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no one tried to read my eyes (no one but you)

Price and Gaz are wifed tf up and Ghost will be damned if he's the last of the 141 to do so, but Ghost is so rizzless and bitchless he has to stalk his neighbor to get a wife (he's actually really good at it if he thinks about it like a mission) wc: 8523 / Single Moms series Part 3

cw: stalking, noncon filming, rescue kink, possessive behavior, control and trust issues, mention of past abusive partner, Ghost gets to commit murder for fun and because it keeps someone he cares about safe, single mom, pregnant oc, possible age difference but it's not advertised too much, HEAVY love at first sight

His neighbor was using a fake name.

She was twenty four, five foot six inches tall, and weighed 73 kilograms at her last prenatal checkup. She was only ten weeks along, and not really showing yet, but apparently having a tough time with nausea and insomnia.

Being her neighbor, he could vouch for the nausea. Poor thing threw up at the exact same time every day like clockwork.

As for the rest of it, Simon knew what he did because when a young, pretty girl like her moved in to a shitty flat like the ones in his building, having clearly been beaten no matter how much makeup she tried to disguise it with, and exhibiting behavior that was way past what could be brushed off as just ‘skittish’, he made it his business to know.

Last thing he needed was to ignore the whole thing and have her wind up being on the run from the mafia or some shit.

Of course he’d checked her out, which was why he knew she was using a fake name. ‘Jane’ was both too on the nose for her purposes and ill fitting for a girl as pretty as she was. In the weeks she’d existed silent as a church mouse in the flat below his, he’d watched her through his security cameras (most but not all predating her arrival) that were installed in various places in the halls, out on the street, even a couple looking in through her windows.

She was a good girl, a careful girl. She kept most of her windows shaded, especially the one that faced out to the public street, a crucial but often overlooked security and privacy measure. The only one she didn’t keep the curtains drawn over was the one that faced the garden at the back of the building that no one ever used.

Unfortunately for her, it was also her bedroom, and she spent most of her time in it. And Simon had put a camera at the perfect spot to see inside.

Simon, with nothing else to do while on leave, spent most of his time watching her. It made his teeth grind, thinking of their moronic landlord putting something as fragile and precious as her in a ground floor fucking flat, right near the main entrance of the fucking building.

But he’d been keeping an eye on her, watching the comings and goings, doing basic surveillance to make sure nothing was out of order.

At first, he’d just been doing his due diligence. But that lie didn’t work anymore after the first time he watched her stand in the mirror, nightgown pulled up to expose her belly, her hands framing it with a look of awe visible on her face even through the grainy image.

He wanted a better look. Wanted to know the exact shade of her hazel eyes, how the colors swirled in real life when they looked at him. Wanted to know how her dark blonde hair felt threaded in his fist as he sunk his cock deep.

Wanted more dangerous things too, things not tied to sex and sticky sweet lust. Wanted her to sleep tucked in his clothes like the scent of his skin would ward off predators. Wanted her child to look up at him and call him-

But she was scared shitless, and for once he wasn’t the root cause of fear (although he harbored no illusions about how she’d feel coming face to face with him in his mask in a dark alley or even outside their building on the sunniest of London afternoons). She was just plain fucking scared. Of everything.

So if he was going to do this, if he was going to get her (he was), he had to do it right and on the first fucking try. No room for mistakes.

That meant research, careful study and surveillance as he formulated a plan, waiting for the perfect opportunity whether it came naturally or if he had to manufacture it. He’d do whatever it took, and count himself lucky to.

Actually it wasn’t half bad to be ‘home’ for once. For once, he wasn’t bored out of his skull and nearly going fucking mad waiting for Price to ring his phone about a job.

With all of his careful planning in progress, he was simply too busy to think about much else.

The good part of her being on the run, if he could call it ‘good’, was that she wasn’t on the run from a mob boss or mixed up with international espionage or lying low after a heist or any of the possible scenarios he’d initially thought probable. No, just a run of the mill abusive fuck who’d treated her like a punching bag.

He’d put a bug in the rec room of a local church that held the survivor’s support group she attended, and though she was careful to give everyone a fake name for herself and for the dead man walking (good girl, careful girl), the details she’d given him, however unintentionally, had been more than enough for what he needed to find the guy, and to find her real name.

And with her real name he got the full picture of her life before he’d entered it. Which had been…bleak.

Nothing interesting from her childhood save a large number of art show awards she’d collectsd from primary through uni, but she’d wound up with no family, no friends, and overall very little in the way of an online footprint, which was likely the reason she’d been targeted by her ex. They had a way of sniffing out vulnerability.

Admittedly it was convenient for his own purposes too, to not have to worry about faking niceties with her family who would expect him to cede the lion’s share of her time and attention once she felt safe enough to reach back out to them.

Because he wouldn’t. He wanted every ounce of her time and attention spent just on him when he was home, to make up for all the time he wasn’t. It should have been strange, to find himself playing out a fantasy of a future with a woman he’d never spoken to, but somehow it wasn’t.

