Chapter Text
Roach knew something was wrong. He felt it the moment his boots hit the ground. His suspicions were confirmed as soon as they walked into the ambush. He thought his bad luck had ended when they found the safehouse where Makarov was supposed to be; the guy himself might have been missing, but the house was a goddamn goldmine of intel: names, locations, service records. It had everything. They barely managed to copy it onto a DSM, escaping through a relentless hail of bullets. Roach didn’t want to think about anything else; he just wanted to get on the transport and get the hell back to base.
He and the Lieutenant ran through the woods, down the hill. During the entire trek, he realized that gut feeling hadn’t gone away—it was getting stronger. It was that tiny pinch in his chest telling him that something wasn’t right, that something was slipping right through their fingers. He had to ignore it the moment he spotted the plane. The relief he felt when he saw it was huge. Just a little further, he told himself, just a little further and I’ll be home.
He didn't see it coming. He stepped on a mine, or at least he thought he did; could’ve been a grenade, who knows. He remembered slamming into the ground, trying to force his body to move, but getting nothing. He remembered feeling Ghost’s hands on his rig, dragging him. He felt like a dead weight. He tried to shoot at the remaining enemies, but with the agony exploding in his leg, it was nearly impossible. Ghost ended up lifting him, taking most of Gary’s weight onto himself. He tried to walk, trying to focus on his lieutenant’s words, but everything was becoming unbearable due to the pain.
When he saw Shepherd step down from the transport, he couldn’t help but feel a cold shiver run down his spine. The man didn’t have the look of a commander worried about his squad; you could see it right in his eyes, how the final missing piece of his puzzle had just clicked into place. Roach reached out his arm with effort, thinking the general would help him up, but all he received was a shot in the abdomen. He supposed the moment lasted only a second, but to Roach, it felt like a lifetime. He heard Ghost’s scream as he tried to bring his weapon up against the General, but it was too late. They had been caught completely off guard.
Maybe he shouldn’t have ignored that gut feeling. Maybe he wouldn’t be bleeding out on the dirt if he hadn’t, but it didn’t matter. Not anymore. He wanted to stop Shepherd as the man reached down to take the DSM; he wanted to grab him by the throat and demand an explanation, but he could only watch. Just like he could only watch as he was thrown into a pit. He wanted to cry when he saw Ghost’s body collapse right beside him. He looked into his eyes, but only a cold glare met him from behind those sunglasses. He was dead. The Lieutenant had died the moment the bullet hit. A part of him was glad; glad that Ghost didn’t have to witness this, that he didn’t have to feel the helplessness of not being able to move, not being able to do a damn thing. Roach wanted to reach out, wanted to touch Ghost’s hand or at least his jacket. It was strange, wasn’t it? He was about to die, but the only thing he could think about was that, at least, he wasn’t alone.
As he watched the gasoline being poured over them, Roach could only pray that it wouldn’t hurt. He didn’t want to suffer; he wanted it to be quick. He wanted his captain; MacTavish would know what to do, he’d know how to make Roach stop being scared. He wanted Price’s comforting hand on his shoulder. He wanted Ghost’s silent company. He wanted the whole unit: he wanted Archer’s snacks, Merlin’s weird snoring, and even Toad’s awful jokes. He wanted his family with him because he was terrified. Scared of death, scared of the pain, scared of having doomed them all with his own stupidity.
Roach couldn’t look away as Shepherd tossed his cigar down like they were a piece of damn trash to be rid of. The flames appeared, and then he felt it. He felt a pain he had never experienced in his life. He could feel every inch of his skin melting away, the smoke filling his lungs, and the smell of his own burning flesh trapping itself in his nose. He wanted to scream, but nothing came out of his mouth; he wanted to beg them to kill him so he wouldn't feel this torment anymore. In the end, no one heard his prayers. He burned at a painfully slow pace, and it hurt. It hurt like nothing else ever had. When his vision finally began to fade into black, he was grateful; grateful that the pain was over. The last thing he could hear was Captain Price’s voice over the comms, warning Ghost about the General, but it was already too late. Too damn late. The final thought Roach could think was how much he regretted not being able to see this bullshit coming somehow. He regretted not being able to protect his family.
Roach opened his eyes. He knew it was impossible; he should be dead. Though he didn’t know why, his vision was entirely blurred. He thought he heard voices, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. The last thing he could think before slipping back into the darkness was that he hoped they weren’t pissed at him for failing to protect his friends. He didn’t know what he’d do if they were.
He didn’t know how much time passed, but the moment he woke up, everything was blindingly bright. The light blinded him. That was when Roach realized something was wrong. It felt like he was lying on something soft, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything. "If your entire body was burned to a crisp, you wouldn’t be able to move either." He forced that thought out of his head. Instead, he tried to stretch his arm. It took a huge effort, but when it entered his line of sight, he froze. Was it… small and soft? It made no sense. None of it did. He was a battle-hardened soldier, his hands calloused from the constant grip of firearms, not soft as if he had never held a damn thing in his life.
