Author's Note: Returning to my forte here - dramatic angst. This chapter takes place in the past, but the next 2 will kick us up to Terra Nova. Enjoy, and please let me know what you thought of it.
2136. Somalia
It's six months into her first tour of duty with Nathaniel Taylor' cleanup team (as folks around the base have begun calling their little strike fast and forceful unit) before she suffers her first real potentially life threatening injury.
Not that she hasn't catalogued a few lesser wounds to date. None of them really all that big of a deal though. On the battlefield, a soldier learns to get used to bruises, breaks and tears. They're just part of the daily grind – you're not alive if you're not bleeding from somewhere or another is the joke around the campfire.
More than that, though, exhaustion and bone-deep fatigue have become almost constant companions to her. Something she has learned to recognize and walk with, albeit reluctantly.
Not until this war is over anyway. Once it is, and assuming she lives through it, she's planning on a very long nap somewhere. Maybe on a beach inside one of the domes. Yeah, the idea of using some of the money she's been stocking away (soldiers on the front line tend to make a pretty penny especially if they can survive for a few years) on a long vacation sounds like one hell of an idea.
Assuming she can make it that long, of course.
It's an almost idealistically easy thought to have until everything changes in the time it takes for her to feel an impossibly sharp blade slide into her exposed side, cutting into her flesh as if it were nothing tougher than butter.
Years later, while recovering from her war-ending injury in a medical hospital in Germany, she'll realize that getting stabbed is like getting a splinter in your hand compared to taking multiple bullets to the chest, but for now, this hurts like hell.
Yeah, this (both the pain and the realization that she could actually die before this is all over) is worse than anything she's ever felt before. So much worse.
She's the somewhat still fresh-faced combat medic for the unit, but in this war, that hardly takes her out of the line of fire. No, here in Somalia, medics are front line just like everyone else. They're expected to know how to kill and cover just like everyone else. Most soldiers know, though, how important their medic is.
Especially when they're good.
And Alicia Washington is very, very good.
Ballsy, courageous and loyal beyond words. There isn't a man or woman in this unit that she wouldn't shield with her body in order to protect.
Because of that, there isn't a man or woman in this unit who wouldn't do the same for her without even thinking about it.
Tonight, though, it's a bit too late to worry about someone stepping in front of a knife for her. What's done is done.
Good thing is, the wound might hurt like hell, but chances are strong that she's going to survive it as long as they can slow the blood flow. It's something she realizes as she's instructing her CO on how to clean and inspect the wound. Funny thing is; she's pretty sure he knows how to do this, but he's letting her talk him through it. It takes her a few minutes for her to realize that this is his way of ensuring that she stays with him during the process. Conscious and aware.
She'd be touched by his concern (until she'd joined this team, not many people had cared if she'd lived or died beyond being a number on a piece of paper) if she wasn't in so damned much pain.
"Okay, looks like it's pretty clean," Nathaniel Taylor tells her. "Knife went in and out. Looked like it was a regular one, no edges. You've lost some blood, but not too much. I think you'll be okay." It doesn't escape her that their positions are usually reversed. She's typically the one cleaning up his wounds and telling him what the damage looks like. Funny how war tends to flip things around.
"Good," she breathes. "You'll need to disinfect the wound and…and…" her mind blanks as another wave of pain crashes through her.
The injury had occurred maybe twenty minutes earlier. Perhaps more, she's not terribly sure anymore. She'd been trying to drag one of their downed men back to the safe zone behind the line, and had gotten too locked into what she was doing. Too focused.
She should have been smarter, more aware of her surroundings. Instead, she'd been concentrating on trying to figure out how much time the kid – a twenty-year-old named Price – had left on his play-clock. He'd been bleeding heavily, six bullets piercing his chest. Which most likely meant death – especially this far from base and in the middle of a no-evac possible until morning mission.
She'd allowed her mind to wander, forgotten the fact that in war, people don't stop shooting at you once you're down – or if you're a medic.
