2 updates in one day! I've clearly gone mad!

Dedicating this one to Epiic who sent me the messages that gave me a kick up the arse! Sometimes just hearing that somebody loves reading this gives me that extra push I need!

I actually have the next two chapters typed up but need to re-read and edit them at least a thousand times before I feel brave enough to post them! Hopefully I'll have them up by the end of Feb :)

"Have I ever told you how much I hate Russia?"

I turned to Wallcroft with a grimace. "Only every single day since we got here."

"Just as long as it's well documented." He looked at me from the corner of his eye. "I'm just saying, it would be nice if we could be sent to deal with a civil war at a five star resort in Bora Bora, or the Maldives sometimes."

I pulled a face at him. Or, at least I attempted to. It was really hard to convey any kind of emotion when your face was completely frozen. All those men and women who paid thousands of pounds for Botox just needed to move here. It was the key to staying eternally youthful albeit with a higher risk of losing a toe or two to frostbite. But, hey! Supertight facial muscles!

Yes. I was complaining about the cold. Me! The girl openly loved snow! But, honestly, Braemar and its beautiful white landscape was an entirely different world compared to the icy village of Oymyakon. I'd scoffed when Kamarov had told me it was the coldest habitable location on Earth but only because he had a habit of being slightly dramatic and I'd spent the rest of the journey here without giving his comment a second thought.

Except he was right.

So very, very right.

We'd been here for a month now, helping the Loyalists in fighting the good fight and trying to uncover some kind of tenuous link between the Russian Ultranationalists and I had honestly forgotten what it was like to feel my toes.

"I'm actually starting to miss British weather." He sighed. "I'd sell my left kidney to feel a little bit of rain right now."

"Why your left?"

"I'm more attached to the right."

I laughed. "Of course you are. I'm not sure what kind of answer I expected from you really."

I shifted so that our shoulders were pressed together. It was the slightest movement but in the -25 degree weather, the extra bit of warmth that his body provided through my jacket and seven layers of clothing was enough to settle the awful chill in my bones.

"Do you think we should get up and move around?" He asked me. "Hunt seemed pretty insistent that we don't sit down for too long."

I shook my head. "I don't think I could move if I wanted to." I attempted to grin at him but my cheeks couldn't fight against the cold.

"He'll be mad at us." He warned. "He'll do that quivery ginger thing that he does."

I looked at him. "I won't tell if you don't."

He nodded. "Deal."

I'm not sure how it was that Wallcroft and I had been left to patrol the base by ourselves whilst the rest of the squad (plus Kamarov and his men) went out on an operation, but I was glad for it. The last month had been the hardest since I'd joined the SAS and I was finding it increasingly difficult to stay upbeat when it was so relentlessly cold and everything seemed to be so irrevocably fucked. We were struggling to find a link and it seemed obvious to the whole squad that we were wasting our time in some frozen wasteland whilst the Yanks were struggling to overthrow the rebels in the Middle East. Plus, Al-Asad was still at large and since the public execution of Al-Fulani, a more credible threat than ever before. I wasn't the only one who felt like our time in Russia was the calm before the inevitable shit storm.

I straightened up. "You're complaining now, but think about all the stories you'll be able to tell your hoard of future kids." I paused. "All seventeen of them."

He pulled a face at me. "I'd probably just round it up to an even 20." He said. "You know I hate odd numbers. And they'd all be called Ben."

"And what happened if you had daughters?"

"Benjamina." He gave me a look. "I thought you were supposed to be smart?"

"Even Steven Hawking wouldn't stand a chance around you." I laughed. "Twenty kids would mean you'd have twenty angry baby mama's to contend with though. You can barely cope with me when I'm mad at you."

"What would they have to be angry about? They'd be married to me." He paused. "And you're never truly angry at me. You can pretend, but I know it comes from a place of love and/or lust." He gave me a look. "Mostly lust. You can deny it all you want but I know the truth."

I rolled my eyes. "You can't marry twenty different women, Wallcroft. It's called Polygamy and it's illegal."