Suddenly, panic set in. Where was he? With who? He hoped to not be with Shepherd… No, more importantly: what the hell had they done to him? He assumed someone sensed his panic, because his view was suddenly blocked by a head. What? It was a nurse; he could tell clearly by the uniform. That was when she spoke to him in a soft, gentle voice:
“What’s wrong, little guy? You want to go to your daddy, right? Don’t worry, he’ll be here soon.”
Roach was confused. Was this woman a giant or something? See his father? His father had died years ago. Then he felt himself being lifted, which was weird because he should be far too heavy for such a slender woman. That was when he caught a glimpse of himself for the first time through the reflection of a mirror. But what stared back at him wasn’t him. It was a baby. A child no more than a week old. How was this possible? Roach was a man, he was twenty-seven years old, a full-grown adult. Why? Why did this have to happen to him? He should be dead, just like Ghost, just like everyone else. He didn’t want to be part of the universe’s ridiculous joke. He didn’t know what to do; he was frustrated. And that was when the sound broke through: he had started to cry. They were heartbreaking, gut-wrenching cries. The nurse seemed to panic, realizing that nothing she did could calm him.
He didn't know when he fell asleep, but it was surely because his body got tired from all the crying. Roach opened his eyes once more. It was late, he guessed. Looking down at his hands made him feel physically sick. This had to be a very bad joke. But clearly, it wasn’t: he was a baby, a goddamn baby. Was Ghost a baby now too? Was everyone who died just like him babies in this very hospital? He couldn’t know for sure, since he could only whimper and couldn’t speak. It was strange how terrifying it felt to be unable to talk; after all, Roach didn’t speak much anyway, at least not often, but his silence had always been a choice, not an imposition. He didn’t pay attention to the nurses’ hands on his body. He couldn’t, because he felt just as helpless as he had hours… or days ago? He didn’t know when, only that it felt exactly the same as when he burned in those flames.
It took Roach a long time to get used to it. He was five years old now. He felt more comfortable in his own skin, though he still tripped over non-existent objects. Most importantly, he had accepted that, somehow, he had died but woken up in a reality completely different from his own. The only thing keeping him sane was that he was still himself: his name was Gary Sanderson, born in Texas, United States, in 1989. His mother died during childbirth. His father was the exact same: a deadbeat, alcoholic veteran who had no better solution than to take his frustrations out on his kid.
The only difference was his brothers. In this life, Gary was an only child. There were no older brothers. There was no Max, no David, no one to look after him when his father got mad. And he hated it. He hated it because he felt so incredibly alone. So goddamn lonely... That was why he started drawing: he was scared of forgetting them. On the nights he cried, desperately trying to keep silent, his only comfort was looking at them through the pages of his notebook. He forgot their voices, but not their faces. He forgot what they used to call him, but not their favorite colors, not their ages, not the crooked smiles they’d give him during breakfast. He could never forget them. Not them.
He was scared. He was terrified that the same thing would happen with the 141. What if his captain wasn’t out there? What if his lieutenant didn’t exist? Or Captain Price? Or the entire unit? His friends, his family… What if there’s no one left? What if he was alone? Alone, just like when he burned. He tried his hardest not to forget them: he drew them, wrote down what they were like, what they enjoyed, but mostly, he repeated their names like a mantra:
Merlin, Royce, Meat, Worn, Scarecrow, Ozone, Toad, Archer, Rook, Chemo, Rocket, Robot, Peasant, Zach. Captain MacTavish, Captain Price, and Lieutenant Riley.
He knew there were more. He knew there were names he had forgotten, blurred faces without a name, but he couldn’t recall them. He didn’t like to think about it. His chest tightened at the thought of how many people he no longer recognized, how many he had already lost.
A noise snapped him out of his thoughts. He knew it was his father by how messy his footsteps sounded. He hated how his body tensed involuntarily. The good thing about having the mind of a 27-year-old was that he now knew how to stay quiet. He knew that if he pretended to be asleep, his father would have no reason to beat him. But it was hard to control old habits. A part of him was glad it was this way, glad that his father hadn’t changed. He couldn’t picture his dad being happy, let alone treating him like a real son. At least this kind of treatment was what he was used to.
Either way, he wouldn’t be staying long. He was going to run away from his father. He could wait five more years, or nine; it didn’t really matter, because when he left, his father would never hear from him again. He wasn’t caught up in school. His brothers used to take care of Gary’s education, pretending to be his father or enrolling him in school when his father wasn’t paying attention. Now he was on his own. No one gave a shit enough to make sure he studied, though he was certain he didn’t need it anyway. Besides, when the time came to join the military, he’d simply take the GED.
The good thing about not going to school was that he could use the time to train. When his father left the house, Gary spent the entire day outside: running, climbing, getting his body used to physical effort. He didn’t mention to anyone that he was also training for the military, because if he didn’t do anything, he started smelling the smoke, started feeling his body ache from the flames. At least this way those sensations faded, letting him focus specifically on the task at hand.
He couldn’t train for real just yet, he knew that. But when he was old enough and his hands were no longer so clumsy, he’d make sure he was ready for the military. Roach couldn’t fail. Not this time. He can’t let them die. He needed to be the best. The best from the very start.