Don't fear the reaper - Captain John Price

XXIV

The sun was a long way from rising above the horizon during the early hour of the morning. The building was quiet along with the outside world somewhere far away from the base. The alarms of the soldiers would go off in a couple of hours, as the whispers of the ones who didn't sleep were traveling along the corridors.

John placed a palm of his hand on the heavy desk as if remembering the office that he left a long time ago. The warm light on the other side of the room was lightening up the man's face in the darkness of the night. The nightmares came back to the captain, his own demons were playing with him again. Despite the recommended dose of the calming pills that the military doctor prescribed to him a couple of months ago, his biggest enemy came back – his own mind. When Price had nowhere to run from the walls of his room, he always had the work to escape to. A thin layer of dust covered the bookshelves. Documents were hiding in the drawers of the tables, while the books on warfare were watching every single person who entered the captain's office. The well-known sound of an incoming call echoed in the silence of the concrete walls before John saw a familiar on the other side of the screen.

"I need the clearance for the future missions for her as a part of the medical team," Price decided to leave the small talk for another time and came straight to the topic of the conversation. He knew well that Kate was calling regarding the email that the captain sent her a couple of minutes ago, attaching the single thing to the mail – Amelia's personal file.

"Has Officer Knight passed the training already John?" Kate's bangs of the dark hair were falling onto her face, as the blue eyes were watching the man on the other side of the screen. She wasn't planning on asking any questions about the woman, Laswell knew John would tell her anything she wanted to hear from the man.

"Not yet," Eyes of the captain looked out of the window just for a moment, trying to remember for a quick moment when was the last time he was sitting in the office just like that, and not running anywhere.

"Did the young woman charm you Price?" Laswell chuckled, feeling the pressure in the conversation. After years of knowing Price, Kate knew he would never ask her for anything he wasn't sure about.

"You know Kate that only a proper pint of beer can charm me," A soft smile appeared on the man's face, as the captain closed a thin folder that was sitting in front of the laptop.

"I'll see what we can do. After the training, not before," Kate opened the email, letting her eyes run along the few lines that were written in the personal file of the woman. The feeling of surprise took her over, as the few lines of the personal experience were fast to end, but her face remained ice-cold.

"Pretty sure you'll find the right way, Laswell," John crossed his fingers in a lock, hearing how the silence in the corridor was disturbed by a couple of soldiers walking past his office.

"The last time you've asked me to do that was when 141 formed," It seemed as if that conversation happened last week, and not a couple of years ago. The task force was doing the job, and Kate had nothing to complain about. Maybe, this time the captain was right about his team-mates once again.

"And did I make you regret this decision, Kate?" Gaze of the blue eyes raised at the screen, trying to understand where the conversation between them was coming to. Price knew that Knight's experience was poor, but sometimes skills speak louder than years of service.

"Not a for moment. But they were soldiers with a long history, not a young woman from the base in the middle of nowhere," Kate looked once again at the personal file of a brunette, letting her eyes run over it once again. Finally, Laswell decided to keep all the conclusions inside of her head and wait until the officer's tactical medical training was over.

"Do you remember the attack at that base in the middle of nowhere?" John crossed the arms on his chest, remembering the night that changed his opinion about the young officer at the quiet base.

"I do," Laswell moved a bit closer to the laptop screen, ready to listen to whatever the man was about to tell her. Throughout the years of successful work, a woman never questioned Price's decision, and neither did she that night.

"I've found her on the ground next to a soldier who was taking his last breaths, Kate,"  Price looked at the camera, the same way he would look into Kate's eyes if she was sitting in front of him. If there was a person the captain trusted his life and the life of his boys with, it was her. Even their secret relationship showed how selfless a woman was, putting the people who mattered above her own self. John wasn't 20 years old, his life taught him not only to hold the weapon tightly in his hands but to read people like a book as well. And Amelia was the wide open book in his hands. "This young woman wanted to run into the burning building to save as many people as she could, despite Konni's running around and the fire spreading over the base."

"I got you, Price. Don't make me regret this decision," Laswell was satisfied with the response of the captain. Loyalty is priceless in our large world, but especially on the battlefield.

The laptop turned dark, leaving the captain alone with his own reflection on the screen, and his thoughts ready to leave the cage and start eating him alive from the inside of his mind. The sun was far from waking up and giving the people its warmth, but life was going on even in the darkness. Finally, Price felt that was getting closer to Makarov than ever before.