At his core, Simon was a selfish man. And after everything, after all of what he’d lived through, if he was going to let someone in, he’d be sure that this time nothing would take them from him.

So when his gut pulled him to her, he hadn’t even fought off the first time an image flashed in his head of himself holding the child that grew in her belly, standing beside her bed in the hospital.

What did it matter if another man was the biological father? In his experience biological fathers weren’t worth shit. He’d be different, because he knew how to be, knew from personal experience every wrong thing to do, and now that he was older, knew how easy it was to simply not do them.

Some men balked at the thought of caring for or loving another man’s child, but Simon didn’t give a fuck about that. The baby was half of the mother too. And because they came from her, he’d love them like his own. Protect them like his own. Provide for them like his own.

He was adamant about that last part. Which was the only part of the whole thing that felt strange to start taking into consideration as he began to look around himself with fresh eyes at the way he lived while not working.

Once the balaclava had started going on more often than it didn’t, even in his civilian life, he’d stopped caring about how he lived when he wasn’t on the job.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t afford a house like Price or Gaz, as Lieutenant only the Captain was paid more than him, and all of them were paid almost absurdly high salaries due to the sort of work they did, when compared to regular soldiers.

But it just hadn’t been a priority, since he spent so much of his leave working out, training, picking up the odd bodyguard contract here or there, doing freelance glorified cyberstalking and/or assassinations for Laswell’s connections when she asked if he was free to, essentially just wasting time however he could before Price called again and they were gone once more.

With a wife (because she would be his wife) and a baby, however, a place like the run down, threadbare and stained ramshackle building they lived in now wouldn’t do at all.

So in between his surveillance and his planning he was watching the neighborhoods the others in his squad lived in for any houses on the market. It would make him feel better to know that she was near friends and familiar faces when he was away.

He’d toyed around very briefly with the thought of Scotland, but dismissed it just as quick. Soap wasn’t exactly settled, and it’d be annoying to have to move if he did. Gaz and his wife had some neighbors who were apparently thinking about downsizing now that their children were grown, and Price had moved his bird in within three months but she still owned her old place though it sat completely empty.

It gave him options, but he wasn’t going to pull a trigger without her input, even though that was unfortunately a ways off before he could broach it with her. He would eventually, when the time was right.

Because he wanted to give her everything. A good house, pretty clothes that suited her, a shiny ring on her finger, everything. Because it was clear from her background that she hadn’t ever had much.

Looking into her life had been normal, routine, but what he found could only be described as dismal. All she’d had before she’d run was a crap job at a bar and half of an art degree gathering dust.

And now a report from her ex to Scotland Yard that she was missing, though he got into their system and deprioritized it, adding himself (or the cover he used when working within their system for Laswell or her contacts) as a watcher to be notified if anything changed.

Her ex had put in the missing person report not twenty minutes after she’d boarded the bus in their shitty little town and left.

Going back to review the street footage from the day she’d ran, Simon found the man had been drinking in a pub just down the road. Waiting for her, a spider denied its dinner.

When the time came, he was going to thoroughly enjoy watching all life drain out of that man.

Of course he didn’t know how many times she’d been hurt, but even once was still too fucking many times. Ghost’d take care of it, though. He had eyes and trackers on the arsehole at all times, at his leisure to deliver him his well deserved fate.

Of course he could do it at any point, and had serious difficulty restraining himself whenever he thought about why a smart girl like her would have had to run so fast and not try to even gather together a bit of money to set herself up in safety, but Price had a standing order for no killing unless he gave them the verbal authorization. Simon didn’t have a single doubt that he’d get it, but he was waiting to have at least kissed her before he killed her abuser.

Seemed bad form otherwise.

Plus, Price was on holiday with his pregnant fiancée, and if Simon interrupted their bliss to ask for approval on a ‘non emergency’ execution he’d be running drills until he dropped dead.

So. He was in a holding pattern as he watched over her, gathering information, ensuring she was safe on the dark walks back to their building after a late shift, letting her get used to his presence from a distance, letting her see him keeping watch, letting her slowly come to terms with his shadow and size and turn it over in her head to associate it with safety.

From what he’d gathered, she’d made a run for it the second she’d found out she was pregnant. The last thing he could find her doing in her hometown on the other side of England under her real name was a doctor’s appointment. After that she’d gotten onto a bus and just left. No bag, no money, no plan, nothing.

Luckily for her, she’d landed with him.

Simon would take care of everything, including her baby.

Actually he was looking forward to it.

Gaz and his wife had three kids, and were already thinking about a fourth. Price and his fiancée were six months along and were the guardians of her sister’s kid, so the whole team was familiar enough with the process.

Nick and Wesley loved their ‘uncles’, their baby girl Tilly seemingly no different even at less than a year old, and Simon’s phone background (before he’d changed it to a picture of his future wife) had been of Nick dressed up in a skull mask and suit for Halloween last year, like what Simon had worn to Gaz and Molly’s vow renewal.

