#smashinterrupted

Lara is a creature of habit although in truth she no longer remembers if she has been all along or if the army made her this way. Regardless, almost every afternoon she finds herself here, queuing in her local coffee shop for the biggest, most caffeinated beverage money can buy. It's her daily ritual, a blessed half hour of peace and quiet before she has to return to Sandhurst Military Academy and somehow teach the officers of tomorrow to be better than she ever was.

It's oddly mild for February, but the constant fine drizzle outside chases away any hopes for Spring. Inside the packed coffee shop it's sweltering, a humid, artificial warmth that has her shrugging off her khaki jacket and tying it around her waist. Anywhere else and she'd look quite the sight, dressed fully in her army fatigues, trousers tucked dutifully into her standard issue black boots. But here, she blends in. She prefers it in almost every way, her desire to stand up and be counted long since passed.

The barista doesn't even bother to ask for her order, greeting her with a soft smile that he reserves for polite regulars. Barely minutes later, her to go cup is clasped between her sweaty palms and she turns on her heel, bracing herself for another afternoon teaching at an institution she no longer truly believes in.

It's in that moment when her heart threatens to burst from her chest.

If she'd been alone, she would have been so sure that she was hallucinating, the face that greets her one she's spent the past 4 years so terrified that she'd forget. But they're flesh and blood as they stand in front of her, customers bustling around them in a way that tells her that this can't be anything but real.

Simon Riley, dressed in civvie clothes that still somehow manage to look so alien, even after all this time. His face is weathered, more scarred and a little older than the man she remembers. And yet the look in his eyes takes her back in an instant, brown irises that look at her as though she's all that matters.

He's a ghost in every sense. There hasn't been a moment in 4 years where she hasn't grieved for him.

Right now, it's all she can do to put her coffee down onto something solid before she drops it.

"Bones..." His voice his hoarse and he visibly swallows before her, nervous hands hanging idly by his sides. His dark hair is slicked down with rain, whilst bigger droplets pepper the exposed skin of his neck and arms. Despite the weather, he's only wearing a t shirt and jeans, the fabric betraying a body that is thicker with muscle than she remembers. There are what look to be deliberate scars littering his forearms and what little she can see of his biceps but she's not even sure she wants to know why they are there.

Lara quickly realises that she's been staring dumbfounded and silent. She swallows, her throat drier than it has any reason to be. There's a part of her that just wants to run forward and hold him, but it exposes a vulnerability she doesn't dare show. Instead her brow furrows, her voice stronger than she feels when she finally does speak.

"...How?"

Riley looks at her as though it's the hardest question in the world.

Maybe it is.

"Outside." The word comes out like an order, an echo of the man she met when she first joined the 141. It's unfair how she feels it like a kick to the stomach, memories she's fought to repress suddenly flooding her mind. She's sure that she doesn't let it show and yet somehow, Riley softens, barely. He cocks a head towards the door. "Please?"

Her feet decide for her, her coffee long since abandoned along with some confused teenagers.

Outside, she barely feels the rain, despite her jacket still hanging around her waist. She folds her arms, grasps her biceps in a way that somehow feels like the right thing to do, although not for a moment do her eyes leave Riley. She falls in step beside him as he leads her to the shelter of a nearby bus stop, her fingernails biting into her skin to fight the intense desire to reach out and touch him.

"I thought you were dead." It appears stating the obvious is the place where her mouth chooses to take over and begin.

"It was safer that way." Riley shrugs, although it's by no means as confident a gesture as he intends. "Price wasn't the only one to get his name dragged through the mud that day." There's another name missing from his admission, but Lara knows him well enough to know that he'd never want to give voice to MacTavish and the black mark they put against his name. Not even now, when the world knows the truth of it, a truth their Captain fought and ultimately died for. "I needed to disappear. No better way of doing that than dying."

'You could have told me,' Lara says to herself, though she knows better than to give the words voice. Her heart hates his decision, but her head understands. Would have likely done the same even when she would have had a family to mourn her. For Ghost, she was his only family. Instead, she leans back against the bus shelter, the sole of a boot propped against the shoddy plastic wall. "You still haven't told me how."

