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sgt-tombstone · 16 days

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idk if I’ve posted about it before but I had an idea that’s been bouncing around for a couple of months for an au that combines both modern warfare timelines into one, and it goes something like this:

(for reference, this starts with ‘09 canon and moves into ‘19 canon! In this, these characters are not distinct, with the exception of Gaz)

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Soap passes SAS selection, youngest candidate ever, and gets put on Price’s team. Together with Gaz and a small SAS team, the fight against Ultranationalists, gaining allies in Nikolai, loyalists, and USMCs. The death of Victor and Imran Zakhaev leads to the creation of the 141, which includes Soap, Price, Gaz, and Roach, under the command of General Shepherd. Ghost is added after he escapes and kills Roba.

The 141 is sent after Makarov, where Soap gets injured and Price gets captured, presumably killed. Soap gets promoted to captain and becomes field commander of the 141 (Ghost was asked, but rejected the promotion; Soap was always a better leader than him anyway). Soap and Ghost get close, or as close as they’ll let themselves get for being a captain and a lieutenant. They dance around it, the unspoken tension, and never act on it, convinced that they can’t. Three years later, Soap, Roach, and Ghost infiltrate the Russian gulag to rescue an unknown prisoner, who turns out to be Price. Together, the two captains hunt down Makarov while Roach and Ghost are betrayed by Shepherd, who shoots and burns them. Soap and Price are declared war criminals by Shepherd, Makarov goes into hiding, and Soap and Price kill Shepherd. In their hunt for Makarov, Soap is killed, and Price is forced to give up because he never finds any shred of evidence leading him to Makarov’s hiding place.

Instead, he finds Ghost, who is clinging to life in a black site hospital, almost 80% of his body burned, and mourning the loss of Roach. Instead, he finds Soap, who managed to escape in the chaos following the botched assassination attempt of Makarov and go into hiding. Instead, he finds Shepherd, who wasn’t nearly as dead as Price thought he’d been, who’s slowly been working his way back up the political ladder, buying pardons and new staff and blind eyes until he’s right back where he was without anyone being any the wiser.

Soap is rattled by the whole experience. He’s an SAS soldier, sure, but he’s never been betrayed like that, never had to fight and run for his life like that before. His years of being a captain have taken a toll on him, and all he wants to do is restart. Do it all over again. So Price lets him. Demotes him back down to sergeant, makes him do the SAS selection process over again. His scores are just as impressive the second time, and the reduced responsibility lifts a weight off of his shoulders, letting him become a little freer, a little more talkative, a little more… well, Price doesn’t want to say immature, but… It’s a good look on him, in any case. The kid deserves a break; no one was ever meant to shoulder the burden he had to as young as he did. He doesn’t rejoin the 141 for a while, too busy recuperating from his near-death, getting back into shape for the selection process, and actually going through selection, which takes months on its own.

As for Ghost… he’s done this before. He knows this song and dance, knows the weight of betrayal. He’s weathered this storm before and is perfectly fine going back to his regular position. Still a lieutenant, still the Ghost. Except he’s quieter now. More reserved. He only trusts Price, and even that’s a tenuous thing on the best of days. He makes a hard shell mask instead of just wearing a balaclava, and Price can’t blame him. Roach’s death hit hard, the betrayal hit hard, and while he hadn’t been there to see it, learning about Soap’s short death had been hard too. So he lets Ghost do his thing. Watches as his lieutenant spends more time in the gym than is really medically advisable, watches his lieutenant retreat further and further into himself, watches his lieutenant hide from the world and become a perfect soldier again, albeit a far more unstable one. He starts wearing colored contacts that darken his irises to a honey-brown, and he’d never admit it but Price knows it’s because he can’t stand to look in the mirror and see Soap’s eyes staring back. Or maybe he can’t stand to see himself staring back, blue eyes a constant reminder of his own failures. He gets better on the sniper, more practiced at protecting his team, preferring to work alone but always ready to use his scope and trigger to show his loyalty.

The three briefly reunite in Verdansk, which throws all of them for a loop initially, because it’s the first time they’ve all been in the same room in years, but they have more important things to worry about, like keeping Soap from killing Makarov. It’s a close thing, the trauma fresh on all of their minds, but they’re not allowed to kill him; he needs to face justice from the law, not from the wrong end of Soap’s gun.

When Piccadilly Circus gets attacked, Price finds Garrick and adopts him, and the hunt for the Al-Qatala terrorists begins. They head to Urzikstan to find Sulaman, where his capture and subsequent escape lead Alex Keller, Farah, and Hadir to be recognized as terrorists themselves. Eventually, Price and Kyle meet up with Alex and Farah to hunt down Hadir after his betrayal.

They find him and hand him over to the Russians, then launch an attack on Barkov’s chemical factory, leading to Barkov’s death. Alex, too, seems to die in the resulting explosion.