Price was all business same as ever on the job, mostly. But now, he made sure to send emails and take secure calls wherever and whenever he could stuff them in during deployments. By now they’d all been in the same car or transport with him while he gave his love to his girls (and dutifully passed on love from Lydia and Chloe when it was extended by them), and they’d all caught him smiling down at his phone as he typed out messages, or watched him stare into the distance as he listened to a voicemail, not seeing anything but their faces in his head.

And god knew Gaz never shut up about his family, too cocky that he’d locked his girl down before his first real deployment, his grade school sweetheart fairytale. They were all, even Ghost, content to let him ramble on about how wonderful it was, what a miracle, blah blah blah, because if Gaz was all starry-eyed over his wife and children then at least he and Johnny weren’t plotting on their downtime.

Plotting always led to Price having to stop Ghost from killing the two of them when they pulled yet another childish prank.

Really it was ridiculous. They rolled their eyes and groaned at his jokes and called him an old man but they got to act like ten year olds?

One mission where the helicopter was already going down and somehow Simon got blamed as if he’d done it on purpose, meaning that every time he was supposed to fly them or drive them anywhere they whined about how he was going to kill them. And Price said he couldn’t strangle them with their safety tethers?

Un-fucking-believable.

Although. Well. Fine. In the end it was frustrating but ultimately good that he never did get to follow up on his promises of lethal vengeance, because even if he’d never say it out loud, he did love them. They were family.

For the first time in a very long time, Ghost could think that sentence consciously, almost, almost free from pain.

The sweet, pretty little doe downstairs had more to do with that than anything else.

Yeah, it was lucky for her that she’d picked this building, picked the flat directly beneath his.

The cheeky thing was even piggybacking off of his internet with an absurdly cheap mobile she’d gotten from a pawn shop, but he didn’t mind really. It just made it easier to keep an eye on her.

Other than her extremely depressing ongoing job search, and the panicked checking on her ex’s social media account in incognito mode (fuck’s sake, she was so cute thinking that did absolutely anything at all), she watched a lot of videos about art and painting, and of course, she was constantly reading and watching videos about pregnancy and babies.

Her search history alone was like a constant stream of thought, and reading it made him ache. His pretty little doe was lonely and scared, and existing off of irregular tips from the sleazy bar up the road she’d managed to get a few shifts from.

Of course he spent each of her night shifts watching from the alley on the other side of the street, out of sight but within reach, and walking her back home with her none the wiser.

All part of the plan.

The plan had officially started when he’d been kept up late one night with her frantically searching for tips on saving money as a new mother, watching her search up prices of everything baby related from diapers to strollers.

It had been…frustrating wasn’t a strong enough word. He hated feeling caged, like he wasn’t able to do a thing. Wasn’t a stretch to imagine she felt similarly, cooped up in her ratty flat bare of almost any furniture but a mirror that had been left by the previous tenant and an air mattress she'd dragged home from a charity shop, a place she existed in silence and solitude just like Simon, cutting herself off from everyone and everything around her, with very little in the way of viable options to live, not just survive.

For her protection, because she was a good and careful girl, but still. Lonely. Isolating. Vulnerable.

And using a fake name, if anything were to go wrong it’d be hard to for her to get help and it restricted her to jobs that didn’t exactly ask for tax identifying information. He doubted she had much of a plan for that, but by that point she wouldn’t have to worry about it. He’d handle it for her.

Truthfully, he would have made a more concrete first move, and much earlier, but the memory of those bruises on her face lingered, the flashes of her shying away from their landlord, one arm curled protectively around her middle.

No, he had to be gentle about it, or as gentle like as he could reasonably fake. He had to be careful, and not spook her. Had to lead her to him so she’d be comfortable. And once he had her, he’d keep her safe and warm and hip deep in canvases and paint and baby clothes in some little brick house near his team.

Which led to the actionable part of the plan, that the first step of had admittedly more mixed results than he would have liked.

So when he’d decided to make his first ‘move’, it was a cool and gray Wednesday.

He’d made sure to take the stairs down from his floor to the ground floor, and of course very particularly the ones that let out in front of her flat. For once he made sure his movements were audible, for him possibly even exaggerated.

Catching her attention. Drawing her in. Waiting just in front of the stairs, pretending to be texting on his phone until he heard her soft footsteps come to her door, saw the shadow of her body under the crack at the bottom as she looked at him through the peephole, and only then did he put his balaclava on and turn to leave the building itself.

Watching his surveillance to see that she’d immediately started searching for ‘gang symbols near me’ and 'gangs that wear masks near me' was both funny, and also not.

He didn’t want his sweet little dove to be scared of him, after all.

So when he came back an hour later, he again waited to hear her move to the door to look through the peephole before he set down the box of diapers outside her door, and then went back to the stairwell and up to his flat.

