laswell and the reality is, John Price had been the catalyst for that orchestration.

Decommissioned dogs don’t typically make it out of the pound.

The last two years prior were spent floating from country to country. Wherever Kilito or his aide-de-camp, Liidia, sent her. Despite her skills, Blair was treated like a lesser contractor than some of Kilito’s seniors, despite the obvious skill gap. So she’d left Jasuri Company, and found an apartment in Boston. She’d figure out a new life. A civilian life. She’d join a running club, maybe finally run the Boston Marathon as she’d planned on years prior.

No more military. No more contracting. No more guns, covert affairs, and bloodshed on a daily.

Within two months, Kate and John found her. You’ll die as you lived, Blair Moore – hadn’t that been something her father had reckoned years ago?

(Maybe she should’ve said no.)

Shaking off the webs in her brain, Blair grounds herself back in reality. Her mouth feels parched at the anticipation of answering the lingering question – why did you leave it all?

Not of my own volition.

Would the fact make Soap trust her less?

"Always dreamed of bein' James Bond as a wee lad," Soap chuckles to himself, "as sharp as I look inna suit and tie, I'll keep my fatigues."

He doesn't even entertain the idea of delving into Blair's past turmoil and begging the question of her reconciliation at John Price's hands.

Blair snorts, more relieved that anything. "I did more wadin' through dust and mud or showin' up to grimy bars than strutting into upscale soirees."

"Ah, yer breaking my heart, lieutenant. A dream deferred," Soap complains, dramatically placing a hand over his left chest.

She smiles sympathetically. Shaking her head, stray strands of gold hair tickle pink-touched cheeks. He's humorous and exudes an aura of respite. It's like a breath of crisp air in the stale heat of military formalities and concise mission objections.

Pausing to gaze up at Soap, she finds that he's orbited closer to the broad window exposing the hilly terrain outside. She steps around the conference table to stand parallel to the sergeant, bracing her breath in his presence as if the moment is frail.

Why did she feel like she was handling a rigged explosive? Her life had been a grandeur charade around people – around her father, around her peers, around her superiors, around drug lords, mafia kings, and leaders of organized terror. But she falters beside Soap, questioning what voodoo is being implemented to cause her to waver.

Vigorously shoveling those thoughts aside, Blair tries to fill the spaces in between with tedious small talk. Anything to silence the badgering thoughts.

"Beautiful, ain't it?" Blair prompts.

Soap chuckles, realizing how much time elapses in his enrapture with the Georgian landscape. "Definitely different from home," he agrees with a nod.

"We're not in Kansas anymore," Blair murmurs. She shoots a glance at Soap. "Wizard of Oz–"

"Dorothy and Toto," Soap interjects. He laughs, warm, genuine, a rumbling baritone that spikes a sensation of warmth in Blair's system. "It's not some American secret. I saw it as a kid. The monkeys scared me."

Blair's nose wrinkles as a little laugh surpass her. A hue of pink flushes into her cheeks. "I'm sorry…that was a dumb assumption…"

"No offense taken, lieutenant," Soap responds. A wry smile creases his lips.

The door of the conference room swings open, shocking both soldiers from their lighthearted exchange. A man dressed in his tailored, unwrinkled military uniform steps in with three others. Both Soap and Blair salute the leading officer, the man Blair recognized from the pictures as Commander Beridze.

"Lieutenant, Sergeant," he greets.

"Sir," both Soap and Blair chorus. Reflexively.

One of Beridze's lackeys seats himself and pulls open a laptop. Within moments, all hands are situating themselves at the table.

Along the wall, the projection screen boots to life. They make haste in covering the mission brief, picking apart the details of the foothill village of Tsari and Al-Asad's confirmed presence in the last forty-eight hours. SAS Marines would cover the bulk of the forces sent in, with a small squad of Georgian soldiers to provide navigation and liaison between them and the civilians.

Law enforcement would escort the SAS to the presumed holding place of al-Asad, the Marines would take it from there. Blair watches the brief unfold with a brewing boil in her gut. Terrorists always found the most obscure places or the most civilian-friendly places. Both were just as horrible to sweep.

As the brief wraps up, Blair promptly asks the one unanswered question. "Should we or should we not be prepared to sustain hostile civilian casualties, General?" Blair intterogates, her jaw clenching.

