Chapter Text
Your first patient of the day is one of Farah’s, a young man who comes in with a pout at being forced to enter the clinic. Farah is right behind him, shooting you an apologetic look.
“I apologise for coming in when you should be resting. He’ll be good for you,” she says, firmly, more to the kid than you. When the guy turns to look up at his commander with a whine, her look has him casting his gaze down to the floor instead.
“What happened?” you ask, putting on a new pair of gloves. Exhaustion is setting into your limbs, since the action only stopped yesterday, but you know better than to complain when doing your job.
“Grenade training,” Farah replies, and that’s all you really need to know.
You point to the makeshift medical bed in your small clinic for the boy to sit on, the child shuffling over like a son being scolded. Farah stands at the doorway, crossing her arms across her tac vest in that way you know scares people, but you can’t help but find it amusing that she’s directing it at a kid not much younger than she is.
“What’s your name?” you prompt, as you get a closer look at his bleeding arm. It’s not gushing out, nor does it look to be too big of a wound, but in an open field like the one Farah uses to train her soldiers, it would run the risk of becoming infected.
As you loop your foot around your trolley of medical stock to pull it closer, the kid mumbles a quiet reply. “Ehsan,” he mutters, “and it’s not that bad. Commander just overreacts.”
Farah shoots something in rapid Arabic that is a bit too fast for your rudimentary skills, but you catch the stray fight and death and decide that it’s irrelevant to you; she’s doing the soldier talk again.
Since you’ve met Farah just shy of six months ago, she’s become a staple in your life here at Urzikstan. Throughout all the time you’ve spent together, gradually morphing from doctor-patient to friends, you’ve come to realise that there are two modes Farah has: the family-orientated, kind-hearted, and somewhat youthful young woman she is versus the clean-cut, war-hardened commander of the Urzikstan Liberation Force.
From experience, you know you cannot win an argument with the commander. You have a better chance aruging with a wall.
Humming gently to yourself as Farah continues her tirade in Arabic, you cut at Ehsan’s sleeve, getting a better view. Gauze and saline ready, you quickly dab at the jagged laceration without antagonising the wound, feeling the stiff pieces of shrapnel embedded into his limb.
“You’re using live grenades?” you ask, interrupting Farah. “I thought all the fighting was over.”
She takes the interruption in stride. “He was trained in safety,” she elaborates, lips set in a frown, “and passed the earlier tests. He got nervous this time knowing it was live.”
“I didn’t get nervous,” Ehsan mutters, much too quiet for Farah to hear from across the room. You smartly don’t say about about it.
Then he says, louder, “The fighting doesn’t just end because the foreigners left.”
You think about the flight at eleven o’clock last night. It was an exit as swift as their entry, just four months ago. Then, as if sensing Farah’s pitying look, you clear your throat and push the memories of watching the plane disappear and the sky bleed orange for the sunrise.
“It’s not too bad,” you say, turning the attention back to the wound, “you’ll just need to keep it bandaged. Tight, if you’re going to still roll in the mud.” Leaning back, you eye Ehsan carefully, making him squim under your gaze. “Are you any good at dressing wounds?”
He tentatively shrugs with his good shoulder. “Not bad.”
Farah doesn’t correct him, meaning he’s telling the truth. “Then you don’t have to come see me daily,” you say, leaning over to your tray to get the dressing you need to properly patch up his wound now that you’ve cleaned it. “I want to see you tomorrow and the day after, but afterwards, three or fours days apart until I’m happy. You know to look for the signs of infection?”
“Redness, swelling, heat, and pain,” Ehsan parrots at you.
“Good.” You start taping down the edges of the gauze, not having a plaster big enough for the surface area. “I wouldn’t move it too much either—at most, you can man a stationary gun. No rifle-totting for a week at least, in case it opens back up.”
“Wait, doctor—”
“Thank you,” Farah cuts in, giving you a nod. “He will follow your orders down to the letter.”
“He better,” you say dryly, leaning back to admire your handiwork before unrolling a bandage, “or else he’ll undo all this hard work.”
The air around Farah descends further into a stern authority. “You heard the doctor, Ehsan. Health and safety always comes first. You will be able to fight soon after.”