"I'd just become a Mormon."

I laughed. "Oh, because that's how it works. You just turn up one day with your harem of women and declare yourself a follower. You'd probably burst into flames on the spot."

He grinned at me. "All jokes aside, I can't wait to meet somebody and do the whole marriage and kid's thing, y'know."

"I can't picture you with a wife." I said.

This was Wallcroft we were talking about. The same Wallcroft who instigated and participated in mass orgies once a year. Would you marry Wallcroft? Exactly.

"Oh I can. She's going to be a knockout." He sighed. "Brunette. Big blue eyes. Ass like Jennifer Lopez, boobs like yours…" He sighed. "And she'll love giving blowjobs."

"I was with you up until the blowjob part." I said. "I hate to break it to you but they don't call it a job for nothing, boo." I sighed. "Porn has ruined everything."

"And we'll have three kids." He looked into the distance dreamily, ignoring me. "Two boys and a girl. The boys would come first obviously, so they can protect their little sister and keep all of the idiots away from her."

I stared at him, mildly horrifed. "I can't believe you've actually thought about this kind of thing."

He shrugged. "Why wouldn't I?"

"You're just so... you."

"And by 'you', you mean...? Handsome? Rugged? Boyishly charming? The object of your unrequited desires?"

"All of the above, obviously. It's always been you, Wallcroft. Ignore the haters, they just can't handle our love." I laughed.

He turned to look at me. "I think we should make a pact. If neither of us are married by the time we're 30, then we'll marry each other."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "Who says that I don't already have a pact with somebody else?"

"Who is it? I'll fight them." He puffed his chest out. "And with my Mormon God as my witness, I will destroy them."

I shook my head. "That's for me to know and you to find out." I nudged him. "Besides, there's a flaw in your plan Batman."

"Oh yeah?"

"You turned 30 two weeks ago."

"I did?"

I nodded at him. We'd attempted to have a party for him, but it was hard to celebrate when you were living in a frozen ice hell and your only idea of fun was to lie in the foetal position covered in eighteen blankets.

He moved suddenly, picking me up in a fireman's lift. "Right, we won't waste a second longer. There'll be something around here that can marry us. A polar bear? Penguins look kind of like vicars don't they?" He paused. "ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN! IF YOU'RE LISTENING, PLEASE KNOW THAT WE COME IN PEACE AND WE WANT YOU TO OFFICIATE OUR WEDDING PLEASE."

I laughed and beat my fists against his back. "Put me down you idiot."

"Ask me nicely." I couldn't see his face, but I could tell that he was grinning. "I respond to your Lordship, your Highness, Captain Handsome or Big Dick Richie."

"Nobody has ever referred to you as any of those things." I paused.

"Maybe not in actual life, but it happens quite frequently in my dreams." He smacked my arse, his hand connecting with the first pair of eight trousers that I had taken to wearing in an effort to stop my vagina from freezing. "I'm waiting Princess."

"Put me down before I do something that changes the 'Big' in 'Big Dick Richie' to 'No'. I paused. "Please, your Highness?"

He laughed and lowered me back into the seat that I had been occupying.

"Good enough for me." He smirked. "You had me at Big Dick Richie."

"I'll be cutting off your Big Dick Richie if you ever pick me up like that again."

"So you admit I've got a big dick?"

I rolled my eyes at him. "How has my life come to this? Sitting in a frozen hell hole and talking about your dick? Like, what did I do in my past life that warrants this kind of torture?"

He wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "I'm just playing." He paused. "Though I do think there's method to my madness."

I stared at him. "How'd you figure that?"

"I mean, there's worse people that you could have a marriage pact with and we all know that you're going to end up with somebody in the life. It's inevitable."

I pulled a face at him. "You know that's what criminals say, don't you? The life? That's how they describe their activities. You're comparing us all to criminals."

He shrugged. "You know that I'm talking sense."

"Do I? Because it sounds like you're telling me that the only way I'll ever get married, or settle down, is if I do it with somebody from the squad." I paused. "Correct me if I'm wrong."