"Intel is not confirmed or denied the social sway of Al-Asad and AQ forces, other than it's definitively neutral, and they are giving him refugee," Commander Beridze replies. His words seem rehearsed, as if he’d stood in the mirror this morning with a level gaze and recited this line twenty times over. "We would rate the potential high, though, Lieutenant. The prime minister and the defense General are already aware and prepared for the potential for civilian casualties."

She only nods, but the gloomy expression still festers on her face.

On the outside, every military official and high-up authority leader wants zero casualties and civilian safety. It markets well, empathy. But Blair knows better – they'd accept an entire bloodbath if it were a means to an end if only the people of their nation wouldn't roll under the terrible massacre of themselves. The lower the collateral body count, the easier to pass the operation off to the public as necessary damages.

She doesn't voice her discontent any further. It was all the more reason they had to find al-Asad and bring him in. So that more civilians weren't lodged in the crosshairs between a terrorist and the world's superpowers.

Soap and Blair stride out of the conference room together. Once they're out of earshot of Commander Beridze and his personnel, Blair lets out a low growl.

"High potential, my ass," Blair grumbles.

"Huh?" Soap comes in second fiddle, out of the loop of what riled Blair up.

"That building we're raiding is a residential building, Soap," she breathes, her voice airy with a lilt of defeat. "Commander Beridze conveniently dodged that detail."

"We're walkin' right into people's homes…" Soap states, disappointment saturating his tone.

"Not to mention the entire village," Blair breathes.

They both don't traverse the politics beyond that statement. They're soldiers, first and foremost. They don't get to weigh and balance the semantics, especially for a foreign country. Al-Asad's presence was more burdensome than that of a homegrown civilian. A treacherous classification, damned and doomed as it is, both soldiers had discovered early in their tenures that it wasn't within their allotted estate to question those ethics.

(Do your job. Do it well. Don't ask questions.

Hell, it was a bloody concept Blair had drilled into her cranium by her very own father in the fundamental years of her life.)

They know it, they know it, they know it.

Pavlov'd over the years to accept the circumstance, to relinquish the exposition of human details. Follow orders. For the greater good. Do what has to be done. De Oppresso Liber.

That engineered thought process eclipses the overpowering sentiments of humanity. Soap and Blair share a reserved, somewhat mournful exchange of glances in the hall of base command. A vortex of gloom roams Blair's saxony blue eyes, her rigid professionalism betrayed by atom-sized fringes of humanity and compassion. Neither soldier trespasses to that vicinity in their minds, somehow orbiting back to their rigid formalities as war machines, as soldiers under oath.

There is a lack of real estate to presume over the matter. It’s too far above their pay grade to contemplate morals and fuss over the particularities. Mutely, either soldier accedes to the same determination; the objective has been made clear, and they were here to follow orders. There are soldiers to brief and equipment to put together. They were paid to find Al-Asad, not ponder ethics like Plato or Aristotle.

It's late afternoon when their convoy reaches the village of Tsari. The sun sinks deep into the western horizon, giving them only a few precious hours of daylight remaining. The single law enforcement officer of Tsari leads them to a three-story apartment building just from the center block of town.

Simplicity, Blair notes. She’s sanctioned off and swept buildings a hundred times over. They put men at every exit and storm into the building. Exactly like their brief. They go door to door, sweeping each unit.

Things along the first floor are complacent. Shocked families. Crying babies. Sobbing women. No insurgents. No weapons. No Al-Asad. The scene eerily unearths memories from Blair’s tenure with the Army in the Middle East. She remembers storming homes then, under the Iraqi sun. Women had always navigated towards her, flinging themselves at her pleading out of fear (Private Mikels had shot and killed one that did so, assuming the innocence that he thought the woman was maneuvering to assault and kill Blair. An innocence maintained and preserved by commanding officers). Even in her uniform, nursing an assault rifle in her arms, Blair’s image had been a feeble entity of hope when in pale comparison to her male comrades.

Perhaps that’s why it was best she was the one at the lead bellowing out orders to the civilians.

“Hands up. Cooperate. We are looking for Khaled Al-Asad,” Blair barks in Georgian to the residents. They flinch with the coarseness of her voice, obeying commands with teary eyes and vibrating limbs.

The teams diverge in the stairwell. One to the second floor. Another to the third. Soap goes second, and Blair goes third.

The team breaches the third floor ahead of Blair when shouts and gunfire ring out. A mix of English shock and Arabic threats slice through the tension-deep air. Her heart hurtles into her throat. She charges up the stairwell, rounding the corner to see one of the privates hit the ground from the bullets spraying out one of the units. She sidles against the wall for protection, peaking into the unit during a moment of reprieve to fire several rounds at a man fumbling to reload his weapon.