After that, Task Force 141 is cleared and reinstated and given permission to continue operations. Their goal isn’t Makarov anymore; he’s gone to ground, likely never to be found again unless he starts stirring up trouble. Instead, the Zakhaev family has started reviving old family traditions. Price has to focus on that, not the twinge of familiarity and grief when he hears that Kyle goes by Gaz, not the tendrils of apprehension at the notion of bringing Ghost and Soap back together and with such a different dynamic than before, and definitely not the thought that he might be getting too old for this shit. He focuses on what he knows, and there’s little he knows better than the Zakhaev family.

It takes a year, but they eventually hunt him down and kill him, with the help of Alex, Farah, and the Shadow Company.

And then Ghorbrani is killed in Al Mazrah by the Shadow Company, under the command of Shepherd and Laswell, who knows nothing about Shepherd’s past. Ghorbrani’s death incites Hassan, which spurs the 141 to find him. Shepherd isn’t the one giving the orders, though; he knows better than that. Instead, he pawns the mission control off on Laswell, who directs them to Al Mazrah. It’s the first time Ghost and Soap are working together since both of their apparent deaths, and it’s… okay. Ghost obviously isn’t used to this new version of Soap, this chatterbox who seems so full of life, so different from his gruff previous commanding officer. And Soap obviously isn’t used to this new version of Ghost, who is far more reserved, less open. There’s a learning curve for both of them, but they deal with it well enough. They’re both soldiers, after all, and damn good ones at that. They fall into a rhythm of sorts, or at least a tentative understanding. Price thinks that it has to be good enough; he’s too busy working with their newest member, the only one who isn’t aware of the shared past between the other three operatives. It’s almost refreshing, the clean slate that Gaz, this Gaz, brings to the table.

Ghost and Soap travel to Las Almas to hunt for Hassan along with Alejandro and Rodolfo, and the change of location and new allies loosens them both up a little. Not a lot, but enough to start trusting each other again. Not that they never did, but still. There’s a lot of history there, and a completely new dynamic to get a handle on. Eventually, they catch Hassan but have to release him shortly after.

And then Soap volunteers to infiltrate the mansion to find El Sin Nombre. It’s the first time Ghost has seen him take on any sort of leading role, anything voluntarily putting himself in unnecessary danger since his demotion, and it shifts something in his mind, a fundamental piece of his psyche that had been holding him back from truly seeing Soap as his sergeant instead of his ex-captain. By the time El Sin Nombre is captured, Ghost has truly stepped into the role of Soap’s lieutenant and Soap has settled comfortably in the role of Ghost’s sergeant. It’s still not perfect, Ghost sometimes pushes too hard and Soap can’t help but push back, but it’s better now.

And then they get betrayed again. They realize Shepherd is alive and back in power. They realize the Shadow Company was never on their side. They realize they were played for fools. Again.

It’s infinitely traumatic in a split second. Soap gets shot and Ghost doesn’t see red in anger, he sees red in fear. He hadn’t seen Soap’s previous non-death, but he can’t bring himself to even entertain the thought of losing him now. Not when they’ve finally found a semi-solid footing either each other again. So he yells at him to run, to get out of there, and he does what he does best: he finds a good vantage point and he protects his team. He protects Soap.

He can’t help but to fall back on old habits, little joking asides that he thought he’d never utter again, but it seems to calm Soap down. The walls between them break down in those rainy streets across their comms; they take several steps back towards who they used to be, or maybe that’s just Ghost. Maybe Soap’s newfound lightness brings out the long-buried traces of optimism in him (optimism isn’t the right word, he knows; he’s never been optimistic, but there’s definitely… something… he’s a little scared to put any other name to it). He tells Soap that he likes him alive, and it almost sounds like a confession, a truth and hidden fear that neither of them had been willing to voice after their reunion. They share details about themselves, things that they hadn’t even shared as captain and lieutenant, and when Ghost calls Soap “Johnny” and Johnny doesn’t stop him… Maybe they can finally have what they’ve always denied themselves. Maybe this is their sign, their second chance, their universe-granted green light. Or maybe Ghost is just getting delirious with fear and pain and anger.

They make it out of Las Almas alive, and the drive to the safe house is spent in silence, as if neither of them is willing to broach the subject. Again, maybe that’s just Ghost. Soap seems to be busy trying not to bleed out in the passenger seat.

Laswell has to swear up and down that she didn’t know about Shepherd’s intentions or past before they trust her again, but her help in rescuing Alejandro and the rest of Los Vaqueros goes a long way. Soap kill Graves in Las Almas and Ghost kills Hassan in Chicago, and they can’t go after Shepherd, so they shift their focus to the next biggest fish: the Konni Group, who have rescued Makarov from prison.

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The rest of MWII and MWIII proceed as normal. (Unless you want to ignore canon, which is very valid, in which case you can make up your own ending about how Makarov snd Shepherd die and Soap and Ghost’s happily ever after. Go crazy.)

I know a lot of people are very passionate about these two timelines staying separate , and with good reason, but I wanted to do this as a sort of thought exercise for myself. I’ve never played the original games, so any mistakes are entirely my fault as I relied heavily on the CoD wiki pages and timeline. If I missed any loose ends between the original and reboot timelines, no I didn’t (it’s very likely lmao, tying up so many mismatched plot points was pretty difficult but I think I took a decent enough stab at it)

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