She'd never seen the enemy soldier come up behind her, never felt his presence.
Stupid. Silly. Nearly fatal.
What she had heard had been Taylor scream out her name. And then she'd felt the blade enter her side, sliding right into the gap between her armor plating and her cargo pants. A small opening that she'd exposed when she'd bent over to pull Price to safety. One plenty big enough for a K-Bar to do its damage.
She'd cried out.
She hadn't meant to, but the pain – a ridiculously hot flash of agony rushing up through her nerve endings – had so surprised her that she hasn't been able to stop herself from letting out a short sharp cry.
After that, she'd heard the sound of bullets popping, and then felt warm blood – her attackers' – splatter on her face as her would be killer had taken several shots to the head. A couple moments later, she'd felt herself being dragged back to the safe zone - small area of trench down below a heavy row of trees.
That's when she'd realized that it'd been Taylor who had grabbed her and pulled her to safety. Probably Taylor who had taken out the guy who'd stabbed her.
Distantly, over the sound of her own heartbeat (oddly very loud suddenly) she'd heard him speak to another solider who had followed them down. She'd heard him say, "I got this, Private. I'll take care of her. Stand guard."
"Yes, sir," the Private had answered, moving away.
"Wa…wait" Wash had grunted. "Price. Where is he?"
"Dead, ma'am," the Private had replied, sadness in his eyes. And then, with a nod to Taylor, he'd climbed back up to the top, crouching down to keep a close eye out for anyone or anything coming close.
And now, here they are, she and her CO of six months, down in the trench together. Divested of her armor and most of the shirt that she'd been wearing beneath it, she shivers a bit as she watches as he disinfects the gory knife wound with a greenish liquid, his fingers covered in her bright red blood.
"What were you thinking, Wash?" he asks suddenly, his tone sounding somewhat conversational. She knows better, though. They haven't known each other long, but still, she knows his speaking rhythms, and the one he's using on her right now is his simmering one. He's pissed at her, and just barely controlling it.
"I wasn't, sir," she admits, gritting her teeth as the greenish disinfectant bubbles within her, sending a cool spray of cleaning foam down her exposed side. She refuses to cry out again. Once was enough. She can still feel his fingers on her, moving along the edges of the wound. "I was just trying to get to Price."
"Price was already dead."
"I didn't know that. And it's my job to try to –"
"It's your job to stay alive," he snaps.
She meets his eyes, her pained dark ones locking on his angry blue ones. "No, sir, with all due respect, sir, it's my job to take care of all of you. To do whatever I can to keep you alive."
"Me, huh?"
He catches her off-guard with that. Yes, she's spent a good chunk of her time since joining his unit tending to his various wounds, and yes, for whatever reason, his safety means more to her than even her own. But no, specifically, she hadn't been calling him out there. Right?
Unable to come up with a good answer, she instead replies with a smile that's more of a grimace thanks to the pain surging through her.
He shakes his head. "Tell me then, how well do you think you're going to be able to do that job when you're dead, huh?"
He's overreacting, she thinks. He's used to his men getting hurt. It's part of war. And sure, he's always a bit pissy about it, but this seems like so much more. She tells herself that it's about her role, nothing more.
"I'm not dying, sir. It's not that deep," she answers, her hand going down to touch the wound. Before it can get there, he catches her hand with hers, squeezing it.
"Which might make a bit of difference if we weren't on a no-evac possible until morning mission. Look around you, Wash, you see blood bags we can use for transfusions? You see a surgical bed? Didn't think so. If this were a bleeder, there'd be nothing I could do besides close your eyes." He leans in, his voice lowering as he continues, "And dammit, Wash, I do not want to do that."
"I'm sorry, sir," she replies, wincing and pressing her eyes closed as pain rushes through her again. She can feel the heavy weight of exhaustion settling on her like a steel-toed boot to the chest. She wonders idly if this is what he feels like every time he gets hurt like this. Is it always so terrifying? So draining?