Which brought on a flurry of searches like ‘how loud is vomiting’ and ‘how to tell if your neighbors can hear you through the walls’. But pretty quickly after that, the tone of the google searches changed to ‘can I be arrested for accepting stolen diapers from a stranger’ and ‘what is the penalty for stealing diapers’.

He wasn’t a common criminal, and of course he hadn’t stolen them, so a few days later when he repeated the process, he’d left the receipt crumpled beneath the box, like he’d forgotten it there totally by accident.

She’d been quiet that afternoon, and when he followed her to her shift he’d noticed she seemed distracted, pensive.

During her walk back home he ran off three would-be muggers, and she never knew the difference. He let her walk into their building first, let her get into her little flat before he followed silently.

Not ten minutes after they were both in for the night, he heard her door open, and then shortly after it the door to the stairwell. Standing in his kitchen, bathed in the light of his open refrigerator, he watched the grainy footage on his phone from his camera in the hall as she hesitated outside his door, holding a flimsy takeaway container from the pub she worked at.

He recognized the label on the bag. She brought something similar home every shift after she was done with work, and he was positive it was the only regular meal she had.

Which made it next up on his list of things to provide for her.

But didn’t explain what she was doing outside his door holding food. He watched her on his phone through the cameras as she raised her fist and knocked three times, set the food down just at the crack of his front door and then scurried away as quickly as her sweet little feet could carry her.

He went to his door on auto-pilot. Opened it, stared down at the bag tucked there for another long minute before taking it inside, unpacking it on his countertop.

This was unexpected.

Incredibly encouraging, but completely unexpected.

Really he hadn’t expected her to be so…sweet. Not so soon.

He stared at the food (steak and ale pie) for a long minute, trying to decide what to do next. Rearranging pieces of the plan. Returning the food was unthinkable, she’d think he was refusing her kindness. He’d hurt her feelings.

But her not eating?

Also unthinkable.

Which left him with only one real viable option, although perhaps a bit more on the nose, not to mention a little riskier than he would’ve originally preferred. Then again, that could work in his favor. No one got shit done without risks, after all.

He would have to cook for her. He wasn’t exactly a homemaker, but he did have a few things he could do. Had to, or he wouldn’t have lived this long.

The weather outside was cold and rainy, had been for days, and he knew well that their building didn’t have shit for insulation, so he knew exactly what to make.

Luckily he had everything he needed for it, even though he didn’t cook all that often. He went through the steps with calm, laser focus, shoving away the animal panting in his head that she was going to eat the food he provided for her.

In an hour he was walking down the stairs, hot skillet in hand and the bottom padded by one of his shirts (he didn’t exactly have a plethora of pot holders…or at least that was the excuse he came up with), the fragrant scent of cottage pie heavy in the air as he set down the skillet on the rickety little table that held their mail parcels outside her door.

For now, it was empty, and moreover a convenient place for him to put the food while he knocked on her door, trying to walk the line between loud enough for her to hear and not too loud to scare her.

But as he looked down, he smirked faintly. No need to worry about it, because his sweet girl was waiting just on the other side of the door.

Like she had, he turned away after knocking, but his return to his own flat was leisurely, not rushed.

He’d been half hoping she’d open the door, let him see her up close and in person. He was disappointed but not surprised when she didn’t.

On his phone, he watched her crack the door open, sticking her pretty head out. He cursed that it didn’t have audio when he saw her mouth open slightly in a gasp when she saw the cottage pie.

He paused just inside his door, not even hearing it close behind him as he watched her press her hands to her face, clearly fighting back tears on the grainy image. He’d gone for speed of installation and stealth over clarity of picture and he was kicking himself for it.

She quickly got herself under control, slender hand picking up the skillet (and the shirt) carefully and bringing it inside.

If he hadn’t stopped smiling for hours that night, then no one had to know.

And if he fisted his cock in the shower thinking about her eating what he gave her, her hands over his shirt, the implausible but farfetched possibility of her even wearing it, fuck-

Then that was his fucking business.

An admittedly comfortable routine developed. He’d come down the stairs, wait for her to rush to the door to see him before he pulled on his balaclava or a black medical mask, he’d go out and have a pint or grocery shop or even go see Gaz and Molly and their growing brood and help out around the house, before he’d come back bringing her something small for the baby like a blanket or a bottle warmer, and always, always food. Sometimes it would be from his favorite pub or takeaway, sometimes he’d come back home and cook her something.

Whenever he cooked for her he’d watch her eat it in her bed, phone propped up against one of the boxes of diapers he’d left, playing a Bob Ross video.

And every time he checked, she was wearing his shirt.

It wasn’t just then that she wore it, either. Every time she got in bed she was wearing it, the long sleeves having to be shoved up to her forearms so they didn’t cover her hands, the hem hanging down long enough on her legs that she didn’t need to wear anything else, at least when she was alone in the privacy of her own space - so she didn’t.

Seeing her in it that first time, the night after he’d given her the cottage pie and only a few hours after she’d dropped off the clean skillet in front of his door with a little card in the bottom that just had a red heart on it, he’d nearly done something fucking stupid like break down her door and lick her pussy til she cried and forgot about everything but him.

