It's been a little while, but here's chapter ten. Yes, it's been ten full chapters already! I cannot believe I'm ten chapters into this. Wow. All right, here's an ahead of time warning for heavy feels. Like, HEAVY feels, beyond the normal dose that's been in the last few chapters.
You've been warned. Thanks as always to my lovely beta reader! Hope you enjoy... in a twisted sense.
Spalko lifted her head, her vision blurred as she came to beneath a bright light. She immediately reached for the gun at her hip, but her entire holster was missing. Her eyes widened, and she sat bolt upright, only to find that she was seated at an old wooden desk. Realizing that the offending light source was a small lamp leaning over her head, she put it out and let her eyes adjust to the dim overhead light.
Behind her, an examination table sat in the middle of the room, of the sort used by morticians and student scientists to examine corpses. Spalko tucked her hair behind her ears, deciding she ought to grow accustomed to her surroundings. She was in a laboratory of some sort that felt to her both new and familiar, as if she had turned up in a life she could quite easily have lived, had her choices been slightly different.
She found it more of an effort to stand as she was used to; she was shocked to find that over the course of a few hours, her pregnancy had progressed by what seemed like months, to the point that it would be quite impossible to hide with the military-issue overcoat that didn't seem to be in her possession now anyway. In fact, she was dressed entirely in civilian clothing, with the exception of a grey lab coat and a pair of thin leather gloves.
The door to the laboratory swung open, and a man wheeled in another table, the corpse beneath it hidden beneath a sheet. She squinted, trying to make out his face, but found it blurred, as if she was watching him through fogged glass.
"Doctor Spalko, the specimen is ready."
She found herself nodding briskly, suddenly aware of exactly what the man was talking about. "Excellent," she replied, gesturing to an empty space in the lab, "put him here." She had waited a long time for this; she knew that much, although she could hardly fathom what lay beneath the sheet.
He glanced between her face and her heavily swollen belly. "Are you sure you want to do this now?"
"Absolutely," she hissed, feeling her hackles rise. "I have run this project for years; it's about time we have something to show for it. I would not miss this moment for anything."
The doctor dipped his head and backed out of the room, and Spalko looked down at the covered body. What, she wondered, had she found? She knew it was important; it was terribly important, for she had dedicated such a huge portion of her life to it. Of course, she had no context as to what it was she had dedicated her life to, but her excitement built with each step she took toward finding out.
Her eyes gleamed with barely contained anticipation, and she became briefly aware of the obsessive devotion with which she had carried out her project. Obtaining this body was everything.
A stretched smile creeping onto her face, Spalko lifted the sheet.
The first thing she noticed was that the corpse was still clothed, in black robes, and an equally black hood, and for a moment she grumbled in frustration at the doctor who had delivered the body to her. Were they not aware that an autopsy could only be performed on a body when it had no clothes?
Its face was shadowed beneath its hood, and she was reaching over the table to lift it when she noticed the blade. It lay beside its deceased owner, a long, curved blade on a polished wooden hilt. The scythe lay flat, but even then she felt as if it had pierced her heart.
The creature on her autopsy table, which they had waited for so long to obtain, was Death.
Her fingers shaking, Spalko picked up a thin pair of scissors and cut through the sleeve of Death's cloak. She wondered to herself why she had ever wanted to come face to face with Death, but still the anticipation of the knowledge she could gain from this autopsy outweighed her reservations.
She pulled Death's cloak aside from its chest to find another layer of clothing; a thick army coat rough with dried blood around the chest area. She knew that Death had not been shot; she had given orders to kill the creature humanely.
She reached forward to take off the hood, but just before her fingers clutched the fabric, Karov walked in. He was the only person who entered her laboratory without knocking and without wheeling in a specimen for her research.
"Karov," she whispered, looking up. He was cleaner, she realized, less worn down, and his face less weathered. This was not the soldier she knew, yet she loved him nonetheless.
"Why thank you for such a formal address, Irina," he said with a smirk, his hands in the pockets of his own lab coat. His brow furrowed with concern as he scrutinized her. "You seem tense. More so than usual anyway." His eyes caught the body on the table. "Is that him? Death?"
"It," she corrected, glancing at the body, her nose wrinkling at the beast.
Karov cocked his head, almost mesmerized by the hooded figure. "It seems odd." He grimaced and laid his hand on Spalko's shoulder, though it slid quickly down to the stretched skin of her abdomen. The distant memory of shadowy bunkers and melting candles drifted into her mind, but she could hardly process the thought. She felt removed from it.
"What seems odd?"
"This proximity of life and death," he said. "The beginning of life and the end of it, all in one room."
"Sentimental fool," Spalko muttered, but a smile graced her features nonetheless. "You ought to be off dissecting cryptid corpses."
"And you ought not to be dissecting cryptid corpses in your condition, but you don't see me objecting." He grinned cheekily. "Not to mention I brought a guest."
He gesture to the door, and the hesitant face of a young child peered in.