Once the bandage is securely in place, you snip off the rest and tuck in the ends. “Don’t worry,” you reassure the young man who looks positively annoyed at the minor inconvenience, “it won’t impact you in the long-term. You could take the time to work on your cardio? Leg strength?”
“Alex will oversee your body conditioning,” Farah agrees.
You watch in mild amusement as Ehsan suddenly straightens his posture, losing his moping expression. “Well,” you say, patting him gently on the shoulder, “you’ll need some luck for that. You’re all good to go. Tell Alex I said hi.”
Farah nods. “Of course. Thank you, doctor.” She pauses, as if deliberating if she should continue, and you give her a look.
“If this is about 141, I swear, I’m fine—”
“I just wanted to let you know that we will try not to disturb you today,” Farah cuts in, but her eyes crinkle knowingly, “as you have worked hard in the past few months. We have become reliant on your impeccable care; you must take some rest for yourself.”
“Farah, I’m fine,” you reassure. “If there’s anything, please, you know my door’s open.”
Farah nods. “Of course. Ehsan, let’s—”
As if alive, the ground starts to rumble. It groans, at first, waking up slowly and languidly, and you just think it’s probably one of the reconstructions happening in the area. Since regaining a piece of Urzikstan land, Farah has delegated some of her forces to help nearby villages to rebuild—but you’re not quite sure where they’d get their hands on a jackhammer with the kind of power to rattle your building.
Farah is instantly alert. “We need to get outside.”
The ground rumbles even louder. Your light starts to flicker. “An earthquake?” you breathe, peeling your bloody gloves off. “Do you even get earthquakes around here?”
“Move!” Farah orders, and Ehsan is flying out the door in seconds. You lunge for the first-aid kit, grabbing a handful of gauze to shove inside.
Farah grabs at your arm, making you wince a little at her tense strength. “We don’t have time, doctor, please!”
“If anything collapses,” you say firmly, “I’ll be first on the scene. I need everything—Farah, grab the trolley!”
The walls are positively swaying down, shrieks of civilians outside at the sudden attack of nature. Farah hesitates for only a split-second before she is man-handling your trolley with the sharpest kick you’re ever seen, and it goes flying out the door and into the hallway. Then she directs her glare towards you, and you know better than to push twice.
Arms filled to the brim with first-aid equipment, you run out of your makeshift clinic with Farah in tow, your poor trolley being kicked left and right as Farah keeps her hands on her weapons. Her eyes are alert, ready for danger and any second, and you see her glance up towards the sky, as if expecting a plane to glide overheard.
Your heartbeat triples into overspeed at the thought of an airstrike. God. Missiles. Mortars.
The ground keeps roaring, competing with your knees as the most unreliable tool for standing upright. You see a nearby hut collapse in on itself, and a scream erupts from a woman who sprints towards it. “My child!” she screeches in Arabic, and you’re already running in her direction, yanking yourself out of Farah’s hold.
“Doctor!”
“Who’s inside?” you demand in shaky Arabic as you come to a skidding stop beside the woman.
Her tears are rimming her eyes, but her voice is clear as she states, “My daughter. She is only three—please, you must save her!”
“Don’t move,” Farah says, appearing beside you, “don’t go inside!”
You shoot her a look. “A child’s inside!”
“We can’t risk our only medical practitioner,” she grounds out, but you can tell this isn’t easy for her to say. “The earthquake is still ongoing, and we don’t know what else will collapse. Doctor, we need to find an open space for you to receive the injured.”
As if summoned at the mention, there is a pair of men relying on each over that is hobbling towards you, and another father holding his young daughter to his chest as he rushes for you. You spot ungodly amounts of blood on all of them.
“My daughter,” the woman sobs, clawing at your sleeve.
“I will get her myself,” Farah promises, just as a particularly strong shock smacks into all the buildings. You lose your footing, slipping and almost smashing your head on the ground of not for Farah’s quick reflexes, and you see a three-story building start to implode.
“Farah,” you yell over the noise, “Farah!”
She doesn’t hear you. She’s busy trying to gauge how bad the woman’s wounds are, because she also fell and wasn’t saved fast enough. She has blood dripping from her temple.