He paused, before nodding. "Nope, that's pretty much the gist of things." He patted my head. "I take back what I said before... you're actually very clever."

I swatted his hand away from me. "How did you reach this conclusion? I feel like you had to be high. It's the only explanation."

He laughed. "Or maybe it just makes sense? Think about it, Lo. You'll never be able to settle for Joe Civilian. What would you talk about? The weather?"

"You're being ridiculous."

"I mean, think about this..." He gestured at the oblivion of ice and snow around us. "How do you tell somebody about this? They'll never believe you." He grinned. "And this is one of the more realistic ones! How do you tell your future husband that you worked on, and survived a mission called 'Operation Certain Death'?"

I grinned at him. "God, that was a fun one, wasn't it?"

His expression matched mine as we both remembered the most intense job that either of us had ever been on.

I snapped out of my trance. "I feel as though most normal couples have similar interests outside of their previous work history though, Wallcroft."

"Yeah, but you're not normal are you? You're extraordinary. And that's not just me blowing smoke up that sweet arse of yours. We all are. We've done and seen things that will never, ever translate to normal life."

I opened my mouth to respond, but just couldn't find the words. He was right. We were extraordinary. I glared at him and he grinned triumphantly.

"Plus, we'll never think that anybody is good enough for you."

I raised an eyebrow. "I beg your pardon?"

"You have a whole squad full of angry, overprotective brothers who will happily put somebody in the ground faster than you can blink. Think of every film or television villain ever, and multiply it by a thousand. That's what your betrothed will have to deal with."

"I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself." I stared at him. "And I feel like you're putting me on a pretty unattainable pedestal."

"You definitely don't get how great you are, do you Lo?" He laughed. "You're a catch, sweet cheeks." He paused. "Anybody would be lucky to have you. But they'd have to get through us first." He laughed. "And if meeting the squad isn't bad enough, your future husband will have to get past Price!" He was full on belly laughing at this point. "Price! The man who hates everybody! Could you imagine? He takes his role as your surrogate father very, very seriously so whoever you end up with will need to get his seal of approval. And you can pretend all you want, but you know that his approval means a lot to you." He clapped his hands as the laughter spread around his body. "Oh my GOD! He'll be on the phone with headquarters demanding background checks. His moustache will be quivering furiously." He stopped laughing and looked at me with a serious face. "Seriously, good luck with that."

I tried to keep a straight face, but Wallcroft was one of those people with a completely contagious laugh and I found myself chuckling alongside him.

"Christ, I'm doomed aren't I? It's either you, or I just commit to the spinster life. Do you think that Price will let me get a cat?" I looked at him as he shook his head. "Me neither. He's weird about cats. Says that they're sinister. Right, where's that polar bear? May as well just get it over and done with. No time to worry about a dress."

He laughed. "That's the spirit! The first step is acceptance."

"Only problem is that I'm blonde and you said you were going to marry a brunette."

He sighed dramatically. "I'll make an exception for you but I'm not happy about it."

"Oh thanks."

"Or maybe I can just dye your hair while you're asleep?" He gave me a nudge before jumping to his feet. "Nature calls wifey. Keep an eye out for that polar bear will you?"

I shook my head at him with a grin. "Go!"

"That's the spirit! Already bossing me around like we're married." He turned around and called over his shoulder. "I expect tea on the table by the time I'm back."

I wanted to throw something at him but I a) didn't have the energy and b) couldn't face the idea of moving in the cold. I sighed deeply, staring at his retreating figure.

Was he right? Wallcroft was an idiot but he was notoriously straight talking and I knew him well enough to know that this was his very odd version of a serious conversation. I looked down at my hands and contemplated his words. I'd never been the kind of girl who had the singular goal of finding a man and settling down. I'd never googled engagement rings, or wedding dresses and I certainly didn't have a set idea of the correct age to be married. Aside from the fact that he was a raving homosexual, it was the biggest thing that Tristan and I had never agreed on. His parents had been keen for him to marry by his mid-twenties and give them their first grandchild by the time he was 27. Me? I'd had big visions for my career. Marriage and kids could always come later. I mean, here I was approaching 28 and I still had zero desire to exchange vows or spend 9 months growing another human inside of me.

