The day that Simon Riley was recruited for the Task Force 141 was a quiet day. There was no celebration for him, hardly even a congrats was offered by the man in charge of this Task Force, General Shepherd. Instead, he quietly arrived at the base at Credenhill. From what he gathered, the force was going on roughly 85 operators and was split between two Captains. He was coming in to meet his possible new Commanding Officer. Just an interview, no need for concern.

At least, that's what he wanted to believe. Despite the relaxed nature of the base, his stomach practically twisted upon itself. Back in his days of the SAS, Simon heard tale of Captain Price; he was infamous for his high risk decisions - impulsive and yet too effective to call out. He'd heard from the General just what Price did in the days long conflict with the Ultra Nationalists earlier this year. This man was probably ready to dig in his head in search of any weakness. Probably was looking for a stone faced rock like every other special service officer out there. Probably a man on his waning years of service...

That was all Simon could think in: probabilities.

When he reached the door, he shook his head and took a slow, deep breath. Just an interview. With that, he knocked.

"'s open," a gruff, decidedly Scottish voice said on the other side.

Simon opened the door and stood there in minor shock as he gawked at the stranger inside. The man was only slightly shorter than he was, but you probably wouldn't notice with the stupid mohawk he had. Beyond that, all Simon could tell was that this man was young, way too young to be a Captain. A Lieutenant, easily, but definitely not a Captain. This guy had to be just running paperwork over from somewhere else.

"Simon Riley, I presume?" The stranger asked, effectively snapping him back to attention.

"Yes, sir. That'd be me. And you are?"

He smiled. "I'm Captain John MacTavish. How about you have a seat and we can get this interview under way."

Okay, so this man, who simply couldn't be much older than 25, really was a Captain. Simon nodded and pulled one of the two chairs against the wall.

The Captain sat at his desk as well and flipped through a few pages. While he did so, Simon caught sight of lengthy notes scrawled in the margin, small print and yet a touch messy. Once MacTavish found what he was looking for, he looked up at him. "You're a strange case, Lt. Riley. I've got a couple conflicting reports on you. Care to shed some light on this?"

Simon bit the inside of his lip. His luck this man chose to get at one of the harder questions. If there was a conflicting report, then that meant that he somehow dug up his old records. Part of his delay in coming to this interview was in General Shepherd clearing up the messier parts of his papers. For all intents and purposes, his record was supposed to be a clean slate. Either the General decided to entrust the knowledge of his old records to him, or MacTavish must have done a lot of digging. Already a bad sign. "I've got a bumpy history."

With a slow nod, MacTavish turned his stare back down to the files in hand. "'Bumpy' seems like a bit of an understatement, don't ya think?"

"..." Years of training allowed Simon to keep his outward composure, yet inside he was sure he couldn't feel any sicker. "Yes, sir, it is."

"Even after four months away on recovery, they hadn't let you back in the S.A.S. Said you'd been seeing a therapist for some time and she prescribed a sleep aid. Have you been taking it?"

This was a trick question. Either answer was a flag, could even disqualify him from joining. "No, sir, I hadn't. When she suggested it, the original problem hadn't been bothering me for some time."

"She also described you as having temper management issues, would that be an accurate assessment?"

"Well it's an assessment," Simon replied. "But yes, at the time, it was accurate."

Captain MacTavish set down the papers. He flatly repeated, "At the time." With a sigh, he folded his hands on his desk. "Alright. Same time I got this report, General Shepherd handed me one vouching for your skill and effectiveness, siting that you single handedly took down of a drug cartel by the name of Roba."

"That'd be correct."

"In other words, you feel you're fit for service in an elite task force, in spite of earlier issues," MacTavish summed up.

"Yes, sir," Simon said.

"I'm going to be honest with you, Lieutenant, I'm not sold on the idea of having a potentially rogue element. The conflicting reports alone are reason enough for me not to accept you," the Captain states. "But, seeing as you have the General's vote of confidence, I'm going to give you a chance. You go see a therapist in the next week, and we can look at what their assessment of your mental health is. If they say you have an issue that needs some form of medication, you can take that to a different person and get a second opinion. If they both agree that you should be on something, you're going to go along with it. Am I understood?"

If he ended up needing medication, then there was no way that he'd be allowed. "Crystal. I take it if they do put me on something, you're dismissing me?"

MacTavish acquired an almost devilish smirk. "Not exactly."

The answer stunned Simon as he stared at the Captain. Is he out of his head? "Sir...?"

"At the end of the day, I get it, Lieutenant. I've seen some shit too, and when I got back here, nobody was sure if I was fit for service either. It isn't easy, but I'd rather you take care of yourself than ignore what could be a serious issue."

"This is against regulation, sir..."

"So's the General erasing details from your records," MacTavish remarked. "If he wants to bend rules, then I'm sure he'll turn a blind eye if we bend a few ourselves."

-()-()-()-

That night, when Simon returned to his apartment, he threw his pillow at the wall in frustration. "That fucking bastard!" His conversation with Captain MacTavish remained fresh in his mind. He stared at the pillow on the floor, seething still.

How? How could that man be willing to go against rules so easily? How could anyone like that be a suitable captain?