“Farah!” you shriek.
Her eyes dart to yours, and you roughly shove her in the direction of the collapse of the largest building in the area. “There must be people inside,” you hiss, “you need to get them out— ”
“Her head hurts,” Farah yells, gesturing to the woman beside you. “Sharp pain!”
“People inside!” you holler back at her, gesturing towards the collapse. “Let me deal with this! Where’s Alex?!”
Farah’s expression is grim as she looks over at the collapsed three-story. You see some vulnerability peek through her usually stony expression, but she reigns it in faster than you can think of something comforting to say and she’s pulling herself onto her feet. The rumbling of the earthquake is calming down now, but the noise only continues as buildings and trees start to topple.
“Farah,” you say loudly, “go. I’ve got this.”
Her eyes drift back to you only for a moment before they’re glued back onto where Alex supposedly is. “You need to set up a centre,” she tells you, before she’s running off.
Your head is still reeling from losing your balance, which you still haven’t regained, but you manage to scoot over to the woman who is blindly pulling away at debris. “My baby,” she chants in Arabic, voice breaking, “my baby —”
You yank at her arm, forcing her to face you. “Stay still,” you bark, and she’s stunned into cooperation at your sudden aggression. You examine her quickly, pulling out the penlight you have constantly tucked away into your waistband to give her a pupil dialation check.
There is almost no difference. You can’t be sure without anything more accurate than your own eyeball, so you move to check her flesh wound. “The pain,” you say, “how bad on a scale from one to ten?”
“My daughter,” she sobs.
“I will get to your daughter next,” you promise, “but you have to tell me how much pain you feel. This is the only way you can help your daughter.”
“She was studying,” the woman says, deliriously, “I told her to stay because she needed to study.”
You mutter a brief apology before you press your fingers into her scalp around the cut to feel for swelling, but the woman has little outwards reaction to your stimulus. She barely flinches, just frowning at you for not listening to her.
“Okay,” you say, dropping your hands to cup her face so she looks you directly in the eye. “I need to you to go over here. Do you see those two trees?”
“But my—”
“You need to go over there now,” you continue, steamrolling over her, “and you need to tie this to the highest branch you can reach. Then you need to sit there, and help me. Do you understand?”
A wail erupts from the centre of the road, and you see a toddler sitting in the middle of the dirt without an adult anywhere nearby. The cry breaks the woman out of her stupor, and her eyes blow wide at the sight of an unprotected infant.
“You need to help me help everyone,” you repeat. “Do you understand that?”
The woman nods, slowly. Then she shakes her head, vigorously, as if to rid herself of her earlier action. “My daughter is inside,” she says, much more composed but no less fanatic, “I will not leave her—”
“My brother,” a man moans, virtually stepping on your toes in his haste to get within your vicinity. “Please save him, my brother, he hit his head—”
You look up and you see an emergency. The man who holds up the emergency looks unscatched, but you fix him with a look that you know has people rooted to the spot when you do it properly. “Are you injured?”
“No,” the man answers, “I was working out in the field. My brother was working construction—please, doctor—”
“Help me move him to the trees,” you say, pointing to the spot. It’s easy to see from vantage points, and it’s near the centre of the village, making it an easy access point from all sides. “Then you must come back here, to help look for a child. A girl. Can you do that?”
“Anything, I can do anything,” the man breathes.
“This man will help find your daughter,” you say to to the mother, hand landing forcefully on her shoulder. “You will also help find your daughter, but after I’ve looked at your head. Do you understand? You must survive to help your daughter.”
This is the most Arabic you have used in months, and if you weren’t busy internally panicking about the urgent situation, you’d have been proud that you said so many words without stuttering and faltering to find words. You’re in a bizarre state of hyperawareness, and in the corner of your eye, you see the father holding his bleeding daughter already approaching.
“We need to move now,” you order, and the man with his brother is already hobbling away. The mother refuses to budge, and she gives you a look that holds nothing but steely determination.
“I am fine,” she says, succinctly, as if that can make her open wound magically go away.
You don’t have time for this. “If you feel any pain,” you say, uselessly, “or any nausea, you come to me, do you understand?”