He settled for beating off while he watched her cuddle with her pillow, sleeping soundly.

She wore his shirt every night, and every day he lingered a little longer outside her door, or when he walked her home, watching her back, he let himself drift a little closer.

He knew she knew he was there, had spotted the first moment she’d noticed him watching the pub from across the street, leaning against the corner of the alley, smoking.

Those eyes had gone wide at first, and she’d frozen from where she was wiping down the window booth. But then, the fear just evaporated, just melted right off and she’d ducked her head, a beat too slow to hide her smile.

She’d recognized him, though of course the skull mask was fairly recognizable.

It was exactly the kind of reaction he’d been hoping for.

As much as he wanted to press, wanted to take the next step and knock on her door and actually wait for her to answer, he wouldn’t yet. She’d have to take that next step when she was ready for it.

Rushing her wasn’t something he could afford, and he’d be dead in the water if he pushed her too fast or too hard. So he’d be patient and keep drawing her in closer.

Which was of course when Laswell called and said she needed him for an emergency job. One, two days tops. A routine infiltration assassination that needed outside help for a deep cover team already in place so they all had visible alibis.

The kind of thing he never would have thought twice about before.

But now, even though he said yes (what else could he say, that he needed to stay in England in case his future wife asked him his name?), his thoughts were on his neighbor, watching another Bob Ross video with the volume up.

That meant she was doing laundry.

He looked at his go bag in hand, and made a decision. Time for another risk.

Fuck it.

Like usual, he kept his steps loud on the stairs, fighting back a grin as he heard her rushing about in her flat to shut the video off and come up to her door.

But this time he didn’t pull the balaclava on, and didn’t turn to leave. He went right to her door, and knocked.

Her shadow stayed put under the door, and the corners of his mouth twitched faintly.

Again, he knocked. Softly, he said, “Come on, love. Need to talk to you.”

Through the door he heard her breathy gasp. He kept his eyes on the door handle, frowning at it. He honestly wasn’t sure if she’d open the door at all, if she’d just stay where she was and force him to tell her through the hollow core veneer.

But then, the handle turned, and the door cracked.

He stepped back, giving her a little space as her face (pretty, so fucking pretty, fuck those hazel eyes were so much brighter in person than in pictures) appeared in the crack, surprised and a little wary.

“…yes?” She said finally.

Her hand was curled around the edge of the door, and he recognized the fabric. Recognized the bleach stain on the cuff stretched out over her knuckles.

All the blood in his body turned and went south as he realized she was wearing his shirt. And only his shirt. That was why she’d hesitated. She wasn’t wearing any fucking pants.

And she’d still opened the door.

For him.

God fucking damn everything to hell, Laswell included.

He cleared his throat, realizing he’d just been stood there staring for far too long. “I’m leaving town for a day, maybe two.”

To her credit, she didn’t try to even pretend to not know why he was telling her. But the pinch in her brow and the fear bleeding into her eyes made his stomach turn sour.

“Really?” Her voice was quiet.

He watched her closely, reading the question she wanted to ask in the tense purse of her pretty lips.

Ask it. Ask it, pretty doe, ask for it and I’ll give you anything you fucking want, swear I will. Tell me to stay.

But she didn’t, to his great disappointment.

“O-okay,” she said quietly.

He stepped forward, drawing her gaze, greedily drinking in her faint, sudden inhalation of air, the dilation of her pupils as he towered over her. “Be safe,” he told her, voice firm but hopefully not cruel. “If you need me, call.”

Lifting a hand into the space between them he offered her a card, blank of everything but his number. “I’ll answer. No matter what.”

Barely a second passed before she moved her hand on the door, carefully taking the card. She stretched her fingers out just a hair more than necessary, causing their fingers to brush, and he watched her shiver ever so slightly, barely enough to even be noticed.

“Good girl,” he said quietly, a thread of sound.

She still heard, hazel eyes snapping up to him, plump mouth parted.

He smirked. Reaching for his balaclava he stepped back and pulled it on. “Remember. Stay safe.”

Wide-eyed and blushing, she nodded mutely.

Much as he hated to, he turned to leave.

“Wait!”

He glanced back, heart pounding in his dick when he saw she’d opened the door wider, showing him a flash of her bare legs, the fabric of his shirt hanging loose around her body. She’d probably be able to wear it even at nine months, and the mental image of that possibility made him so fucking horny.

“Wha's tha', love?”

She shivered again, a little stronger this time. He watched her hesitate, a flicker of caution crossing her face.

Good girl, careful, clever little doe. But you don’t ever need to hesitate like that with me.

Slowly, he stepped forward again, crowding up against the crack in the door, looking down at her while his blood pooled low in his hips. “Tell me, doe.”

Another shiver, that blush deepening even as the hesitation vanished and any tension along with it. “What’s your name?”

“Simon. Lieutenant Simon Riley.”

