"Medic!" The yells kept coming. More and more men were getting injured and it was all John cold do just to get to them in time to watch the last remaining essence of life drip from their bodies through injuries that he could have fixed if he had been given the time. He was losing more people than he was saving and it was wearing him thin.
The mission had started out relatively easy. The only thing that they had to do was go to one of the villages nearby and talk to the villagers. They were just supposed to make sure the villagers were safe and they had. The villagers had been perfectly fine. They hadn't even seen the enemy in such a long time that it lulled him and his team into a false sense of security.
It was on the way back from the village that everything went downhill. They were on open road on the way back to their camp when one of the trucks in front of his own was shot at. They all got out of their own trucks and John saw his driver get shot in the head before any of them could make it to any sort of cover. Another man went down just outside of their cover and John covered as the passenger in his truck pulled the man to him. From then on he was almost nonstop working on wounded men.
They needed to get out of there. They needed to retreat, but there was no longer any place for them to go. If they tried to retreat, they would all be shot down.
John could see his life flashing before his eyes even as he saw the lives of so many others draining out of them. He could see Sherlock and he could remember touching him and loving him. He could almost feel the letters and the picture burning against his chest. It was the only thing that he would have of Sherlock's when he died. He would die alone with nothing but a few measly papers to comfort him. And Sherlock would be left alone once more.
No! John yelled in his mind as he pulled a bullet out of the leg of one of the few men that he got to in time to save. Sherlock believes in me. He said that I would come home. I have to go home. I can't leave Sherlock alone. I won't leave Sherlock alone. I'm not going to die here. I'm not going to die here!
A gunshot was all it took to take the good doctor down. A shot from an enemy weapon aimed at his unintentionally exposed back. A shot that buried into the back of his left shoulder and then ripped through the front of it. Right above his heart. Just missing the deadly shot. That was all it took to take the good doctor down.
"Please god let me live," he cried quietly even as he heard people call out for a medic. He couldn't help them. He was down and he wasn't getting back up. All those men that he could have saved were dying just out of his arms reach because he couldn't get over the pain that was spreading throughout his body. Please god let me live. Please let me see Sherlock again. Please.
Suddenly there was a face in front of him. He didn't recognize it. The one thing that he did recognize was the uniform the man wore. It was one that belonged to a medic from the enemy. The face disappeared and was replaced by pressure against his wound. He cried out in pain as the man that he didn't know starting working on him. He was saving his life, but he didn't know what for. The fear of dying immediately was replaced with the fear of what will happen after his life is saved. Prisons of war weren't always treated kindly.