She doesn’t reply, going back to rummage around in the rubble. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped right now, and so you bite back your words as you haul yourself to your feet.
The father and the daughter are almost beside you. You point at the trees. “We need to go over there!”
The father looks justifiably confused as to why you’d relocate, but before he can say anything, Ehsan is cutting across his pathway with your trolley in his good hand.
“Doctor!” Ehsan yells. “Where am I taking this?”
“The trees!” you holler back. “Tell everyone the doctor will be there!”
He nods with the sharpness of a soldier at your order, speeding across the dirt to deliver your materials. You follow quickly behind, head swivelling on your neck like some sort of dial going around and around without stopping, trying to take stock of how bad the situation is.
There are people crawling out from underneath rubble, others trying to help them escape. There are still quite a few buildings left standing, meaning it isn’t a worst case scenario, and you allow your shoulders to relax just a little bit.
Arriving at your makeshift emergency centre, you’re yelling at four different people who look relatively unharmed to help as extra hands. Ehsan quickly scales up the tree—how he does it with only one functioning arm you’ll never know—and ties your white coat to the highest branch, letting it billow in the wind as a flag. The non-injured brother is shrugging off his jacket and laying it on the ground as a makeshift tarp, quickly laying his brother down on top of it for you to get a look.
“Water,” you say, and that’s all you need to say before the brother is bolting off to find water from somewhere. The father hovers around you nervously as you do a preliminary assessment of the injured brother, impatiently watching you like a hawk as you go through all the steps of emergency first-aid.
The man is breathing, but he is unconscious and has some serious-looking open wounds. When he gives you a flinch when you administer a pain test, you nod to yourself before yanking a pair of gloves on.
“Come here,” you call at the girl, who groggily looks up at you from her father’s grasp.
Her father moves at lightning pace, almost shoving the poor kid into your arms before you give him a look that has him retreating awkwardly to an acceptable distance. The girl is awake, albiet with a slow response, and she is breathing. But her pupils have a massive dilation difference, and you’re immediate reaching for a neck brace.
“Do not move her,” you order, gently placing the brace around the girl’s neck. The father looks terribly anxious as you treat his daughter, expression morphing into acute stress when you turn away as soon as the brace is tight.
“But the blood—!”
“Give me one second,” you say, and you’re pouring saline into gauze with a hand that you force to be stable through sheer mental fortitude. Once it’s suitably soaked, you turn back to the girl and wipe down her face.
It comes away easily. No new blood comes out.
“Sit there,” you motion to the bottom of one of the two trees, “and tell me if you feel any discomfort, okay?”
The girl stares at you blankly, not registering your words. You turn your attention to the father instead. “If she wants to throw up, you tell me. If she starts to feel sick, you tell me. Understood?”
“Yes. Anything.”
You turn away, effectively dismissing them, looking to the bleeding man at your knees. You quickly examine his body with minimal movement of his limbs possible, heart sinking when you see the utter disaster of his crush injuries.
The heavy stone that settles in the bottom of your stomach is familiar, but it is no less terrifying that the first time you felt it.
You don’t know if you can save him.
Yanking your trolley back over, you rummage through it for anything remotely equipped for this situation. When there’s nothing useful, you dig through your first-aid pack instead, pulling out stacks of gauze and bottles of saline and random other dressings that you hauled out of your clinic.
You’re almost through your inventory when the truth settles with an awful, awful weight on your shoulders. You look down at the brother. He won’t make it. You can’t do anything other than to stem the bleeding and hope for the best.
You’re just finishing up the last of his bandages when he unmistakable roar of a heli echoes in the air. The thrum is at the perfect frequency which makes your hair stand up on end, your spine to shiver, and your hands to twitch. A shadow shields you from the sun as you glance up, stomach dropping when you see the military-grade plane stop to hover just above.
Dust is blown everywhere, and you hiss as you quickly throw your body over the still body of the brother to protect it as much as possible, before you hear the slinks and rips of soldiers dropping down from the sky.
You don’t have a gun on you. You can’t protect yourself, much less your patients, and so all you can do is hope.
The father that stands behind you protectively moves in front of his daughter just as the first soldier lands on the ground. The massive noise the chopper emits makes it impossible for you to hear anything other than your rapidly beating heart, but you force yourself to keep your hands steady as you bandage the last leg of the crushed brother.