"Natalya," Spalko breathed, and Natalya shuffled farther into the room. Spalko re-covered Death with the autopsy sheet, shielding Natalya's young eyes from the corpse.
"What brings you here?" she asked softly.
The innocence in Natalya's eyes was a refreshing change from the world she usually saw. The little girl's small lips turned upward in a warm smile. "I missed you," she said. "I got lonely."
In the back of her mind, Spalko knew something was off. Natalya shouldn't be there. But she was so pleased to see her that the cynical, nagging voice in the back of her head remained silent.
Then Natalya reached out, her fingers spread wide, and she remembered another such hand, callused and hesitent, which she had rejected. Another face raw with conflicting emotions, the most dominant being hope.
Hope was what she had given Natalya.
She gently took Natalya's curious, innocent hand and guided it to her midsection.
Natalya looked down at Spalko's rounded belly and then into her eyes, where she knelt in her lab coat on the floor, at equal height with the child.
"Take care of her," said Natalya, her voice imploring, almost pleading. "Like you did for me."
"What do you-" Spalko started to ask, but Natalya was already walking out the door, Karov right behind her, without a word, vanishing as they turned the corner.
After a moment's silence, she put their exit from her mind and uncovered Death's corpse once more. She pulled back its hood determinedly, averting her eyes. She didn't know why exactly she looked away, but when she looked back, her stomach lurched.
The face of death was that of a human woman. Late thirties, with a stern face and short-clipped hair. Angular, almost gaunt, and unhealthily pale.
She turned the head to the side, and her stomach churned. Just below the right ear was a thin, jagged scar. Spalko's fingers flitted over her own ear, where glass from the windshield of their army truck had cut her in the winter.
She clutched her chest, backing away from the corpse. It was her. Older, more worn than she thought possible, but her nonetheless. She was death and life, she realized, reaching down to her abdomen for reassurance.
Then Death blinked. The child inside her kicked once, as if in response, so violently that she stiffened and backed into the wall, her fingers tightening over her belly. The creature's hand mirrored hers from where it lay on the autopsy table. Then, as it got up, its pale feet stepped on its cloak, and it fell back, its head hitting the table edge. She could feel herself start to slip, her feet sliding out from under her as her head hit the wall, and she faded out of consciousness.
Spalko jerked wide awake as she felt a hand on her forehead. Sitting up, she grabbed the arm attached to it and twisted, her eyes wild.
"Agh," Karov groaned, trying to tug is arm free. Upon seeing him, Spalko relaxed.
"Apologies," she muttered, freeing his arm. "It is an instinctive reaction. You would do well not to touch me as I sleep."
Karov's lips twitched hesitantly. "You were in a panic. I thought you might be ill."
"No," said Spalko, shaking her head. "A rather disturbing dream; that was all. Come. We run the perimeter check this morning."
She got to her feet and changed into her uniform, but before she could slide her arms through the sleeves of her overcoat, Karov stopped her hand. "What?" she asked, turning around.
"Not yet," he said quietly.
Spalko turned around to face him, rolling her eyes. "This is a perimeter check, Lieutenant. We are not putting ourselves in nearly as much jeopardy as we do nearly ever other day."
"Every day, there is a chance that we die. We ought to live the best we can before that day comes."
"We ought to have stayed away from each other from the beginning, but," she sighed, "I suppose it is far too late for that now."
She leaned into him as he captured her lips in his own, his left hand gently cradling the nape of her neck, the other settling beneath the curve of her abdomen that tugged at the buttons on her uniform.
"If we survive for a bit longer," he said, "we can take leave. In a unit this small, we have lost enough men that the Soviet Union will send troops to replace us."
Spalko sighed, the lines in her face becoming more pronounced with worry. "I doubt it will be possible; either the soldiers will take notice of my condition or I will lose the baby before then. We decided, Karov, that some things are inevitable."
He crouched down, setting his ear once more to her belly, and she rolled her eyes; however, she could not deny the welling of love that rose in her chest as she watched the scene unfold. It was inexplicable, the love she felt for both of them, as it always had been. It was contradictory to the laws of survival, and surely natural selection would weed them out eventually. She only hoped that somehow, through the same inexplicable forces which dictated her love for Karov, they would pull through.
"Karov," she muttered, her voice low, lacking its usual authoritative tone. He stood up and handed Spalko her overcoat.
"You're right," he told her, putting on his own coat. "We should go."
The empty truck was waiting for them by the entrance to the base camp. She climbed in the driver's seat, and Karov the passenger seat. The camp was eerily quiet, not even a cricket chirping, far too cold for insects. The only signs of life were the bootprints in the frosted grass where they had walked to the truck.
Spalko twiddled an unlit cigarette in her fingers, then stuck it between her teeth. She'd gotten into a habit of chewing the ends, ever since she had been unable to light one without heaving up her food.
"It really is a beautiful day," said Karov, his breath misty in the cold morning air.
"For a war zone," Spalko muttered, starting the ignition. "Keep an eye out for anything unusual."