Silence suspends the atmosphere, disrupted only by the panting breaths of adrenaline-sodden soldiers and the click of magazines being reloaded. Blair holds the oxygen in her lungs, stepping towards the open apartment door. Gun cocked, finger tempted over the hairpin trigger. She manuevers quickly across the threshold to remain in the hall but now has full detail of the room beyond the doorframe. Like owl eyes, Blair studies the area beyond the door. When she determines the room within is safe, she steps defensively into the apartment unit.

Eyes scrutinize every corner, gun pointing quickly to each crevice that she studies. Kicking the door open to the bedroom, Blair takes account of every inch before her muscles relax. Cleared. No tangos.

She strides back towards the hall, stepping hastily over the dead AQ fighter who made his grave on the living room floor. There’s a pool of scarlet forming underneath his mortal wounds, seeping and dripping from his frame. A circular stain mars the dirty off-white carpet of someone’s home. There's a stuffed rabbit a few feet away. A kids' book at the foot of the couch.

Pausing, she nudges the open book with the toe of her boot. It's a Dr. Seuss counting book.

Immediately, Blair can smell the pages of her own Dr. Seuss books while she peruses them while Emilia Moore cleaned the kitchen. Grass with a faint hint of vanilla against the walls of her sinuses. Her mother would sing various learning songs to her daughters, long red hair teasing her light cheeks.

"Red fish, blue fish, buckle my shoe," Emilia would purposely recite improperly, eliciting a giggle from Blair.

"That's not how it goes!" Blair would critique with an amused squeal and a scrunched nose.

Emilia would laugh. A vibrato that still breaks through Blair's conscience, warm like sunlight through an open window. Enveloping like a mother's embrace.

They had all been children. Emilia, even then, mid-twenties, and sold on the dream of a righteous man and a picket fence fantasy. But that picket fence had become a chain link fortress, with a stockpile of guns and ammunition. A home constructed into a fortress. The concept makes bile churn in her gut. Her brain feels like it’s being overpowered by hot static.

These people, the civilians of this little mountain town, live the same volatile reality that Blair had once been indoctrinated into. Lassoed into a reality they hadn't requested.

Reality tastes sour as Blair rips herself from her memories. Her abdomen tightens as she fights nausea crawling through her system.

"Tangos spotted on the third floor," Blair calls into the comm. The report half to refocus her own ambling mind. "Requesting back up."

"You don't say. Gettin' noisy up there, huh Rogue? Sergeant MacTavish remarks over the radio. Her jaw seizes. Annoyance seeped into the fibers of her frame. Not all of them could have an easy time like MacTavish seemed to be having on the second floor.

She turns towards the soldiers.

"Sweep the floor! Move!" Blair commands, signaling the other Marines.

Two Marines approach the second door down the hall, bracing themselves on either side of the doorframe. As one is about to check the doorknob, bullets crack through the door's wood. Either soldier reels back against the wall, avoiding crossfire from the enemies within. Just then, a fuse is lit in the entirety of the third floor. Doors further down the hall burst open, AQ soldiers utilizing the open structures as cover to begin firing savagely and haphazardly at the team of Marines.

Blair ducks into the first unit, leaning out to fire rounds at the soldiers. She fells two of them before having to slink back into cover. Blood roars in her ears. There’s a myriad of shouts in Arabic and English as either side screams commands to one other.

Despite the rampant pace of the situation, time seems to slick by as if trapped in molasses. Suspended above the moving timeline as if in demented levitation. Blair can almost anticipate each flutter of her galloping heart, breaths cautious and planned. Eyes dart from each moving shadow to the next. She reflexively pulls the trigger on each maneuvering enemy.

One, two, buckle my shoe…

Somewhere through the fog of chaos, Blair swears she hears MacTavish announce enemy presence below the second floor. She has no allowance to fret too intensely when she’s already locking teeth with enemies on this floor like rabid animals. MacTavish and his team would have to hold fast with their own objective or wait until the Third Floor Team has cleared out their own set of problems.

Three, four, knock on the door…

The clear, systematic process of clearing each apartment unit manifests. Blair mostly keeps in the hallway, sights trained on unopened doors and the shadows beyond. It's hard to perceive anything above the stomping of combat boots trooping in the emptied units, but Blair keenly tries to pick up the readying of rifles or the unhinging of the doors farther down. Her gut won't subside until every inch of this floor is scrubbed clear of enemies.

