Prompt: Taylor/Wash - Battlefield
Fill for: zapf_chancery
Word Count: 1155
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance
Summary: Pre-series. In the trenches they meet for the first time, Taylor's bleeding all over the place and Doc entrusts Corporal Wash with his life.
Author's Note: Written for the prompt Battlefield in the Friday's One Word Fic Challenge - Week 2. Spoilers for the Season One finale.
Disclaimer: I own neither the show nor the characters. I don't earn any money with this piece. I just do it for fun.
Taylor doesn't know whether he should feel relieved or be scared of the look on Doc's face as he spies the young medic stumbling with her unit into the trenches and since Taylor is more concerned over the fact that he's practically bleeding out all over the place, he settles on something in-between.
"Thank god," he hears Doc mutter before his oldest friend waves to the young woman. "Wash! Over here!" There is dirt and blood smeared across her face, strands of midnight-colored hair have escaped her pony tail but the way she holds her head high belies her tired appearance and the unbidden thought that he has never laid eyes on something this beautiful flickers across Taylor's mind (he ignores the underlying guilt (his wife) that comes with the notion and pretends it's delirium that has weakened his mind).
That is until she falls to her knees at his side and follows Doc's direct order to tend to Taylor's wound without deigning to look at his face first or uttering a single word. He pushes aside the pang of disappointment at being disregarded like that, lets annoyance take the lead instead and tries to sit up, determined to give them a piece of his mind but Doc has got a secure hold on his upper body and pins him to the ground.
It doesn't stop Taylor from protesting though. "What? Doc, you can't be serio-"
"Taylor. Do you want to live?" Doc lifts an eyebrow and squeezes his shoulder tightly, reminding him once more who's in charge here when it comes to patching up the soldiers.
"I am not going to let some fresh recru-"
"Corporal." Her voice is soft and yet firm, a flash of steel beneath black velvet, sending a shiver down his spine and Taylor forgets what he's complaining about in the first place.
"What?"
"Corporal Washington. The damn best medic I ever had the pleasure of training. Isn't that right, Wash?" Pride and genuine admiration sounds in Doc's voice and Taylor expects the woman in question to blush at the compliment or at least act like a woman usually does if she's being praised but she does neither.
"If you say so, sir," is all she says while continuing to concentrate on his injury, poking and probing the torn edges and when a particular painful jab makes him jerk and hiss, Taylor suspects it's her way of getting back at him for his comment. She absently brushes aside a wisp of hair that has fallen into her face and his hand itches to reach out, to rub it between his fingertips, to find out if it's as soft as it looks. Another impulse that surely stems from blood loss and pain coursing through his body (at least that's what he tells himself).
Wash finally finishes her examination and starts to pull out the med kit, promoting Doc to ask her what she thinks.
"It will take at least sixty, but probably closer to seventy stitches," she answers and Taylor can't stop the snort from escaping him at that ridiculous number and the amount of precious time putting them in will take, time he does not want to waste on pretty stitches. He opens his mouth to tell her exactly that but then she meets his eyes for the first time and suddenly he's drowning in shades of amber and gold, burning with a glow that cuts right through him, setting his own soul on fire.
"You are not going to stay here once I've stitched you up. You will dive right back into the battle raging out there because you don't want to your men to fight alone. You will not care about your wound but if I don't put that many stitches into you, it will tear open at the first hit you take and you will be back here again. It is your choice. Either a quick job or you take the sixty," she tells him flatly and if Taylor wonders how such a young woman can know him better than his men or his wife when they haven't even exchanged more than a handful of words.
The corner of his lips turn up and he holds her gaze as he nods at her. "I'll take the seventy, Corporal." He doesn't intend for his voice to be this husky or quiet but when he catches sight of the slight blush beneath the grime and blood on Wash's face, the man in him is fascinated by it and suddenly, the desire to find out what could make that blush deepen flares strongly in him.
She covers her reaction by rolling her eyes at him before she ducks her head and starts the process of stitching him up with nimble fingers, every of her moves quick but precise, almost painless and watching her lulls him, the sound of gunfire and the smell of smoke fading away until all the remains is their breathing and a faint scent of wild roses.
They are not aware of Doc's knowing gaze as he observes his oldest friend and his best medic, a sad smile on his lips as he thinks about what's lying ahead of them.
Love is a battlefield and theirs won't be different, they are both warriors and times are difficult enough without such a complication like love thrown in but somehow Doc is certain they will make it even if it takes years. One day, they will have their chance, not their first maybe but definitely their second.
Maybe it will be even in a place that's not polluted and dying but blooming with life and hope.
(Over a decade later a request comes through, his medical expertise is needed in Terra Nova and it doesn't surprise Doc to see Taylor's and Wash's names on the request form. He never stopped keeping tabs on them, knows the hell they both went through and yet they've only come out stronger at the end.
He watches them over the years in Terra Nova, the unbreakable bond they share, two halves of a whole as he likes to call them, but it pains him to see them holding back, never crossing that invisible line.
Doctor Shannon, quite the feisty lady she is, has a similar opinion of his two stubborn friends and they are almost tempted to lock them into an examination room but then the mess with Lucas, the Phoenix Group and Wash's near-death happens and the decision is taken out of their hands.
The moment Carter brings Wash back to the colony, alive but bruised, Taylor locks her and himself into that room and when they leave it hours later, Doc knows things have finally changed.
The memory of the beautiful shade of red tinging Wash's cheeks and the content smile on Taylor's lips will stay with him forever.)