I mean, the closest thing I had to a relationship was Soap and he and I had agreed that we were simply having fun. Life was hard enough without the pressure of trying to maintain a hidden relationship. I mean, yes, there were times that I found myself staring at him for a fraction too long, and I always felt a strange sense of elation whenever our eyes would meet. But that was the excitement of having a secret that nobody else was in on.

Wasn't it?

Let's get things straight... I fancied that absolute crap out of him. That much was true. And it was a feeling that definitely grew stronger by the day. And it wasn't like I was grinning because we were having hot sex every single day because, honestly? We weren't. Not even close. The camp in Oymyakon was a bubble in which there was no place to hide. The only space that provided any kind of respite was the tiny medical building that had been set up in an abandoned house on the south of our grounds. The top floor was completely unusable due to damage inflicted by the weather, but the bottom floor was as close to a hospital as we could hope for. The only problem was that Hunt was there all the damn time. Our stay here was taking its toll on the lads, and it was suddenly a 24 hour job to make sure that we all returned to Britain with limbs intact.

That's not to say that Soap and I hadn't found ourselves alone on more than one occasion, but these meetings had normally led to us just spending time together as opposed to having sex. And I was kind of grateful for it. I don't think I'd worn anything less than eight layers of clothing since we'd arrived, and no matter how much I fancied the man, nothing was worth stripping off and risking frostbite for. But it was also nice just to sit and talk to Soap. Our recent chats had reminded me that our relationship had been built upon a solid friendship. There had always been a spark, but sometimes I forgot that our spark existed on a level that extended way beyond sex.

Especially when that thing that happened two nights ago. The thing that made those butterflies in my stomach spring to life and flutter around as if they were trapped in a hurricane every single time I thought about it. Which, for the record, was at least 80 percent of the day.

I'd been on duty with one of the Russian lads until 10pm and completely exhausted by the perpetual cold, and general doggedness of the entire expedition, I'd stumbled into our mess quarters (another house that served as the place where we ate and socialised) and had passed out on the nearest couch that wasn't covered in food and empty beer bottles. I'd woken up a few hours later, to the sound of somebody stumbling around the room. Assuming that one of the lads had drank too much vodka and had stumbled in here to find some food, I'd kept my eyes closed, eager not to be drawn into any kind of conversation. The unidentified person had stumbled around for a little longer before they had moved in front of me, and I felt a heavy blanket being placed over my body with the gentleness that suggested that the unidentified person actually wasn't drunk in the slightest.

I'd opened my eyes, to find Soap staring down at me.

We'd locked eyes, and he'd stayed there. His fingertips brushing at the stray hairs that lay across my forehead. And that was it. There was no kissing. No frenzied tearing off one another's clothes. Just me and him, staring at each other in the darkness. No words, no movements, just the sound of my heart thundering against my ribcage at a thousand beats a minute.

I was grateful for the stillness of the entire interaction. Grateful for his closeness. Grateful for the feeling of his fingertips at my temple. Grateful that he was here with me in Oymyakon. Grateful that he had made it into the SAS in the first place.

I was just grateful for him… for his existence in my life… for the way that he made everything seem like it was going to be okay.

I was grateful that he existed at all.

I mean, I was grateful for all of the lads in one way or another, and I sometimes wondered if I would still be doing this job were it not for them. It hadn't taken me long to realise that I loved them. Plain and simple L-O-V-E. I mean, it was kind of impossible not to. And whilst I know that they would never admit it to one another, I know that all of the lads felt the exact same way. In fact, the SAS was actually just one big love in.

But with Soap, it was different somehow.

And there, in the darkness, it had hit me.

I loved the guys. But with Soap… with Soap it was different. Somehow. I couldn't put my finger on it, but it was.