Five, six, pick up sticks…

The Marines flood into the units. Unit after unit, the chorus of "clear" denotes an objective met.

Seven, eight, lay them straight…

The gunfire has died down as Blair enters the final unit. It's relatively empty, save some aged furniture and a few toys in the living room. She holds her breath as she sweeps through the suite. Two Marines file in behind her. Blair rounds into the bedroom, rifle rising as she sees the silhouette of a person.

The first thing she perceives is the weapon in their hands. Adrenaline hammers against Blair's senses.

Her eyesight focuses. Immediately she relaxes. It's a boy, no more than eight or nine. Her finger remains trained on her trigger, but she lowers her weapon. The boy wields a shotgun, his little frame trembling.

He's terrified. Clutching the gun like a lifeline. He'd probably been told to shoot anyone who enters, but there was an immense burden of hesitation.

"Do not fire," Blair commands the men behind her. She rocks on the balls of her feet, kneeling to appear less intimidating despite her array of tactical gear.

She's speaking in Georgian, using a calm voice as if trying to steady a wild animal. The boy trembles, hands shaking. He must've impulsively pulled the trigger, but his aim was nowhere pointed near Blair. It strikes the wall across the building, splintering wood. Blair doesn't even flinch, eyes not leaving the boy.

"He's hostile!" One of the other Marines shouts.

"Stand down!" Blair commands, but it's too late. A shot rings out. The boy falls to the ground, a bullet piercing through his chest.

She is at the boy's side instantly, cradling the adolescent with trembling hands. He was dead before he hit the ground. He didn't suffer much, if at all. Blair's head bows, and a sobbing shutter passes through her body. She does her best to mask it, catching what might be the ghost of that sob in her chest.

Nine, ten, begin again…

No more counting games or nursery rhymes. No more bleary-eyed innocence. Both Blair and this boy had laid that concept to rest in the primitive years of their lives. Except Blair had to keep living in this war. Perhaps the boy had been spared by this (the notion molders like a rancid stab wound).

Rage seethes from within Blair's gut as she lowers the boy back onto the floorboards and rises to her feet. She swings around to face the other soldiers. Fingers curl. Jaw fastens like a vice grip.

"Fuck, corporal!" Blair snarls, grabbing him by his collar. She slams him against the wall, the momentum stealing the breath from the shocked soldier. He makes a breathless squeak, eyes wider than the moon. "The fuck was that?"

"He fired at you!" The soldier defends.

"I had the situation managed!"

The other two soldiers scramble, hands wrapping around her shoulders in an attempt to pry Blair off of Cpl. Taylor. She clings to the corporal, still entranced by a fit of rage, managing to throw one elbow into the nose of the private, demanding her to release Taylor. In the squirmish, Blair still has her hands folded around Taylor’s trachea, the man’s fingernails digging into her wrists as he tries to pluck himself free.

The commotion lasts only briefly before Sergeant MacTavish rushes into the room. He shoulders hastily past the bleeding private and the second soldier, wedging himself into the fray between Blair and Cpl. Taylor.

"Hey, hey, hey," Soap intercepts, prying the corporal out of Blair's grasp. "Stand down, both of you!"

"You fuckin' crazy?" Cpl Taylor spits at Blair.

Soap glares at the corporal. "You watch yer language around yer superior, corporal."

"She fuckin' attacked me."

"You disobeyed a direct order," Soap counters.

Blair doesn't waste her energy formulating her rebuttal. She pivots and storms out of the room.

The remainder of the building is swept, the AQ soldiers long dispatched by the time Soap finds time allotted to seek out Blair. She's made herself scarce after the incident with the young Georgian boy, which perhaps is most agreeable considering the Marines seemed less forgiving of her snapped temper than John MacTavish.

Sergeant Allens says he saw her wandering outside shortly after the incident. So outside Soap goes.

It’s evening, and the sun has set as Soap disembarks from the residential building. He needs not search far, finding Blair standing on the lawn across the building parking lot. Her arms are linked above her head, propping her gaze into the sky. Even from afar, she looks fatigued and a touch nauseous.

Maybe she's trying to number the constellations above her. Or maybe she's praying to an entity above, a plea for forgiveness for failing the boy upstairs (though that likelihood was low, as Blair stopped believing in gods and their greater influence after Carl Moore). Soap approaches evidently, dragging his boots all the ground so that Blair could interpret his approach. He stands alongside her, following her eyes with his own.

"Children raised as soldiers…" Blair murmurs, face twisting. "Fucking hell."

