Preemptive

Title: Preemptive

Summary: MW2-era. The Russian Invasion of the United States from the point of view of Amelia "Milla" Bearsby. Companion piece to "Hurricane Night of the Hunters" and "New Surrender".

Prompt: Writer's Choice

Author: Sakura123 (weber_dubois22)

Rating: T

Characters: OFC (Milla Bearsby); Gary "Roach" Sanderson

Chapters: 1/1

Written: 1/17/2010

Disclaimer: Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and all things related are property of Infantry Ward. Original characters are property of me, the author.

Authors Note (circa 2010): I couldn't help myself. I originally intended on doing just two COD stories for Modern Warfare 2, but my imagination got the better of time and started churning out the plot bunnies in fatigues and helmets again. Obviously, deuced from the summary, this takes place during the Russian invasion of the United States, told from the points of view of a civilian female, Gary Sanderson's girlfriend as mentioned in the aforementioned tales described above. Given that 141 is made up of a group of the world's finest warriors, I can't help but wonder which regiment of the army Roach was from in particular. For the sake of the story, he's 75TH Ranger Regiment, transferred to Task force 141. Seemed rather fitting, hopefully not something that's unlikely given Sanderson's demeanor in my tales. Enjoy.

Author's Note (cira 2012): So, apparently - according to the COD Wikia - Gary Sanderson is actually from the UK and isn't a US soldier. Color me surprised and equally disappointed by this news.

"Zhena soldata"

Year 2016

Day 4 - 16:30 (4:30PM)

*Amelia "Milla" Bearsby

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

(2015):

"How long will you gone?" She inquired, watching him drag his duffle bag across the bed. Gary shook his head, flinching a little when the breeze from the fan hit his recently shaven head.

"Probably for awhile," Gary sighed, picking up a fistful of clothing, what few he could grab. "Don't worry."

"I never said I was worried," Her response sounded more indignant than she intended to. As if to disagree with her, their cat, Janus, sneezed twice before jumping off the bed and retreating into the closet. Gary cast an amused look in her direction, which caused her to hide her eyes behind her hand.

Amelia knew Gary never took her moods too seriously, even when she was genuinely angry with him, but she felt like a heel for snapping at him. It wasn't his fault he was being shipped halfway across the world.

"Sorry, I didn't-"

"It's okay," He sighed. Milla watched him close the distance between them, his expression never betraying once that he wasn't serious about his dismissal of her outburst. She hated that he was being so reasonable with her; she wanted him to be angry. "C'mere." Milla stepped forward and pressed her face against the left side of his chest, at the sound of his steady heartbeat her would-be resolve crumbled into nothing when Gary wrapped his arms around her.

"You've got nothing to worry about, Milla. There's hardly even a war goin' on," He assured. "The worse I'll see is during the relief effort in Afghanistan. I'll be fine."

"You can't promise that," She sniffled.

"Well, no, I can't," Gary said. "But, at least trust me enough to stay alive. Yeah?"

"Of course," Milla almost laughed, pulling away from him. "You're like a bug after all. Couldn't kill 'em if you tried."

Gary grimaced, his hand brushed lightly across her face, wiping the tears from her cheek. Amelia pretended not to notice Gary's other hand run down his chest and abdomen self-consciously. "Don't remind me," He grumbled, heading back to the bed. "Help me pack my stuff, will ya? I don't wanna be late meeting my parents."

(2016):

Amelia Bearsby woke up that afternoon with no clear objective in mind. After a long night of drinking with her friends, her mind took its time to reboot itself through the fog of her headache. The first thing she realized was that she was in their apartment on her bed. Janus lay at her feet curled in a ball, moving only when she did. Milla didn't remember anyone helping her get back to the apartment, thus she could only assume she did so under her own power.

Current events were as such: She worked the overtime shift at the supermarket yesterday, she still needed to pay gas and electric and it been roughly six weeks since she last heard from Gary via phone call. She insisted that he call her whenever he got the chance because he was terrible at writing letters.