In that moment, I had been reminded of the conversation that I'd had with Steve on the night that we'd first left for Omyakon. He'd been convinced that a little part of me probably did love Soap. And I guess that he was ever so slightly right. He'd always called them like he'd seen them, and it was hard to believe that my situation would be any different.

I'm not sure how long I'd lay there, staring up into his eyes as if I was seeing him for the very first time, but eventually he had heaved a deep sigh and with one final look, he had departed the room in the same manner in which he had entered.

Christ.

I felt as though my stomach had dropped out of my arse.

Could I fall in love with Soap? The idea wasn't completely implausible. On paper, he was pretty much perfect, but in reality? In reality I had made a deal with Price and all jokes aside, the idea of telling him that I'd broken his golden rule filled me dread. I could joke around with him more than any of the lads ever could, but he was still the most serious person that I knew and he had this inane ability to flip between the two emotions in the blink of an eye.

"What are you grinning about?" Wallcroft resumed his place next to me.

"I'm just grimacing because of the cold." I told him.

"It looked like a smile to me." He raised an eyebrow at me.

I shrugged. "Probably just thinking about the idea of Price vetting some of my ex-boyfriends." I grinned up at him. "Especially Tristan. I don't think he'd ever stop laughing."

He didn't smile back, but looked at me with slightly cautious eyes. He opened his mouth as if he wanted to speak, but closed it again quickly.

"What's up Wallcroft?"

He looked deeply into my eyes. "All jokes aside, you know that I care about you a lot, don't you? Like, I know you can take care of yourself, but if anybody ever tried to mess with you, I'd kill them." He blinked. "And I'm talking like, messy death. Castration, mutilation... that kind of thing, y'know?"

Ah, that was... sweet?

I nodded at him. "I know."

"And you know that I'm here for you." He paused. "If ever you need to talk... about..." He sighed. "Stuff."

"What kind of stuff are you talking about?" I asked him.

There was a small part of me that wondered if he was referring to Soap. But we'd been careful enough, and I felt confident that nobody knew what was going on.

He sighed. "Just stuff, Lo. Anything. Like, your secrets are my secrets." He paused. "That kind of stuff."

I stared at him. "Okay."

This had to be Soap... Wallcroft wasn't this kind of guy. He was the person that I went to when I needed cheering up. He was my funny friend. The class clown. The perpetual entertainer. He didn't do the highly emotional conversations. That was Hunt or Gaz's territory.

He had to know and this was his unique way of reaching out to me.

"Wallcroft, I-"

"Bravo Four this is Bravo Five, come in."

The radio between us crackled to life.

The moment was gone. My confesion swallowed back down the pit of my stomach.

"Bravo Four receiving. What have you got?" I picked up the radio while staring at Wallcroft, who looked as though he wanted to forget that the past few minutes had happened.

The radio cackled and suddenly I could hear gunfire. The sound made my stomach sink.

"Bravo Five, can you hear me?"

Silence.

"That's weird." I looked up at Wallcroft before throwing the radio to him. He shook it.

"Lo, it's Hunt." The radio came to life once again. "We're coming in hot. We've got a casualty. I need you to meet me with a gurney. We need to move him quickly. Multiple GSW's to the chest. Potential pneumothorax. He's breathing but it's laboured and he's going to bleed out pretty quickly unless I help him. ETA thirty seconds."

This was the part of the job that I could never get used to no matter how many times it happened. But we were still humans. We were still breakable.

Wallcroft tossed the radio back to me. "Hunt? Who is it?" I asked, my voice sounding more frantic than I wanted.

Wallcroft gave me a look. He knew what I was asking. I could tell by the look in his eyes. Honestly, I wasn't even sure why I was asking. Hunt was unlikely to tell me.

The radio remained ominously silent.

And suddenly, my brain... as lovely and rational as it normally was, flipped into DEFCON1 mode and the only thing that I could think about was Soap.

What if it was him?

What if Soap was going to bleed out before Hunt got him here?

