Cpt. John "Soap" MacTavish
Task Force 141 – Disavowed
Medicins Sans Frontieres Branch, Qinghai Province, China.
It was pain that had put him to sleep, and it was pain that woke him up again. He did not know where he was, or where the others were, but when he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was a white ceiling, and the strong smell of chloroform. He was in a hospital, no doubt, but where… which one?
He struggled to get up, but found no strength. He grunted and hissed in pain, and soon, the door opened, and Anya came rushing in. "You're awake!" she exclaimed, and quickly went out again, calling for the doctor. There was no intercom in the room, only a ceiling fan. He could see the sun shining out the window, but what he saw outside was not a bustling city, or a dilapidated town, but a mix of the two in the mountains. He looked at the words posters on the wall, and discovered that he was somewhere in China… How the hell were Nikolai and the others able to bring him there?
Not five minutes later, several doctors started to enter the room: A few Caucasians, one Indian and one Chinese by the looks of them, fussing over him one way or another. He was silent, hearing what they said between them, and gathered that he had been out cold for a week, and that his recovery was nothing short of miraculous. When they exited, Price, Nikolai and Anya came in, each with relief written on their faces.
"We thought that you were a goner, Soap," Price told him, while Anya just said on the side of his bed and smiled. He looked up at her, and discovered that she had gotten thinner, her deep blue eyes now puffy underneath them. She had not been sleeping and eating well at all… "Anya here won't leave this room unless Nikolai threatened to carry her out. You've got her worried sick, son."
MacTavish knew that Price was worried for him too. His mentor was never… open about his own feelings to anyone, but by the way Anya was beaming at him, he knew that what Price said was true. "I'm sorry," he told all three of them, "I should have been more careful…"
"You should have been less reckless, you asshole," she chided, her brow knitted with displeasure, which quickly replaced the upwards curve of her lips with a frown.
"Don't be so hard on Soap, Anya," Nikolai interrupted. "You haven't smiled at all since we came here. You've gained more lines on your face in two weeks than in three years!"
They chorused with laughter, and while Nikolai and Price traded stories about how they had to force Anya to eat or sleep in those two weeks; MacTavish quietly took Anya's hand in his. It was the last thing that he remembered holding since he had gone out cold. He saw her cheeks quickly reddening from his gesture, but when she felt Price's eyes on them, she slipped her hand away.
"I'll leave you boys to talk," she offered, but Price told her to stay seated.
"We'll leave," he told her. "The two of you have much to talk about."
Nikolai snickered loudly, and MacTavish swatted him as hard as his injuries would allow him. "Enjoy what little time you have alone, you love birds you!" he teased them both, and when he saw Anya's face becoming redder and redder, he could not resist laughing more. No one had ever seen that side of Anya before. Not since that day they left Kandahar, stopping in Dharmsala, and right till they reached Qinghai… They were all sure that Makarov would certainly not have seen that part of her as well.
"Don't mind Nikolai," MacTavish told her, boldly moving his hand to her cheek. "He just likes to have some fun."
Anya chuckled, and placed her hand on his. "I know," she replied. Those were her last words before a great silence came between them. She looked into his eyes and sighed, grasping his wrist. "Your heart stopped beating when we reached here," she reminded him, although she knew that he had no memory about anything after waking up for those few seconds to ask who Yuri was. He saw the man briefly, nodded to him and passed out. That much, he remembered. "I thought that you'd leave us."
"I won't," he told her, his hand moving to the back of her neck, slowly pulling her closer to him. "I promised the boys that we'll continue our mission no matter what. I will see that promise fulfilled." With his thumb, he wiped off her tears, and added, "I promised them, that one day, I'll make you smile, not the one that you hide from us with…"
At those words, Anya took his hand away from her face and sat further away from him. "Captain… Please," she pleaded. She remembered her first days in the 141. In those days, she worked hard to prove herself to all the men around her, and gave everything that she had, but to no avail. They were all too preoccupied with their notions that a woman could not serve in active duty, but mission after mission, they started to realize her caliber. Then, during one mission in the heart of Siberia, Anya had saved MacTavish and Ghost by shooting down two Ultranationalist snipers that had been hidden in the evening shadows, visible only from her angle. It was after that mission when Anya was no longer called "Allen" or the "FNG", but was given the call-sign "Anya", because she could speak in fluent Russian and had a touch of Slavic blood in her veins from her maternal grandmother. It was those days that followed that brought her purpose and laughter. It was those days that followed that she and MacTavish started to exchange certain glances, when they thought no one was looking. It all ended when she took on the mission to spy on Makarov for the 141.
MacTavish knew that Anya still needed time. She had spent a year in Makarov's company, a year lived in fear and anger. He knew that Makarov would have her serve his basest desires, because she was accessible, and not hard to look at. The very thought of him touching her churned his stomach, but he knew that it must have pained her more, although she did not show it, or tried hard to hide it. "Maria," he called her by her real name, causing her to look into his ice-blue eyes so quickly that he thought that her head would snap. It was her name, but how could someone she knew so well uttering it sound so foreign to her ears? She looked at him, and he opened his mouth again. His lips, at first, sought to ask her why, but in the end, the sound that came out was, "What's wrong?"