Everything he attempted to convey on a literal level felt so… forced, as though his brain froze whenever he picked up a pencil and put it to paper. He just wrote the first random thing that came to mind. The last letter she received he went on and on about how many sinkholes he'd fallen into during recon missions. "If I didn't know any better, alligator's (or cocks) lived here!" he proclaimed in shaky marker.

Never once did he mention how he was faring other than that, which bothered her more than she liked to admit to Mrs. Sanderson, who was always asking if Gary ever mentioned something to her he left out in his letters to them, his parents.

Janus waltzed lazily across the top of her headboard, mewing for his food. Reluctantly, Milla pulled herself out of bed to feed Janus. The cat leapt from the headboard onto the mattress with grace, Milla watched the feline race across the bed with a small smile on her face.

Janus had been her only companion in the apartment since Gary had left for Afghanistan, she thought about getting him a companion of his own, but she could hardly afford taking care of another tabby cat with how much they were charging her for the cat food. Bastards, she thought, grabbing the bag of food off the shelf above the bed.

Janus mewed louder, more urgently when he saw the bag of cat food. "Yeah, yeah, I know," She sighed. "I'm movin' as fast as I can." As fast as I want to. Opening the bag, she reached inside and grabbed the handle of the scoop, this only seemed to excite Janus even more.

Pulling the scoop from out of the bag she stopped in front of the circular bowl and kneeled down. Janus brushed past her knee, scenting her with enthusiasm. Milla dumped the kernels into the bowl and watched as her cat attacked it like a wild animal.

Milla shook her head good-naturedly, stopping long enough smooth down the ruffled hairs of on the feline's back. Janus spared her a brief glance then returned to eating.

Once she placed the cat food back in its rightful place, Milla proceeded to freshen up. She searched her closet for something decent to wear, taking her time to enter the bathroom. The smelled of old spice, it hadn't dissipated even after Gary had left and none of her own fragrance bath soaps seemed to do the trick of getting rid of it.

Everytime she entered the bathroom, she half expected Gary to creep up from behind and scare her; it was only one occasion did he do things like hug her from behind and keep her from her routine washing duties over the sink. If he did that, it usually meant he wanted share the shower with her.

Exhaling slowly, she grabbed a blue blouse and leggings from the closet and proceeded into the bathroom. She took a quick shower and brushed her teeth, and after giving the bathroom a once over with her perfume, Milla returned to the bedroom. Janus, now sitting on the bed, meowed in what she figured was appreciation for the food. "You're welcome, Janus," She breathed, buttoning her blouse.

Ducking under the bed, she pulled her sandals out from underneath the pair of sneakers sitting atop of them. Milla rose from the floor slowly, the throbbing behind her eye quick to remind her that she still had a headache. Plunking down on the edge of the mattress, she raised her right foot and slipped the sandal onto her manicured foot.

"I'm goin' out for a little while, buddy," Milla started, adjusting the elastic waistline on her leggings. Janus resettled on the bed and said nothing, his ears moved back and forth, a clear sign that he was listing to her. "I'll be back before dark, though." Leaning over she pressed a kiss on the top of his head, Janus' ears flattened and he started to purr.

"Be good," She said, rising from the bed. Janus watched her leave through had-open eyes, fighting the urge to clean the spot she just kissed. At the sound of the door locking, the feline rested his head back on the bed and waited to for slumber.

When she'd gotten outside, Milla was quick to deduce that the traffic was going to be awful around this time, especially when five o'clock was drawing near. However, the thought of trudging sixteen blocks through the blazing heat all the way down the supermarket was not something she looked forward to doing either.

So, like an idiot, she decided to take the car. She'd be quick, she would avoid heavy traffic areas and take shortcuts. It would be a piece of cake, she thought. Yet, despite all her vast knowledge of her surrounding area, Milla found herself stuck in traffic, waiting for the horde of cars in front of her to start moving. Next time, Milla, follow your own damn advice and walk. She hated it when she went against her better judgment.