"Are you receiving Bravo Five?"

What if it was Soap's body that was broken beyond repair?

"Hunt!" I picked up the radio. "Hunt! Who is it?"

What if he died?

He had taken his time to say goodbye to me this morning before they had left. He'd given me one of his long sleeve t-shirts to wear underneath my jacket as I was complaining bitterly about the idea of having to sit around all day, freezing my arse off.

What if that was the last conversation we'd ever have?

What if all I had left of him was a t-shirt that smelled like him?

The radio cackled and cracked.

"HUNT!"

And then I heard it.

The rest of the sound around it was fuzzy and broken, but for a moment, Hunt's voice was clear as day. My eyes met Wallcroft's.

He'd heard it too, I could tell.

Hunt had only said one word.

Soap.

It was Soap.

Soap had the multiple GSW's.

Soap had the potential collapsed lung.

Soap was going to die before Hunt could get him back here.

My DEFCON1 brain was now going into nuclear meltdown mode.

"We need to get that gurney, Lo."

I nodded, my body frozen in place.

"Lola." Wallcroft switched into Price mode, using his most stern voice and moving so that he was stood in front of me. I stared up at his face, all traces of humour now so far removed that I'd swear the past half an hour hadn't even happened. "Get up and do your job."

"He said Soap." I said.

I'm not sure if I was talking to him, or myself. My voice didn't even sound like my own anymore. It was tense and strained and as weak as I'd ever known.

"And if it is Soap, you need to be there! Ready and waiting to do whatever it is that Hunt needs you to do, so that you can save him." He offered his hand to me, and I took it instinctively. He pulled me up. "Yes?"

He was right. I shook my head, attempting to remove the awful images of Soap's broken body that I had conjured in my mind.

"I'll get the gurney." We started running towards the medical building and I was reminded of how it felt all those years ago when I had ran towards the mangled bus in the middle of Tavistock Square. "Go into the fourth room on the right, where we keep the supplies. Get one of the trolleys, and take it into the biggest room at the end of the corridor. Make sure there's sterilised bandages and dressings. Lots of them." I turned to him, fixing him with a stare as I tied my hair up into a ponytail. "We're dealing with gunshot wounds so there's going to be a lot of blood so I hope you're not squeamish." We reached the entrance of the block. "And make sure you bring both of the defibrillators. External and internal. If Hunt needs to open him up, every second will count."

"How serious is this?" Wallcroft asked me as we pushed through the doors.

I reached for the nearest gurney and grabbed a pair of blue vinyl gloves from a box by the door. "It depends on how high up the wounds are. If there's anything below the ribcage then his chance of survival plummets dramatically" I swivelled around and pushed the end of the bed out into the cold. "But he's got Hunt there so he's in good hands."

They weren't just good hands – they were the best hands in the business. I'd seen Hunt save enough of the lads to know that he was the medical equivalent of Price. If I ever found myself on the receiving end of a bullet, I'd want Hunt at my side.

In the distance, one of our Land Rovers was hurtling towards the building. I turned back to look at Wallcroft. I couldn't have disguised the panic in my face if I had tried. The trouble was, neither could he.

"He's going to be okay, Lo." He sounded as if he was trying to convince himself as well as me. "He'll be back to his normal Scottish Godlike self before you know it."

I wanted to ask him to stay with me but he was already inside the building, heading through the corridor, my hurried instructions presumably ringing in his ears.

I swivelled back towards the vehicle that was speeding towards me at an alarming rate. Behind it, three more followed in its path.

And suddenly the world slowed down and each second that passed seem to take a lifetime.

I felt sick.

How would he look?

The Russian Extremists had a habit of using expanding bullets – at first glance, they looked exactly the same as normal bullets – same shape… same circumference… but they expanded upon impact, creating a mushroom shape to prevent the bullet from leaving the body, and severely increasing the tissue damage surrounding the impact area. Taking an expanding bullet to the chest was akin to being smashed in the head with a sledgehammer.