"I know you are," he answers, his voice softening as if to suggest that he recognizes that he's won. Still, he can't quite let it go. "But you have to be smarter. We need you. This team doesn't work without you."
"Yes, sir," she says, not feeling up for arguing with him. She doesn't really believe that this unit would fall apart without her, but it's nice to hear.
"All right, I need to stitch you up now."
"You know how?" she asks, eyes opening back up, her eyebrow lifting slightly.
He shrugs. "Can't be so hard. I watch you do it every day."
"On you," she shoots back. "Have you ever actually stitched anyone else up?"
"Time or two," he chuckles. "I don't have your touch, though."
"No?" she asks wearily, though she already knows the answer. Nathaniel Taylor does many things better than anyone else ever will, but no one will ever accuse him having a gentle – or comforting - touch about anything.
And yet, at least to herself, she admits that she's comforted by his mere presence. He could have had one of the other men stitch her up. Any one of them would have done it. But no, he'd insisted on doing it himself.
"Afraid not, but it'll have to do." He leans over and starts to work on stitching up her side. He's right; his touch isn't gentle, but it is warm, and even though it hurts, she welcomes his fingers knitting her skin together.
She sighs and leans her head back, her vision swimming in front of her eyes. Time seems to slide away from her as does consciousness every couple of seconds. It feels a bit like she's swimming, going up and down in the water. Every time she breaks the surfaces with a pained short gasp, her tired eyes settle on him, watching as he continues sewing her back together. It's such a familiar sight even if it's usually her stitching him.
"There we go," he says finally. "Not pretty, and it'll need to be redone once we get back to camp tomorrow, but it'll do for tonight. You won't bleed out." He presses a bandage over the wound, quickly taping it down.
"That's good," she answers, her eyelids drooping. For a moment, it seems as though she's completely succumbed to the pain and exhaustion.
Or something worse, he thinks with sharp alarm.
"Yes, it is," he replies absently, his fingers sliding up to check her pulse. They don't use any kind of electrical equipment down here – it's much too easy for the enemy to track and trace it them through it. "Okay," he says after a few moments. "I'm going to give you something to help the pain."
She shakes her head, the motion exaggerated by her fatigue and sudden inability to control her own muscles. "What if I'm needed?" She's slurring her words now. "I need to be…"
"Right now, what you need to do is rest, Wash. I'm not having you work on anyone. Last thing I want is you accidentally stitching their hand to their ass."
She chuckles. He does, too.
She feels him use a hypo to insert drugs into her, the effects almost immediate. There's something to be said about twenty-second century meds. Especially the battlefield variety. They do their job, and they do it well. Within moments, she's feeling no pain at all. It's strange and weird and kind of unsettling.
She feels him drape a thermal blanket over her. "Keep it on," he tells her. When she doesn't reply, and he realizes that she's pretty much dropped off, he turns to the young Private who has reappeared. "Keep a close eye on her, she worsens in any way, you get me immediately."
"Yes, sir."
"And, Private, don't let her kick off the blanket."
"No, sir," the Private answers, smirking slightly. There's a bit of a joke around the unit about how even during the coldest nights, when it's her turn to sleep down in the trench, she has a bad habit of kicking off the blankets.
Taylor nods at the soldier, casts one more worried look back at his sleeping medic, then crawls back up to the top, gun in hand.
Throughout the night, Taylor repeatedly crawls back down into the safe-zone trench to check on her. Each time, with varying degrees of amusement, he notices that even though she's dead out, sleeping soundly under the heavy weight of the drugs, she's kicked off the thermal blanket.
Each time, he checks the wound, the stitches, the bandages, and then as he pulls the blanket back up over her (knowing for sure that both he and the Private will be doing this over and over for the rest of the night), he runs his fingers across her pulse point. Only then, once he's satisfied that she's doing okay does he let out a breath that he didn't know he was holding back.
The young Private sees it all, but never speaks of it to anyone.