The fact that the air-conditioning was not working inside the car seemed like a slap in the face, a practical joke played on her by the fates. Pulling one sweaty hand from the steering wheel, she dragged her palm across her face, riding herself of the perspiration that trickled down her cheeks. Every part of her felt as if she'd stepped out of a sauna, even her eyelashes felt damp and heavy; she half expected drops of sweat to fall into her eyes.

Glancing down at the dashboard, Milla took notice of the flashing light on her cell phone. Reaching over, she picked the phone up and pressed the talk button. "Hello?"

"Amelia, dear, how are you?" It was Gary's mother, Martha. Instinctively, Milla sat upright and brushed her damp hair out of her face. "H-hello, Mrs. Sanderson!" She proclaimed, forcing a smile onto her face. "I'm great. Stuck in traffic, but fine otherwise."

"Yes, the news did say the traffic was terrible this time of day," Martha mused, unsurprised by her announcement. Milla rolled her eyes at the woman's comment, unsure if she was making fun of her because of lack of foresight to check the news. Milla hated watching the news; all they seemed to want report about was the chaos going on in places like Russia and Afghanistan.

Most of her friends thought her strange for not wanting to see how things were progressing were Gary was been stationed, but the at the time, Gary had contacted her so much (when he got the chance) that it never really crossed her mind that he could be apart the bloody madness televised on the news.

"Is there anything I can help you with?" Milla mused, feigning interest.

"Have you heard from Gary at all?"

Milla pinched the bridge of her nose at the reminder of her boyfriend of five years. She'd finally managed to stop thinking about him (at least on a conscious level), but leave it to his mother to bring him up again. "…No, Martha, I haven't," She sighed. "Gary hasn't called in six weeks. I honestly don't expect him to, especially with things getting so heated in the Middle East again."

"Yes, well…," Martha paused. "I just thought I'd ask."

And that's perfectly reasonable, Milla thought tiredly.

"David has been so restless lately. His leg is acting up again," Martha blurted. Milla caught the underlying fear in the woman's voice; David Sanderson, was a former marine who'd participated in the war, at the very beginning in 2003. (Gary was just thirteen years old when his father left for the frontlines.) David spent two years in Iraqi before he'd been severely injured when insurgents attacked the caravan he was attached to.

David's had been pinned between a overturned humvee a boulder, completely at the mercy of the enemy until the soldiers lucky enough to escape their Humvee's unharmed, pulled him out the fire. He took several bullets to his side and leg and was airlifted out of the hot zone.

For all his troubles, David ended up with a fractured kneecap; he was shipped back home after the surgery. Since then, whenever David's knee would act up, Martha always took it as a sign that something bad was on the way. Gary was never inclined to believe that, though, saying his father's complaining was just complaining, which always seemed to set his father off. The two of them had never been able to get along in the same room for long, not since Gary turned twenty anyway.

"It's probably nothing, Mrs. Sanderson," Milla assured the woman.

"Maybe," Martha sighed over the line. "Well, I just wanted-" There was a loud click followed by the sound of a busy tone. Milla pulled her ear away from the cell phone and stared at the object in her hand with surprise. The message 'NO SIGNAL!' Flashed on the small screen in a pale red font twice before the screen itself blacked out. Why did the phone just disconnect her?

Milla surveyed the area distorted by the heat rising from off the roofs of the cars in front of her, looking for any sign of a downed power line of some sort. Unbuckling herself, she rolled down the window and poked her head out the window in time to see a crate land on top of a car across from hers. Instinctively, she pulled herself back inside the car and curled herself into a haphazard ball for protection, legs pressed against her chest, arms coving her head while her face lay pressed against her knees. There was unison of screams that echoed out, hers included, across the valley of vehicles.