You look up when you feel thuds in the dirt—footsteps, coming closer. It’s a soldier, and he’s already looking straight at you.
“Ghost,” you whisper.
He’s already beelining towards you, and you struggle to make the connection of this Ghost with the Ghost who had left not ten hours earlier in the middle of the night. His body language had been soft, hesitant, almost guilty last night, but now, it is nothing if not single-mindedly determined.
“Ghost,” you repeat, as he roughly stops before you, kicking up dust that dirties your shoes.
“Are you hurt?” he demands, slightly terrifying as he towers over you. His hand tightens around the handle of his assault rifle. “Is that blood yours?”
Looking down, you realise that you haven’t even notice the red staining your clothes. When you look back up, Ghost has somehow gotten on his knees in front of you, hands hovering over your shoulders with the clear urge to touch you.
“I need materials,” you say.
His fingers brush your collar as he meticulously eyes every part of your body. “Are you hurt?” he repeats, this time rougher, more frenzied.
“Ghost.” You reach up to hold his fingers. They’re not trembling, but they are tense. “I’m fine. Look, my clinic’s still up, can you go—”
“Soap’s on it,” he cuts in, barely letting you say a word outside of ‘fine’. Over his shoulder, you see the familiar build of the Scot dropping to the ground from the rope that hands from the heli, the man yanking on a hardhat before disappearing into your building. Ghost’s intense tone is what brings your attention back to him. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Your grip on his fingers tighten. As if making way for you to do so, his fingers loosen, turning into putty in your grasp. “I’m okay,” you promise.
He visibly deflates before you. He’s a big man, but the tension has him all puffed out and only now does his shoulders cave in. “That’s good,” he mutters, “that’s good.”
“Doctor!” a man yells, bursting onto the scene. “My wife—she’s pregnant, please—”
When you rise to meet the newcomer, Ghost is right behind you, almost flush with your back. “Come here,” you motion, and the man is vehemently pushing his wife towards you, and she tries her best to hobble towards you.
“Ghost—”
You don’t even need to say anything outside his name. He’s already moving, silently and gracefully like the trained soldier he is, gathering the woman in his massive arms to help her move faster. The husband stares up at Ghost as if seeing the man for the first time, and you’re reminded of the fact that Task Force 141 had left without making any sorts of introductions to the locals.
“Here,” Ghost says, gently placing the pregnant woman on the ground. Her husband instantly sheds his shirt, the only thing he wears, to act as a barrier against the dirt.
“Wear this,” you offer, giving him a hospital gown that came from your trolley. The man accepts it gratefully, before you turn your attention to the wife. One hand on her wrist and another near her face, you determine that outside of the symptoms of elevated stress, there’s nothing else outside of severe bruising that you can see.
You’re acutely aware of Ghost’s heavy gaze as you pull out your stethoscope from your trolley, but you brave it as you press the bell to the woman’s protruding stomach. He probably has somewhere he’s needed, but he doesn’t move an inch from behind you even as you reach past him for materials.
In a way, it’s comforting to know that he’s at your back. Watching your six, as the boys would say. Even though Farah’s made sure to make this place safe, you know exactly what high stress and intense pain can do to some people.
Still, it’s Ghost. You still don’t know where you stand with him.
“Doc!” Soap comes to a screeching stop, kicking up dust, something you barely manage to swat away before you need your hand back to press a few compression bandages to the pregnant woman’s limbs. “Lt.,” Soap adds, as an afterthought, and you’re pretty sure if you looked up, you’d see his signature cheeky grin.
“Give that shit here,” Ghost mutters, before he’s shifting from his position behind you to restock your trolley with what Soap has managed to salvage from the wreck that is your clinic. “Where’s the tents?”
“Gaz is bringin’ them,” Soap confirms.
“Tell him to hurry the fuck up,” Ghost grumbles.
His fingers are deft as he shoves more gauze into your first aid pack, somehow managing to maneouvre around you even as you move onto a new patient. It feels like that moment in the field when it had just been you, him, and an injured Price, back when you were still fighting for this land.