He watched her mouth his name, a hot pulse of arousal jolting through him. He wondered if she’d be honest when he asked, low and rough, “What’s yours, pretty doe?”

“I-” she paused, tugging her lower lip between her teeth. And then, she straightened, chin lifting slightly. “Olivia.”

Honesty it was for her, then.

The smile on his face under the balaclava was huge, victorious, vicious. “Olivia.”

Through the wider opening in the door he watched her legs press together, the heat in her cheeks flaring brighter.

Fuck it.

What was one more risk when she’d responded so beautifully to all the ones before?

Reaching out, he brushed the backs of his fingers over the smooth skin of her cheek. Just like he thought she would she gasped, and hung for a second in a tense, awkward posture like she couldn’t decide if she should move away.

Simon stayed rooted, staring at her.

And after a moment that tension went right out of her and she sighed, body going lax as she leaned into his touch.

Just like he thought. Still skittish, but she trusted him, enough to seek the heat of his fingers to try and alleviate the touch-starved loneliness she must be enduring.

He would know.

If it weren’t for Soap having zero concept of personal space he might never have been able to fix the itch beneath his own skin while they were deployed.

Just something else for me to take care of for you, pretty doe.

“You - you said two days?” She opened her eyes slowly, head still tilted into his palm as his thumb brushed over her cheekbone. Her pupils nearly swallowed stormy hazel whole.

He grunted. “Hopefully just one. If you need me sooner, call.”

Nodding, she lifted her own hand, curling cool fingers around his wrist, holding his hand there for a moment. “Okay.”

Moving his fingers from her cheekbone to her chin, he lifted her face up slightly. There was so much he wanted to say to her. He brushed his thumb over her parted lips.

“See you soon, love.”

Reluctantly he let his hand drop, though his touch lingered as long as it could. So did her fingers around his wrist.

Olivia blessed him with a short, shy smile. “See you soon.”

-

If Laswell noticed that he attacked the mission like a demon determined to make a point, she didn’t say other than a hedged non-question about how his leave was going.

Fucking CIA.

Just because Simon understood the typical spy-talk bullshit didn’t mean he liked doing it all the time.

He showed up, got the intel, got in, stuck a knife in the guy’s lung and then severed his spinal cord to be safe, and then he got out clean.

The longer he was away from London the worse the itch under his skin got. His phone hadn’t rung, but that was very little consolation.

He wanted eyes on Olivia at all times. He cursed that he’d neglected to get Soap or someone to watch her, but he was self-aware enough to know he would’ve hated that too, hated that it wasn’t him. Knew it might’ve scared her to have someone else watching over her.

Very quickly he resolved to get her a dog. A Doberman or a Shepherd was the safer bet. Something to hound her steps and keep predators away when he wasn’t there.

Killing her ex would help too, he was sure of it.

The whole time he was there he was snappish and brutal like a coiled snake, extreme even for him, but there wasn’t a thing he could’ve done about it even if he’d wanted to. The whole time he’d had an itch beneath his skin that he couldn’t shake. Something like a warning.

When Laswell finally gave him the go to leave, he’d been practically halfway to the tarmac. He hadn’t even strapped in on the COD before he had his phone in hand, pulling up the surveillance cameras.

A deep, angry knot of tension in his chest eased when it’d loaded to show Olivia in her bedroom making the bed.

She’d been wearing his shirt. Her dark blonde hair was up, baring her pretty neck. He would leave marks there, soon as he convinced her to let him. Suck bruises onto her skin, leave imprints of his teeth marking that she belonged to someone.

Belonged to him.

I could text her.

The realization had come without prompting as he watched her, traced the lines of her limbs with his gaze the way he ached to with his hands.

I could just open up a new message and send it.

For a moment when he’d sat there as the plane hummed to life, he’d been drunk on that realization. The possibility. Fuck, he could’ve just called her, heard her voice straight from the source.

But then she would’ve asked how he knew her number when he had only given her his.

Fuck.

With great restraint, he managed to keep himself in check. But the whole plane ride back was the worst kind of waiting.

Ghost didn't share the sniper mentality like Gaz or Price. Patience didn’t always come easily and naturally to him. Especially when he’d been waiting so long already.

After the COD landed in their facility in the south of England, he felt a little bit better. It was good to be on the same soil as her.

Sixteen hours on the job, ten more until in flight time to and from Morocco. Only less than an hour to go before he’d be walking in through the entrance of their building. He was going to beat that two day estimate.

He wondered if she’d give him another smile when she saw him.

But he’d barely gotten into his car when his stomach, unprompted by anything he could see or hear, suddenly flipped, that sour feeling going up by a million.

He pulled out his phone just before it beeped. A notification from the bloke he’d had watching Olivia’s ex’s house. The man hadn’t come home from work at the usual time.

Before he even pulled up the log he was tapped into to watch the man’s credit card purchases, he knew what he’d see. A bus ticket.

He even knew where he was headed. Somehow, someway, he’d found Olivia.