For a moment, no one she could see moved, but there were definitely people climbing out of their cars in order to examine the disaster. Their voices a mixture of irritation, confusion and fear. Raising her head a little, Milla peered out from behind her arms at her environment, eyes zeroing in on the large crate that landed on the car across from her. Unfurling her limbs, Milla reached for the lock on her door. The door pushed open with a loud creak, unbuckling herself Milla turned sideways and slid out the car.

"What on earth is this?"

"Is that a crate?"

"Where the hell did it come from?"

"My car is ruined! Insurance is never gonna believe this. Shit!"

The chorus of voices continued to grow louder and more intense, Milla couldn't help the automatic eye roll that she ended up performing. The afternoon sun cast a strange red-orange hue across the city, Milla walked around her car, hand poised lightly on the surface of the roof. The crate laid on itself side, tethered to a parachute and a dozen belts to keep whatever else it carried, contained inside. On the side, the words 'AMMO' were spray-painted above the symbol of a wide triangle.

Milla looked up in time to see a woman and her two children turn their gaze in her direction. "Why would someone drop a crate of ammo here-" She stopped short and glanced upward. Milla and several others followed her gaze in time to catch a large shadow swallow the sunlight.

There were plenty of things she was expecting to see (an eclipse being chief among them), but a transport aircraft was not one of them; So she stood there, watching as more of them appeared from behind the clouds, cargo doors opening in eerie synchronicity. The uneasy murmurs of those around her began to increase, everyone was wondering what the military was doing, conducting what looked to be a test over civilian airspace.

That's when she noticed it. The markings on the side of the aircraft were orthographic, Russian. Definitely not English. "Those are Russian aircrafts," She murmured aloud, catching most of everyone's undelivered attention. "What are the Russians doing here?"

"Russians? How can you tell?" The word echoed through the congregation like a wildfire, everyone looked to the Russian aircraft then back over to her and the Ammo crate. Milla kept her eyes on the sky; more and more planes began to descend from the clouds above, which rolled away from their bodies like a curtain revealing the next act in the play.

Jets roared overhead the next instant, the thunder of engines and the sudden combustion of a building across from them, urged the crowd into action. One thing after the other, the events unfolding before her eyes was too much to take in all at once. A chorus of screams spurred many into action, others cowered in fear against the cars. The bodies came running the same time she chose to turn her back to the madness; Milla felt her cell phone fall from her hand as she pumped her arms and legs, she could feel herself being overtaken by the crowd as she drew closer and closer to the group at the end of the traffic jam.

This couldn't be happening, this was not happening, she told herself. All of this was some crazy dream and she would wake up in bed next to Janus. Yet the Jets kept coming, the hail of gunfire and the boom of explosions continued on like the erratic beat of drum, herding them all in several directions. No one knew where to, there was no place to run. Fire and smoke filled the air, churning and mixing with the summer heat; the sky was littered with parachutes and debris, she couldn't tell what was human and what wasn't.

Fear choked her to the point of breathlessness, Milla cast a terrified glance behind her and witnessed the descent of two jets. "Help! Help me!" She felt her mouth move, the heave of her breath attempt to communicate the words to the man too far away to help her. Violent vibrations traveled through the ground, flecks of dirt rained down on her as the barrage of firepower mowed down the helpless civilians without mercy.

A great weight hit her from behind, Milla let out an involuntary scream when a searing heat went through her right shoulder. In one fluid motion she and everyone else around her crumpled to the ground like puppets cut from their strings, lying haphazardly atop or next to each other in a mosaic of blood and rubble.

Short staccato breaths heaved out across the pavement, bubbles of blood formed in the corner of her mouth as it rolled down her mired skin. The emergency siren wailed in the distance, too late to warn the city of an already clear and present danger.

END

STORY NOTES

(2): Amelia Bearsby is an Original Female Character referenced in the previous MW2-era stories, "Hurricane Night of the Hunters" and "New Surrender".

(1): *Translates to "Soldiers Wife" (last I checked)

Apologies for any errors, factual or otherwise.