"A sad byproduct of all this," Soap adds wistfully, motioning at the air around them. "They don't deserve this."

A frigid gust of mountain air buffets the two soldiers. Blair's ponytail, though mostly tucked underneath her helmet, fights with the wind.

"You speak Georgian, Moore?"

"I speak a lot of things."

"Private Breaux said you were talking to the boy. What did you say to him?"

Blair stares off. Admitting what she had exchanged with the young boy still poisons her throat. She’d failed the boy, and even more, she was bearing her shortcomings now. "I told him I knew he was afraid,” Blair confesses, “and I told him I wanted to help him. I would protect him, but he needed to put the gun down."

"How did you know he wouldn't try to shoot you?"

She hadn't known with certainty. Other than relying on what she suspected.

"He hesitated. He wanted a break in the narrative he had written for him," Blair explains. Her chest tightens. "Reprieve from the war he's been born into."

That boy needed counting books, and stuffed animals, and dreams about being an astronaut or a mountain climber. He didn’t need a gun in hand and the fear that the world was out to get him and his family. He needed innocence, and that had already been stripped from him. And now he’d be buried in a grave six feet under – another “sad byproduct” of this war.

"You've dealt a lot with that, huh?" Soap frowns.

The remark isn't meant to impede itself into Blair's flesh, serrated and agonizing. How could anybody know the stark reality of Blair's upbringing? It wasn't something she advertised. Hell, if anything, it's something Blair continuously attempts to bury.

She was made a soldier. Preached pious bullshit that her father had crafted and narrated because it fit the story he desired to see. These kids in these remote homes were birthed into similar perspectives, fueled even more by the poverty and war-torn homes they were run out of.

"All too well…" Blair breathes, the air exiting her lungs like a remorseful confession. She feels her skin itch, the yearning desire to admit the vulgarity of her heritage and upbringing. She doesn't want her personal feelings to seem like they collude with her better judgment, but even after years of being at war, Blair can't perform the debridement of those emotions from her cranium.

Soap rests a hand on her shoulder. A gesture of consolation. Of companionship. Blair's spine stiffens at the motion, but she refrains from acting thankless.

"I'm sorry."

Her blue eyes traverse to meet his gaze. There's a deluge of warmth that fills Blair's bloodstream. She's spent so much time alone, stripped of camaraderie and brotherhood, that the mere notion nearly blindsides the weathered warrior. She blinks, too stunned to speak. Her neural pathways short-circuit, sparks spilling over her cortices and setting her senses alight.

Grappling at anything at the moment, Blair defaults only to what is her baseline, factory settings. Posture tightens. Chin lifts. It's the skeleton bones of standing at attention. The only thing Blair can do when shocked by her own emotions. And then comes the crass sarcasm. Blair gives a solemn laugh, a sound that betrays Blair, conveying her brokenness.

"Don't be sorry," she counters. "There's nothing glorious about what we do, Soap."

"Doesn't mean we still don't bleed for what we see and deal with," Soap reasons.

Boots thud against the ground behind the two sergeants. Both Blair and Soap take their eyes off the steppes to address the approaching soldier.

"Lieutenant Moore, Sergeant Mactavish, we have something you ought to see."

The duo flashes a gaze between them, following the soldier to a unit on the second floor of the building. Bullet holes scar the front door, and one of the AQ soldiers lies dead near the kitchen stove. Blair scans the unit, following where the other soldiers indicate their need for attention.

Inside a bedroom is a large mahogany desk, the refined craftsmanship ruined by evident bullet wounds sustained in the Marines and AQ's exchange. Papers are scattered about the tabletop, an inscribed map underneath the heap of intel. There's a laptop computer broken apart on the desk, the screen cracked while the motherboard sits exposed from blunt force trauma committed to the keyboard and body. It's a mess, obviously left in haste.

Blair reaches to grab at the haphazardly placed papers. A frown shifts across her lips.

"Al-Asad isn't here…but he was….these are plans; look at the details," Blair observes, sifting through the papers. Soap steps to her side, brushing his fingers to separate a stack of papers. Everything is written in Arabic, and while Blair is proficient in the language, reading it takes her a moment longer.

"Can you make much sense of it?" Soap prompts.

"Some…" Blair mutters, squinting at the papers.

She points at the emblem stamped on the papers, and the location circled on the map. Verdansk, Kastovia.

"Something's about to go down in Kastovia."

#john mactavish × original character #cod fanfic #call of duty fanfic #call of duty oc #blair rogue moore

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