Soap watches the two of you silently, obediently passing Ghost more and more from the infinite pockets that he seems to have. You can’t read his expression as you’re checking for superficial wounds, but his voice has some sort of unreadable emotion in it when he says, “I’ll go help Price. He’s figuring out how to lift some concrete slabs. You’ll stay here, Lt.?”
“He’ll go with you,” you say, sternly.
“He,” Soap looks between the two of you carefully, “will?”
“Alex is coming to help,” you gesture, and indeed, Alex Keller is hobbling towards you with a reassuring smile. He’s leaning slightly over Farah’s shoulders, who is hissing something at him which runs off his back like water off a duck’s. He barely seems fazed at her tense scolding, and he gives you a one-armed shrug as if to say, this is just life .
Ghost zips up your refreshed kit, stepping away as soon as his job is complete. You look up at him over your shoulders as you dig around your trolley for some saline, hoping that your tone is friendly when you elaborate, “You need to put those muscles to use. All I really need is a helping hand—literally.”
When Ghost doesn’t answer, Soap just gives you a somewhat neutral smile and a shrug, before he’s jogging away to help at the rescue site. Ghost doesn’t budge.
“I’m serious,” you say, distantly feeling like you’re talking to a wall. “You could probably carry three people at once.”
“Doc,” Alex groans once he arrives, “can you tell Farah to shut up and stop worrying?”
“I am not being unreasonable,” the woman in question snarls, tossing him unceremoniously towards you. “Get yourself looked at. Ghost, come with me. There are more underneath.”
Giving Alex a simple once-over, you determine that there’s nothing life-threatening other than his prosthetic leg being bent out of shape. He’s a professional; if there was anything that worried him, he would say so. You nod to yourself. He’ll do fine as a pair of hands. “Alex, sit down and start organising. When I ask for something, you give it to me.”
“Aye,” he salutes, lowering himself to sit beside you. “You got any cots incoming?”
“Gaz is coming down with more supplies,” Ghost says, finally vocal, and he draws away from you. “He’ll be stocked with more sanitary equipment.”
He gives you one last look, one that you hold for only a moment before breaking his gaze to look at your patient. He hesitates from behind you, before you hear his heavy combat boots thudding away, no doubt following Farah who had bolted as soon as Alex had been passed over.
Alex raises an eyebrow at you as he settles with a sigh on the ground beside you. “I see he came to check up on you first.”
“Wipes,” you order, holding out a hand expectantly.
He rolls his eyes, but obeys without complaint. You can tell he’s burning to ask—everyone had, after you and Ghost had been inseparable after the acquisition of Shuruq, but he smartly remains professional.
You instead focus on work. Less time spent thinking about Ghost is more time you’ll be spending on patients.
At least, that’s what you tell yourself.
—
The story goes like this.
Yesterday, at sometime past four P.M., the last village had been secured, and live fire ceased. You had been tasked with keeping Farah’s soldiers alive as much as possible, and even a disgruntled Price who had obviously made his gunshot wound worse couldn’t stop you from overworking yourself.
By the time you had finished tending to the life-threatening wounds, it was ten P.M., and you were ready to shower and collapse onto a bed. Ghost was standing outside your clinic, having been waiting for you since eight P.M..
I leave in an hour, he had said, when you noticed his hulking figure.
You can’t exactly remember how you found out or how it was exactly phrased, but you remembered the feeling of hearing it from someone that wasn’t Ghost. It still throbs a little when you think about it.
I know, you had replied. I heard.
Ghost had, like always, been wearing his mask, and so you couldn’t exactly parse his expression. You think that was on purpose, because usually, you can read his mood even without seeing all his facial features.
Then you had spent the next hour nursing a cup of tea each, staring up at the sky when words failed to form in either of your mouths. You had honestly contemplated running away when Ghost had his back turned to make you your cuppa, but you were a coward. You couldn’t move, and so all you could do was wait patiently until Ghost pressed the tea into your hands.
It was the perfect temperature, and the aroma had smelled absolutely delicious. He always knew how to make it to your taste.
You’re staying, Ghost had said, breaking the silence forty minutes in.
Yes, you had replied. And you’re leaving.