He grabbed the pillow and pushed it down onto his bed before finally lying down and glaring at the ceiling. He shouldn't have been surprised. Wanker had a mohawk for Christ's sake. That's breaking one for sure. He probably broke about a dozen others and didn't even think twice about it.

And yet it wasn't just his willingness to break rules that ate at Simon. No... The last thing the 'good' Captain said before he left was just as enraging:
"Seems like General Shepherd mentioned you having a callsign. Ghost? I'm sure there's gotta be an interesting story behind that one."

Interesting story... Try life time trauma.

It'd only been a single meeting, but Simon kept finding more and more things he hated about this Captain with each time he went over their interview. The laundry list of grievances bordered on excessive at this point. Maybe he wouldn't be so angry if it had been Captain Price who interviewed him. He could respect that man's authority, and the rule bending wouldn't seem so out of line for a man of his reputation. All of it boiled down to one thing though, the worst of Captain MacTavish's offenses: He tried to humanize him.

-()-()-()-

A week passed before Simon returned to the Captain with his now up to date mental health record.

Surprise, surprise, both therapists decided that he still had temper issues. Oddly though, there wasn't any medication that they prescribed to him, only that he find a suitable outlet for his stress. He'd been convinced that they would saddle him with at least one antidepressant or something.

The report seemed to be just as surprising for MacTavish as well, if the slight arc to his brow was any indication. He put the paper down after a moment of reading. "Well then, that settles that. Congratulations, welcome to the 141."

It was that easy? It shouldn't have been that easy! Simon tried to maintain a stoic expression. "Thank you, sir." He knew he should have just left it at that, the less he enraged himself with this man the better. Instead though, he ended up asking, "Why though? You said it before, I shouldn't have even gotten the interview in the first place."

"Like I also said before, I get it," the Captain said.

The corner of Simon's eye twitched. That couldn't be it. There had to be more. There must have been an angle here. "I don't think you do." He took a small step away from his superior and continued on as evenly as he could force himself to, "There's a bloody good reason General Shepherd called me 'Ghost'. I'm barely even a shell of a man at this point. I'm a soldier, I get my work done, and that's it." When he finally stopped, he realized just what he did. A definite break in the rules right there... Talking back to a commanding officer...

Said commanding officer though didn't show signs of anger or even disappointment towards his outburst. Just a plain acceptance. "We all have different ways of coping, and if you want to entertain the idea that you're dead inside, fine. Ghost it is. But you're not just a soldier at the end of the day."

"A clock can still tick and be broken," he retorted.

"You can fix a broken clock, Lieutenant."

That was how they parted, on those words and Simon fuming. On his way out though, he ended up running into another man heading to the same office. This man was a bit shorter than him and sported the thickest grove of a mustache he'd seen in the service. He looked up at Simon under the rim of his boonie hat, a dark glimmer in his icy gaze.

All in all, this man was generally intimidating. "Sorry," Simon offered quickly as he stepped around him to make a hasty retreat.

"Have a nice chat with him?" The old man asked.

Fuck me. Simon stopped and tried to think of the least telling answer. "You could say that." He turned to face him. "I, uh, have things I have to take care of..." Oh why the hell is he not wearing anything with a rank or a name or something?!

"It's Captain Price," he stated, a deep frown working its way to his face. "And you must be that 'special case' Soap mentioned. Ghost, right?"

"Soap? Wait..." Simon mentally backpedalled through what was said, as he was mythed by this very sudden interaction with the infamous Captain Price. "I mean, yes, I'm Ghost, sir."

Price grunted under his breath. "Right then. He's expecting a lot out of you; you'd better be able to deliver." He then left Simon stunned in the corridor.

Simon blinked and hurried off, his head swimming with questions now. This interaction was so much different than he thought it would be. He doubted he made a good first impression. Who did Price even mean by "he" anyways? He thought that he meant MacTavish at first, but then Price said "Soap" and now it completely threw him off.

Actually, just who the bloody hell even is Soap?

That's chapter 1 for you guys. I'll be trying to put up a chapter each week, so stay tuned.

As a cautionary note, there will be things here that contradict some form of canon or another. A lot of these are due to a fan video (Operation Kingfish) which was made canon in MW3 and Soap's Journal from the same game's hardened addition.
In the journal, Soap was the sole leader of the Task Force 141 for not all that long, and it took Shepherd 5 years to form it. He makes it sound like Captain Price was definitely taken and locked away in the Gulag at the end of the first game. He makes zero mention of Operation Kingfish either. In order to make sense of events here, I had to interpret Soap's account differently than what it is at face value.
So in this telling, Captain Price started as the leader of the 141, with Soap more or less acting as a second in command to him while he learns the ropes.
There are, of course, other changes in this chapter, and I will gladly address any questions or comments concerning them.

One last thing, I am posting this fanfic in two places: here and on Wattpad. Keeping drafts on Wattpad is more reliable, seeing as I lost all my rough drafts for other stories here. However, I wanted to post the story here on Fanfiction, where it might get a bit more views.

Sorry for my long absence from the site. I hope you guys enjoy the story to come.
Thanks for reading!