"I don't..." She can almost feel the crack in Riley's voice, but he swallows it back expertly. Instead he runs a hand through the wet tangle of dark brown hair atop his head, grimacing as he struggles to find the words. "I was... lucky." The word rolls off his tongue with an air of disgust. "Shepherd slotted Roach... right there in front of me. Shot me too but it didn't put me away the way he expected. I played dead in the dirt like a fucking possum, wondering if any of it was worth it. I don't know what made me finally crawl away. I came back for him, but by then... they'd taken care of him with all the others, Makarov's men, the lot. I threw my mask in the fire and figured it was better if everyone thought I was gone."

It's too much, the grim resignation in his voice, an almost monotone quality that fights to mask the emotion behind the words that leave his mouth. Lara can feel anger stirring in her gut, her heart panging with the same pain that had hit her that morning she'd woken up from surgery, away from the 141 and out of the fight. It's all too easy to picture, her eyes welling up with tears for the little brother she'd found in Roach. It crushed her the moment she found out they were all gone, but it's no easier now hearing it from Riley all over again.

He notices before she can try and look away, practised eyes reading her the exact same way they always have. It's another reminder of everything she's been missing, another stab at her gut that somehow isn't soothed by his presence beside her. Tears slip from her eyes and she swipes at them with frustrated hands, turning from him in a mix of shame and confusion.

His touch is a question. A hand reaches for her shoulder, a gentle squeeze of pressure that is more timid than anything they've ever shared. It feels like an unknown, like they're right back where they started except this time they are both fragments of the people they once were.

There's so much to say; her thoughts a chasing whirlwind that clouds her mind. She hasn't the words to even begin to express them. She wants to feel anger, wants to thrash and scream and punish him for every empty feeling she's had since he's been gone.

But she can't. Maybe one day she will, when the tempest in her mind has finally calmed and she can think clearly again. Now, the only tangible emotions she feels are the pain of losing everything and the complete and utter relief that he's found her again.

Her heart is his. Despite everything, that's the one thing that's never changed.

She spins around before her head can tell her no, arms wrapping around a neck they'd never dreamed to hold again. They're both off balance, stumbling backwards clumsily until Riley's back presses against the plastic wall. His hands fall to her hips, a familiar weight that threatens to choke her as she closes the distance between them.

The kiss is messy, a jumble between two people fighting to take as much of each other in as possible. Teeth and noses clash and they move clumsily against each other, hands gripping fearfully as though they could drift at any second. It's everything she's forgotten and nothing she remembers all at once.

She breaks away breathless, eyes closed as she rests her forehead against his. She can feel his heart hammering against her own, doesn't dare speak in case she ruins everything with the wrong words. Outside the shelter, the rain is falling heavier now, beating off the tarmac in a steady rhythm. She wishes that the white noise would swallow them both.

"I'm sorry." It's barely a whisper, but Riley's apology is there, brushing against her lips. It's enough to shake her from her thoughts, and she takes a cautious step from him, her eyes finally able to meet his. She reaches out, straightens his shirt were it lies crumpled against his skin.

"There's so much more we should say." Her hands move to his arms, tracing the foreign scars her fingertips find there as if to prove a point. He looks at her as though he doesn't even know where to start and she shakes her head, cutting him off before he even begins to try. "Are you staying?"

"... Do you want me to?"

"I never wanted you to leave." Her words are blunt, echoing the only thing she knows for sure right now. Her right hand traces his arm down to his wrist, before her fingers slip clumsily between his. The soft grip of her hand tries to convey everything she doesn't feel able to say. "Stay."

And she means it, wants it more than anything she's ever wanted before. There's so many questions, so many complications that she knows deep down it will never be easy, that they have countless hurdles laid out in front of them. She knows that talking will hurt, that memories and emotions she's buried deep will come back to haunt her as soon as he begins to answer her questions. She's under no illusions that this will be anything like a fairytale.

And yet despite that, she knows he's worth it. Knows that she's never for a second stopped loving him. Living without him was the cruellest of lessons; the hardest thing she’s ever had to do. Now that he's back she can't imagine ever wanting to feel that again. She won’t. She barely made it out alive the first time.