Yeah.
Then he had gently brushed at your cheek, catching a tear that you had tried so damn hard to hold back. He didn’t pull away once the tear was gone; he had traced the outline of your cheekbone, out to your ear, circling around to trace your jaw, before landing at your chin.
He had stared at you and your mouth for a very long time. Then he pulled away, and sank into the shadows a little more.
You didn’t say anything more. He seemed to understand that what you were feeling for a soldier you had met not more than four months ago was very complex, and so he had waited. Until, of course, time was up, and there were three minutes until eleven P.M..
Then he had left. You’ve been reliving that moment for the past ten hours very vividly.
This time, a odd sense of deja vu filters through your body when you look up to see the sky is now dark, large bright lights have been installed in your makeshift tent, and Ghost is leaning against one of the posts as he waits for you to finish bandaging a leg. You resist the urge to check your watch to see if it’s ten P.M., instead patting the small girl reassuringly and letting her know to come to you if she feels hot or sick.
“Thank you, doctor,” she whispers.
Her eyes are downcast, and you notice that she doesn’t have any family with her, but you swallow down all your words and instead reply with, “Any time, child.”
You make Ghost wait even more as you peel your gloves off and head to the sanitising station, but he doesn’t make a noise as he watches you move across the tent. People are already falling asleep, exhausted from the stress of the day, and you take a moment to brush a stray hair out of the pregnant mother’s face as she and her husband snore away beside each other.
Then, once you’re ready to step out, you pointedly don’t look at the massive military man as you slip past him. You head towards where Price has set up a command centre, silently tucking your hands into your pockets. Ghost’s extra set of footsteps follow you.
You enter the commander’s tent, and Soap’s snores echo around you. Price and Farah are muttering amongst themselves whilst jabbing fingers at a map laid out in the centre, and Gaz sits in front of a screen looking on the way to sleep.
“Hey,” you say softly to him, leaning down to pick up a bottle of water from the stack underneath his seat, “you good?”
Gaz doesn’t startle, but he doesn’t blink a couple of times before his eyes focus on you. “Hey, doc,” he says, smiling gently, “I’m all good, yeah, yeah. Don’t worry. Don’t even need to be awake to do this job, anyhow.”
You glance at the computer in front of him. “Monitoring for something?”
“Aftershocks,” he confirms with a nod. “You should get some rest, doc. You look like you haven’t slept since the whole showdown yesterday.”
“I haven’t,” you say dryly. Then you take a sip of water before you say anything else stupid, even as you feel Ghost stiffen up from behind you.
Gaz glances over your shoulder up at his lieutenant. Then, slowly, he says, “I think,” he squints, “that it would be a good idea—idea?—for you to—uh—step out for a sec. Step out for a second?”
You give him a look. “Gaz.”
His squinting intensifies. “We—uh, you—should get some fresh air—what the?” He gives up trying to deciper what Ghost is trying to tell him from behind you. “Fresh air is a good idea, you know. Soap snores pretty loud. Normally. Typically. You get what I mean.”
Ghost sighs from behind you, before he turns around and leaves the tent. His footsteps are heavy, definitely deliberately so, making it clear when he stops to wait for you just outside the tent flap. That’s when you finally turn around, seeing his silhouette being cast from the outdoor lights onto the tent fabric.
Price and Farah have stopped talking. They’re watching you carefully.
“Look,” Gaz says, quietly, “it couldn’t hurt to speak to him?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?” you reply, raising an eyebrow.
“I dunno,” Gaz narrows his eyes up at you in a way that makes you think he should probably go see an optometrist, “the two of you seemed close after Shuruq. Everyone could’ve seen that. But after Milyun, it’s kind of been a shitshow. Now,” he adds, holding his hands up in mock surrender, “I’m not saying that whatever you’d mad about isn’t justified, because you’re definitely a cool-headed lady, doc. If anything, you’re probably the only one that I know that’s justified in about everything. But I know Ghost, and well, I haven’t seen him so mopey on the trip back before. You should talk through things if you’re mad.”
“It’s nothing,” you say. “I’m not mad.”
“Okay then,” Gaz amends easily, “you’re upset. Ghost’s upset too, if you can believe it.”
