Kastovia, 15th November 2023
Yael recognised the heavy thrum of the enormous transport helicopter's blades even from within the small, linoleum-tiled corridor. It vibrated against the hangar's tall windows in a dull, intermittent roar, shaking the air thick with the pungent scent of alcohol and disinfectant.
The doctor checked one last time that Sergeant Day's wound was secure, before gently but firmly disconnecting the saline drip from the cannula.
"Ready to go home, Sergeant?" she smiled distractedly, pushing a stray dark hair off her forehead with the palm of her hand.
"If you measured it, my heart would be racing a mile a minute," Day grunted with a nervous grin, though she couldn't miss the hint of bitter nostalgia lingering in the boy's emerald-green eyes.
She knew that feeling well, the gnawing sense of dissatisfaction, the desperate desire to remain tied to that deadly game, to not be sidelined.
Ever since she was a child, she'd seen that irrational fear of facing emptiness in her father's eyes, of reclaiming a place in the world, alongside someone, without knowing how to fill it.
"It'll be alright," Yael lied blatantly, because it wasn't her life anymore, and Day still had a chance to change things. To not let life run its course, leaving him behind.
"Just don't mess up my work," she continued, her slender finger pointing at the bandaged collarbone, with a lightness she didn't truly feel.
"Promise, Ma'am," the Sergeant croaked amusedly, his blond hair sinking back into the pillow with a rough sigh.
The hangar door swung open suddenly, and a gust of icy mountain air bounced impudently off the concrete walls, rising higher and higher until it reached the sheet metal roof. The low sun, already sinking behind the Ural Mountains, drew curious patterns on the faded outlines of figures on the threshold.
"Lieutenant Williams, we're here for the wounded," one of the two soldiers at the entrance barked dryly, their features unrecognisable beneath sunglasses and a dark helmet.
Yael nodded slightly, mechanically, but it wouldn't have been necessary. They didn't wait for her approval to enter with a deafening metallic screech as the airborne stretcher slid swiftly into the immaculate belly of the small corridor.
The doctor watched them maneuver their patients with a hawk's eye, their ungainly fingers gripping the sergeant's bulk to land him with a thud on the orange stretcher, helping the unsteady Corporal Sanderson on crutches to the exit.
She followed them to the runway, into the fine dust that still lingered on the concrete, merging with the reddish glow of the late afternoon sky streaked with thick, violet clouds.
She was surprised to see, not far from the now-quiet transport helicopter, the distressed profile of the entire 141th lined up in a clumsy and silent salute.
Instinctively, she smiled, passing the solid figures, swallowed up in their tactical gear. It seemed a strange, almost grotesque vision, and at the same time, so familiar that it brought back a curious pang of nostalgia.
"Goodbye, Sanderson. Don't rush things," she remarked, just before the corporal's chestnut hair disappeared into the empty metal belly of the aircraft.
She hadn't been able to suppress a note of sorrow in her deliberately neutral tone, and the boy must have picked up on it, because it seemed to bounce pleasantly off the contours of his sincere gratitude.
"Roger that, Lieutenant... Thank you," he muttered, embarrassed, his young face still pale, and those last words seemed to have escaped from folds too deep to be explained.
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Wait For Me || John "Soap" MacTavish x OC (Call Of Duty)
FanfictionYael Williams, an emergency surgeon at the Royal Infirmary Hospital in Manchester, is haunted by a painful past. Dedicated to her work, Yael is brilliant and tenacious. However, her traumatic past has made her introverted and distrustful. A chance e...