A cold sensation bloomed in his stomach, like it was encasing his body in ice. His hands went rock steady, that sour feeling sharpening into a blade to cut with.

Putting the car into drive, he started moving, barking out an order to his phone to call Price even as he pulled up the footage of his cameras, seeing Olivia sound asleep on her little air mattress taking a nap before her shift.

The phone rang once, twice, then-

“Someone had bloody better be dead.”

In the background, a sharp gasp and then a soft smack.

“Oi, woman!”

“Don’t say that! How many times have I told you not to jinx yourself?”

Cute as Price and Lydia were, really adorable, whatever he did not have time. “Price, I need a kill auth.”

A pause.

Then, soft rustling as Price moved away from his bird.

His voice was somber. “Details?”

“Abusive prick who’s hunting my neighbor. She’s on the run and he’s sniffed her out.”

Price didn’t hesitate. “Done. Keep it clean.”

Ghost just hung up, not dignifying that with a response. He weaved through traffic, ignoring the blare of horns and shouting drivers. They could all piss off. He had to be there, had to put a bullet in this man’s head before he so much as looked at Olivia again.

With one hand he reached over and pulled a silencer out of his glove box. He had everything else he’d need for clean up in his car, and a place to take the body after.

In their building, even if someone heard, fuck even if they saw the shot, no one would say shit.

Luckily that wouldn’t be a problem in their area this time of day on a Thursday. The building was practically empty, would be for the next four hours before Steinman in 2B brought home a six pack and four cartons of the vilest cigarettes Simon’d ever had the misfortune of being on the same floor as.

Simon was ready, he was more than ready to do this. He eyed his phone, open to the live feed from their building’s thankfully still empty hallway.

He just had to get there first. He pressed harder on the gas.

Nothing had happened by the time he sped into the building’s tiny car park, and he couldn’t see anything when he did a quick scan of the area.

So he wasn’t here yet. Good.

He put the silencer on the gun and tucked it into his waistband as he walked inside, most of his gear still on, the hard face mask still in place.

The soft rush of steps muffled behind walls and a door had his breath catching in his throat.

And then, even better, a soft gasp. Her door opened wide, and she was beaming, dark blonde hair still wet from the shower, wearing his shirt-

“You’re back!” she chirped, stepping out and flinging herself into his arms like he didn’t look like death come to collect.

Her arms hooked around his shoulders and he was helpless against the urge to drop his face into her neck, groaning faintly as his arms corded against her back to lift her completely off her feet, walking her back into her flat.

She didn’t seem the least bit concerned, her face tucked likewise into the collar of his quarter zip, her soft mouth against the fabric of the balaclava as she spoke. “It’s barely been a day.” Her arms tightened as he knocked the door shut behind them with his heel. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re back-”

He should put her down and tell her that her ex was on his way. He should send her up to his flat and tell her to barricade herself in his bathroom until he came to get her. He should let her put on some fucking pants.

He didn’t fucking want to.

The skin of his palms felt like they were sizzling, so tantalizingly close to her bare skin. The scent of her, her fruity soap and shampoo mixed with the barest lingering trace of his own skin hung heady and drugging in his nose.

“Fuck,” he groaned, squeezing her waist, probably too tight.

She stopped talking, turning her head, leaning back. And now those hazel eyes were wide and worried. “Are you hurt? Is everything alright? What’s wrong?”

Fuck him for putting worry on that face. “Not hurt,” he said, as reassuringly as he could while adrenaline kept pouring through his body. “Not hurt.”

Goddammit how was he going to tell her this. “I-”

A few steps behind them, her door rattled in it’s frame as someone pounded on it.

“Ollie!” A man’s voice called, higher pitched than Simon had expected, nasal and sharp. “Bitch I know you’re in there! Get the fuck out before I come in there and drag you out.”

Olivia had gone a dead weight in his arms. Her hands were white-knuckled on his sleeves, hazel eyes horrified as any last remnant of her joy at seeing Simon evaporated.

“Shh,” he said softly, moving quickly. Her bathroom was in the same place his was, and he set her down carefully on the counter. When she tried to speak, clinging to him, the first tear falling as the door rattled again he shook his head. “I’m going to handle it, doe. Do you hear me?”

He locked eyes with her, promising darkly, “He will never fucking bother you again.”

She stared back at him. There was a flicker of something in her eyes, but it wasn’t something he’d seen before. It wasn’t suspicion or hesitation or even surprise. It looked…it looked like relief. “Okay,” she whispered. “Please…please be safe?”

He shoved his mask up, baring his face so he could kiss her forehead, rubbing his thumbs under her eyes, catching her tears. “Stay here,” he told her firmly. “Until I come and get you. It may be a while and you won’t hear anything, but do not come out. Understood?”

She nodded.

“Good girl.”

Another flash in her eyes, a slight shiver.

Fuck, no time for that but he would revisit it.

He backed away, pulling the mask back down. “Lock the door behind me, love.”

On the other side, he waited until she did. And then, he took his time, ambling back out into the main room.