"It's nothing," she lied, not even attempting to pull a straight face. When he pressed further, she apologized to him. "If it weren't for me, we'd still have the boys with us… You wouldn't even be here…"
Her voiced faltered, and MacTavish cupped her face in his hands, wincing when he reached too high for her. "It's not your fault, Maria," he told her, his voice strong and firm. He could not believe it that she still blamed herself, but then again, remembering how he had taken the ending of the Second Russian Civil War… he knew what she was feeling. "Believe me, lass,"
They were so close to one another at that moment when she stared at him, sapphire eyes blinking. She knew the meaning of his words, but her heart told her other things. His touch was warm, and she welcomed it, but it was all that she dared to welcome. "MacTavish…" she murmured his name, and turned away from him. "I can't go back to how things were. I really can't… Whenever I close my eyes, I see the men and women I killed at the airport. I see blood on the floor and on my hands…" In the depths of her mind, she could also recall another man's touch, but she knew that no one must know of them.
Of all the members of the 141, only Anya acted as an active spy. They have tortured many men, and many of them were tortured in return, but no one had ever gone through anything like what she had done. The lives of the innocent weighed far heavier than the lives of their enemies that they had taken on their souls. Still, MacTavish refused to back down. He would have her see reason that she was faultless and deeper still, that there was a possibility that… they have a chance. "I'll wait for you," he told her, offering nothing more but the soft touch of his fingers on her cheek. "Until you can put everything that will bring you down behind you… "
"Captain…" she called once more, tears filling her eyes again. "I'm not worth it. I'm no longer the Anya you knew…"
"No, you're not," he interrupted her, touching their foreheads together. "But deep down inside, she's still there, waiting to come back. I'll be there when she does, I promise you."
She knew that there was nothing she could do to stop him, once MacTavish seeks something, he would not stop until he finds it. She knew him well enough to know that. "Thank you," she whispered, outwardly touched and defeated by his words. If she was any other woman, she would have given him much more than that. He did not deserve her at all.
MacTavish smiled as well, and hugged her as tightly as he could. Soon, they heard a soft knock on the door, and as she removed herself from his arms, he planted a small kiss to her lips. "I'll see you tomorrow," he told her, it was not a general statement, but a promise, she nodded, and left.
Once out the door, a nurse came in to check on him, and to make sure that Anya did not return. He needed his rest.
"You should not have encouraged him," Yuri told Anya when she appeared outside the door of the common room of the MSF branch, where they were given places to sleep at night. Both Nikolai and Price were already sound asleep, but Yuri was still awake, smoking on a cigarette alone.
Anya raised an eyebrow. "Encourage him?" she asked, not understanding what he said, but knowing what he had done. "How long have you been watching us?"
"A few minutes," he answered. "The walls are thin here, and you know it."
Yes, the walls were thin. Anya barely forgot how easily they could hear the doctors and nurses rushing to wrestle him from being claimed by death although he was three rooms away. Some of them, had even lost hope that he could be saved. Still, Yuri had no right to say what he had said for many reasons that she could name. Chief among them, was that he barely knew them. "What makes you say that?" she asked him further, eyeing him suspiciously.
"You are always lying when you smile skews to the right."
At those words, Anya's eyes widened. Her hands quickly found his neck and she glared at him as she tightened her grip. "How did you know this?" she asked him. No one, not even the boys in the 141 knew this habit of hers; they did not know the meaning of her gesture. Only her parents, and not even… Her grip tightened even more when she realized from whence he came from. "You're one of his men!"
Yuri held both his hands up high, a gesture of surrender. "Was," he told her, slightly thankful that they weren't loud enough to stir Nikolai or Price. "He betrayed me by trying to kill me."
If anything, Makarov was a man who did not tolerate betrayal at all, because he valued loyalty above all else. Those who served him loyally were given opportunities of command and power, and thus, winning the hearts of many men like Alexei, chief among them. But then, the answer struck Anya like lightning. The commonness of his name made her blind to his identity, and soon realized who he truly was. She had never met him before, because she didn't have the chance to meet him. He was tasked to follow her, to spy on her for Makarov… "You were supposed to join us," she said, knowing that he would catch her meaning quickly. "But you never came, and we had to start without you…"
"I told the Government about the attack," he replied, gaining her train of thought as expected. "I could not let my friend sink further into madness."
Anya harrumphed. "Where were you when he terrorized Europe and blasted the Middle East into smithereens?" she asked him coldly.
He did not answer, and she did not press further. Everyone had their own choices made, she would not question them, but she knew that what she had just learned would have terrible effects on him. If Nikolai knew that Yuri hated Makarov more than herself, Price and MacTavish, Yuri must have told him quite a story. He was lucky that the Captains both trusted Nikolai with their lives.
"You can't tell the others about what I know," she surmised, before taking a deep breath and exhaling. "Did he know?" she asked again, curiosity taking the upper hand.
Yuri nodded. "He knew that you were a spy, but he couldn't be sure until you revealed yourself. Thankfully, you didn't, and so he put you into his plans."
"Shepherd did," she finished his sentence. "I always knew that he was onto me. He never let me out of his sight…" She should have known that Makarov had his men trailing her, day and night. But there was no wonder that the 141 could not progress one step above Makarov's plans… They were always behind him, no matter how hard their efforts.
Yuri could do nothing else but nod. "He's a very suspicious man," he concluded, but Anya pleaded him to speak no further on Makarov. "I'd understand that you want to put those days behind you…"
"I'll do it on my own," she told Yuri. "Once Makarov's touched your life you can't take him out of your head. The only thing that we can do now is to see him dead. Remember, not a word to Price or MacTavish. They'll kill the both of us if they know."