If Soap had taken multiple shots to the chest with this type of bullet, the damage would be catastrophic and no matter how good Hunt was, he couldn't fix a catastrophe. He wasn't a magician. Sometimes bodies just couldn't be fixed.

I knew that the land rover was getting closer but still it was still moving in slow motion. I could see Gaz's panicked face from behind the steering wheel. Price was beside him.

If Price was there, then so was Soap.

Soap was dying.

And suddenly I felt so completely overwhelmed by fear.

Soap was dying in the back of a car, in the middle of the coldest habitable place on the planet and I was trying to remember exactly what his face looked like when he had left this morning.

I wanted to remember the way that he looked when he smiled.

Or the way that he crinkled his nose when he laughed.

Or how I felt whenever he walked into a room.

I didn't want to think of him as some broken shell in the back of a car.

I didn't want to think of the blood, the wounds...

I wanted to tell him how much I cared about him.

I wanted him to know that there was a possibility that I was falling in love with him.

The squealing sound of the car's brakes brought my world back into focus, and I suddenly realised that my cheeks were wet with tears.

How long had I been crying?

I raised my sleeve up, wiping furiously at the damp spots on my face. I was honestly surprised to find that they hadn't frozen over in the bitter cold.

I couldn't cry.

Not now.

If, by some divine miracle, Soap was still conscious and aware of what was happening, I didn't want him to see me upset.

I raised my eyes to the sky above me, inwardly admonishing myself for getting upset.

There wasn't any time to think about of the things that I wanted to say to Soap. I had to focus on keeping him alive.

Because maybe Wallcroft was right… maybe I was going to end up with somebody from the squad.

Maybe, just maybe... I was going to end up with Soap.

And maybe Soap and I were going to get some kind of happy ever after in the midst of all the blood and violence.

Maybe Soap wasn't going to die here.

I steadied my hands around the gurney as Gaz reversed the car towards me.

"Time to go to work, Lo." I told myself. "It's not Soap. It's a nameless face." My eyes didn't leave the back doors of the vehicle. "It's not Soap. It's not Soap."

I tried to focus on how the next few seconds would pan out.

The back doors of the car would open and Hunt would get out first. Price would probably follow, throwing himself out of the passenger seat as fast as his legs would carry him. Then Gaz... What would Gaz be doing? Gaz would be talking into his mouth piece, giving instructions to the lads in the land rovers behind. There were more now. Eight in total. All flying towards us as fast as they could possibly manage.

And me? What would I be doing? I'd be helping Hunt to get Soap on the gurney. If he couldn't breathe properly there's a chance that Hunt would have done a needle aspiration and tubed him. He'd ask me to try and control the bleeding. My hands would be applying to the pressure to the wounds that the bullets had left in their wake.

Price would be shouting. He would be swarming around Hunt and me, frantic. The questions... oh God, the questions. Relentless, unanswerable questions. Hunt would be barking orders at me. Price would be barking questions at him. So much shouting. So much stress and confusion.

And I'd be looking at Soap's face. I'd be trying to save every single line and scar to memory.

With the car now stationary, I was surprised that I couldn't hear Price barking at Hunt already.

I stared at the rear doors.

What was taking so long?

Where was the urgency? Where was the action? Where was the shouting? Had time slowed down again?

The rest of the vehicles were now coming to a halt around the building and lads began to pile out onto the snow.

But the car in front of me remained still.

What was taking so long?

I loosened my grip on the gurney and closed the small gap that Gaz had left between me and the doors.

Everything was far too still. I knew what the calm before the storm felt like, and this wasn't it.

I reached towards the handles, my fingers shaking. Hunt was probably just stabilising Soap before he moved him. Sometimes speed wasn't the best course of action. If he'd managed to get control the bleeding he'd need to move slowly.

I shook my head.

That was bullshit. Speed was everything in this game.

"It's not Soap." I whispered to myself. "It's not Soap."

I inhaled sharply and pulled the door open in one fluid movement.

And suddenly, without warning, the world stopped moving.