Wait For Me || John "Soap" MacTavish x OC (Call Of Duty)

27. No filters between comrades

Johnny had vanished from the infirmary with the same brazen vehemence with which he'd burst in less than an hour before. He'd almost forgotten the black stethoscope around his massive neck.

Yael slipped it off with a gentleness rooted in warm fingertips that wouldn't exist if the sergeant wasn't by her side. She let the instrument linger between her still-damp fingers, allowing the warmth to seep softly under her skin, down to the bone.

She watched MacTavish stride down the narrow corridor, out to the exit, a fleeting military salute caught between his large fingers in the thick, reinforced glove. She felt a traitorous warmth creep up her cheeks at the memory of those same gloves on her skin, a rough, deep touch.

Again, a bittersweet and outrageously romantic feeling pricked at the back of her throat. Every time she saw him leave, that giant with the blue eyes took a piece of her heart with him, keeping it well hidden somewhere in his combat vest.

Yael found it hard to concentrate in the hours that followed. 

Minutes dragged on endlessly in the sterile, artificial air of the hangar. There was nothing in the environment, flooded by the cold light of the fluorescent lamps, that reminded her of the earthy scent of the wind that blew from the Urals. 

It was a strange wait, like a thin, stretched thread to which she felt suspended, torn between the urge to do something and the prayer that no one would need her. 

And yet, she missed the operating table, the rush of adrenaline that sharpened her vision and weighed down her hands, the intoxicating sensation of blood between her fingers, of life finding its way. 

She mentally retraced the last surgeries she had participated in, let herself be lulled by the ordered and methodical security of the instruments arranged on the trolley, of the halogen light on her. 

All to avoid thinking about the fact that Johnny was risking his life just a few miles away from her. 

She trusted him. Although she had never seen him operate in the field, she knew his brutal strength, the absolute precision of his every movement. She also knew that the rest of the Task Force had his back, at least as much as he had theirs. 

She was not excluded from their radio channel. She could have tuned in, if only she had wanted to, and, likewise, anyone from the 141 could have opened a direct channel with her. She wasn't ready yet. Not to hear what he was hearing. 

The doctor opened the laptop with a sharp gesture, a shiver swirling uncomfortably under her fingertips, and convinced herself to deal with the requests, pending for months, from the RAMC.

So engrossed was she in the infinite mass of medical documentation that she nearly jumped out of her seat when the voice, hoarse and deep, of the man she recognized as Captain Price exploded into her earpiece at probably a hundred decibels. 

She struggled to make out the words amid the cacophony of what must have been gunfire, scrambling the static. Yael's heart skipped a beat. 

"Bravo Six to Medic. I repeat, Bravo Six to Medic." He barked dryly in his slight Liverpool accent against the roaring tumult. 

She wanted to respond, but a breath caught in her throat. Without realizing it, she was scanning the erratic crackling between them, searching for a voice. A sign. 

"Williams, Laswell might need medical. Be ready." He continued, ignoring her silence, in such a peremptory tone that it sent a shiver down her spine. 

"Roger that. I'm on standby, Captain." The doctor finally replied, her nails digging mercilessly into the plastic casing of the radio on her vest, and a sigh escaping quietly from her constricted lungs.