Spalko scanned the trees in her peripheral vision as she drove. She had come to realize that the one advantage she gained from her pregnancy in the field was heightened senses. The leafless trees shivered in the slight wind that made goosebumps on her neck, her eyes catching every dead leaf that blew their way.
Karov trained his gun out the window, just in case of an ambush. It was unlikely, but there were still German troops a few miles west of them, and it hardly hurt to be careful. On the driver's side, they passed trees covered in frozen dew; on the passenger's side, fields of shriveled grass splattered with burned patches where mines had gone off in the past.
She shivered slightly, huddling deeper into her overcoat. Karov glanced over his shoulder. "Are you all right?" he asked.
"Fine. Only thinking." Her words were terse; she much preferred silence this early in the morning. It allowed her time to turn things over in her head before the day began, a ritual she had begun during her stay at the Petrov base.
Her gaze fixed on the road ahead of her as she turned to the right, between two small fields.
"Stop." Karov's voice was urgent, and she slammed the breaks. She lurched forward, and for a moment she thought she might hurl, but she swallowed the bile as the truck came to a halt.
Spalko took a deep breath, her head pounding. "What?" she demanded hoarsely.
"I saw a flash. Like from an automatic." Karov climbed out of the truck, his pace quickening as he walked toward the field, Spalko close behind.
"Where did you see it?" She caught up to him, grabbing ahold of his shoulder.
Karov pointed about twenty meters short of the tree line. "There." He started toward it.
"Are you sure?" she called to his back, drawing her pistol.
"No," said Karov, over his shoulder, "but we ought to make sure. You stay there, while I check it out." The tone of concern bothered Spalko; for a moment she was tempted to follow him out of annoyance of his attempt to keep her safe. Then, faintly, she felt a soft kick from the baby she carried, and elected to return to the truck. There it was again. That rush of love and protectiveness she felt curl around her heart and seep into her bones.
She saw the explosion before she heard it. A fraction of a second flash, and a ball of fire that erupted like a volcano in the middle of the field, smoke stretching to the sky.
"Karov," she whispered hoarsely. As the smoke cleared, there was no sign of him. It had only been a few seconds of fiery chaos, but he had disappeared completely.
"Lieutenant Karov!" she shouted, striding briskly toward the smoldering grass. The thought briefly flitted through her mind of a possible enemy infiltration, as he'd thought he had seen a flashing automatic. Yet she knew that if they had not fired at the blast or at his approach, he had most likely seen wrong. Still, she fired off her pistol once at what Karov had deemed the source of the flash, and with no response she found it safe to continue. "Damian!"
In her heart, she knew he would not reply. The shape and pattern of the blast indicated it was an unexploded land mine, and Karov had undoubtedly stepped on it without noticing. He had detonated the mine, and thus he had been standing precisely on top of it. Statistically speaking, there was little to no chance that he survived.
As she approached the smoldering grass, her heart lurched, her stomach flipping in circles. The mine had blown a hold in the field, its pieces spread across the blast area like shards of a broken mirror.
In the middle, laid on the ground as if he had been prepared for an autopsy, was Damian Karov.
Spalko knelt beside him where he lay, nearly unrecognizable through burns.
"Damian," said Spalko, her voice husky with the smoke she'd inhaled approaching the blast area, that was turning in her stomach and threatening to upheave at any moment. "Man down!" she shouted, but there was no one to hear her. Her voice softened again as she turned back to Karov. "Hold on. Field medics will arrive relatively quickly; they are trained to act on call. Hold on for a few minutes."
She was babbling, and she knew it. She had been conscious of her denial from the very second she saw his body, spread-eagled on the ground.
It's odd, she thought, her mind spinning in circles, this proximity of life and death. The closeness of a fragile new life to the burning wreckage of its blood father.
It was then, kneeling over the lifeless corpse of her lieutenant, her friend, the father of her child, that she cried. She could not remember the last time she had wept freely, perhaps when she was a young child. But there was nothing else to do here.
How underwhelming. There were always stories, in the army, of those who had died. They were stories of heroism, more dramatic with each retelling. She had always pictured her own death and that of her lieutenant as a spectacular event, in the midst of combat. The bullet would strike his chest, close enough to his heart that there was no saving him, but far enough that he had time for a speech: a magnificent, life-altering speech about courage and greatness. Or perhaps he would fall in single combat, an old-fashioned duel, and tumble from a bridge into a deep, murky river, his death shrouded in mystery, his body never to be found.
She had never once thought that he would go so unimpressively. Alone in a field, his foot on a land mine left over from battles already come and gone. It was not simply Karov whom she wept for, but the unfulfilled tale of heroic sacrifice and romanticism they had both come to expect during the war.
"I'm sorry," she said to the motionless body of Karov, silenced before a bold farewell speech, blown to bits in an empty field where he thought he had seen a firearm, her hand on his chest. Her other hand clutched her lower abdomen, resting atop the soft swell of their child, who still kicked feebly against the growing bump. She coughed, her throat rough from smoke and unconcealed sobs.
"I'm so sorry."
Well. That was painful to write. Chips, not bags of air? *sheepish grimace*