Olivia’s flat was completely barren to the casual observer. No furniture, no food out on the counter tops, no magnets on the fridge or papers or junk cluttering up the surfaces. Nothing on the walls, either.

No evidence that she was actually there, or ever had been. It soothed something in him to realize that the dead man walking wouldn't ever get even a hint of her presence again before he ate a bullet from Simon's gun.

With the place empty like this, it looked almost like the trap that it was.

It was actually the perfect background for when the fucker finally managed to shoulder his way through the door and went stumbling to the floor, crying out, favoring his shoulder.

Fucking moron.

“That little bitch,” he hissed to the floor. “I’ll kill her for this, I swear I’ll-”

The click of Ghost’s gun cocking cut him off, the silencer pressed against his temple. He relished the uptick of his breathing, the shake of those thin fingers. “Get up. Slow.”

As soon as the man started to move, Ghost moved back, keeping the gun pointed at his skull but out of his reach.

Beneath the mask, he smirked as the guy got his first good look at him and went paper white, starting to stammer in terror. “S-sir, I’m s-s-so fuckin’ sorry, I’m j-just looking for my girlfriend, I s-s-swear!”

“Shut the fuck up,” he said calmly, “and turn around. Start walking.”

What happened next was routine. Getting him into the boot of his car already lined with vinyl, ignoring the tears and begging and pathetic bribes to just pull the trigger twice in quick succession, then tuck the vinyl tightly around him so nothing spilled out.

A phone call later, and his usual spot was ready. He dropped the body off at the mortuary two streets over where he knew it would disappear.

In a day he’d be nothing but ash, any leftovers fed to the mortician’s cousin’s hogs out in the countryside, the ashes scattered and disposed of in some random construction zone's concrete mixer.

Five years from now he’d just be another cold case on some overworked Scotland Yard officer’s desk, forgotten and unremarkable.

Ten years from now not even Olivia would remember him. Simon would make sure of that.

He spent a scant minute after the drop off prepping his boot for just another such occasion. Not that he ever foresaw these sorts of events, never went looking for them, but then fortune favored the bold and the prepared.

Soon enough he was walking back down the hall of the first floor of their building, glaring at the splintered lock of her front door as he passed through it. A weight was gone, some knot in his muscle no pressure could unravel finally relieved.

He knocked on the bathroom door gently. “It’s Simon, Olivia. Unlock the door, pretty doe.”

A pause. Then the click of the door unlatching.

Olivia’s face peered at him through the crack, but she pulled it wide when she saw for sure that it was him. Her face was swollen and red from crying but she burst into fresh tears.

“Doe,” he crooned, bending down to sweep her up off off her feet and into his arms. “It’s all over. He’ll never ever bother you again. I promise.”

He started walking out, carrying her like it was nothing. He’d put her in his bed, with him if she allowed it, and let her catch a few hours of sleep. And then he’d cook her something, maybe another cottage pie, and order dessert to be delivered. Probably something with chocolate. Something with a lot of sugar, both as a chemical anti-depressant and because she just fucking deserved a goddamned treat. She needed more meat on her bones.

“He’ll come back,” she cried, clinging to him tight like she wanted to crawl beneath his skin. He’d let her if that was what she needed. “He always comes back.”

Snorting, Simon brushed a hand over her damp hair. “Not this time.”

He climbed the stairs with little effort, trying to come up with something useful to do other than stay silent and rub her back, her hair as she cried into his shoulder. Her legs were locked around his hips and it was proving to be monumentally distracting, to say the least.

But that would have to come later. Taking care of her would take a different context for now.

With one hand he drew out his keys and unlocked his door, holding her securely against his body with his other hand while he walked through. He kissed the shell of her ear as he kicked the door shut behind him and tossed his keys on the kitchen counter, reached behind him to flip the lock before he finally, greedily spread his hand out over her back again.

“You need to sleep,” he said, walking her back to his bedroom. “And then eat. And then we can talk.”

She didn’t even hesitate this time, just sniffled and sighed. “A nap does sound good.”

He chuckled, kissed her ear again. “Good girl.”

She shivered, curling around him tighter.

In comparison to a normal flat, Simon’s wasn’t very decorated, but at least he did have some things that Soap and Gaz’s wife Molly had insisted on. So he at least had a little more in the way of comforting amenities than Olivia had as he set her down on the top of the line mattress in the king sized bed that only barely fit him when he managed to catch a few hours.

Olivia was slow to let go of her grip on him, and his hands lingered too. He stood there, thighs against the mattress, her knees on either side of his legs as she stared up at him, eyes red and puffy but less glossy with tears.

“How can you know he won’t come back?” she whispered.

There were a thousand different ways he could answer that question, some worse than others. What he settled on was cupping her face in his palm, and asking, “Don’t I always keep you safe?”

Her eyes fluttered shut, the trembling fight or flight tension in her body just gone in the blink of an eye, vanished with a sigh. “Yes. You do, Simon.”

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