You don’t answer, instead taking another sip of water. Price takes the opportunity to stand up, walking over slowly, as if giving you the chance to run away if you wanted it. “We’re going to start the full-force rescue operation at dawn, when light starts coming in,” he says, in the firm way he always speaks. “You should get some rest beforehand; you’ll be busy. We’re going to save as many as we can.”
“Some rest,” you repeat.
Price’s lips twitch. “Some rest,” he agrees. “You’re off the clock as of now.”
“I’m never off the clock,” you correct. “But I appreciate the sentiment. When will relief staff be arriving?”
“We’re discussing options now,” Price nods, “but hopefully within twenty-four hours. I’ll keep you updated.”
“Okay.” You don’t know what else to say. You’ve never been particularly close with Price, instead liaisoning with Ghost whenever you needed to talk to 141. Now, though, you think he’s probably paid much more attention to you than you originally thought he did.
Price nods towards the exit. It’s a clear dismissal. You look over at Gaz, but the younger soldier just smiles back at you encouragingly as he makes himself more comfortable in his seat. Farah is avoiding eye contact as she mulls over maps on her table, which you’re pretty sure is useless because she knows the land like the back of her hand, but you can tell when you’re not needed.
“Just call for me if you need me,” you tell them all.
“We will,” Price ushers, “now go.”
When you step out of the tent, Ghost is there waiting. He’s like a shadow you can’t detach yourself from, a looming presence that is silent but constant. You try to ignore him, you really do, but once he’s trailed after you for at least an hour, you give up on trying to pretend he doesn’t exist.
“Okay, out with it.” You whirl on him, arms crossing. “I need to sleep.”
Ghost just shrugs. “I’m makin’ sure our only medical professional is safe.”
“Yeah well, who died and made you my bodyguard?” You try to make your unhappiness as obvious as possible. “Ghost, you don’t owe me anything. We’re not even friends—we’re like weird acquaintances that people make in dire situations. Close proximity and all.”
If anything, that seems to steel him even more. “I shouldn’t have left like that,” he says quietly.
“That’s the point, though,” you say, “you don’t need to explain it to me or anything. I’m nobody. Honestly. You’re a soldier who’s doing his job, and I’m a doctor who’s doing mine. We just happen to have similiar interests or something, and so we spent more time together than with the others. That’s not unusual.”
Ghost doesn’t answer right away. You continue. “I just need to get some rest. Price even told me to. It’s going to be a big day tomorrow. I need to be able to hold down the fort on my own until the relief team gets here.”
You pause to give him space to reply. It takes a moment, but he does speak, and this time it’s accompanied with a gentle touch of tour elbow. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he says, finally.
“Thank you,” you reply stiffly. “Then. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” he replies. It’s quiet, and a little soft. You turn on your heel, going back to your medical area, and make a beeline for an empty stretcher.
He doesn’t follow you this time.
—
Dawn comes quick, but the rescue mission comes even faster.
Price isn’t kidding when he says he’s going to try to save as many as he can, the first to don a hard hat and trudge into danger. It’s not the situation that any of you would like—they’re violating so many protocols that you’re pretty sure they can be sued or court martialed or whatever soldiers get served with, but saving lives is all that matters.
Ghost doesn’t follow you around anymore, or initiate any contact. Instead, it’s mainly Soap and Gaz who go in and come out with dust covering their faces and limp bodies strewn across their backs, offering you a tight smile whenever they come to drop a new patient off.
You try to get them to take breaks, but they only ever listen to their captain or lieutenant. You had to grab Price on the rare occasion he’s not under the rubble to tell him to get Gaz to take a break, and that’s the only time Gaz obediently sat under your supervision to take a power nap.
Dawn bleeds into noon, which bleeds into the afternoon. Much to your hypocrisy, you’ve been working non-stop without a break, but unlike the boys, there’s no one to take over from you. The twenty-four hours are almost up, and you’re losing hope.
“We’re trying,” Farah keeps telling you, “but we can’t get any connection out.”
This village is so small and so local that it isn’t on the big maps. You’re not even sure if the UN knows that this location even exists.
So when it’s time for a late lunch, all you can really do is wash off the blood and grime from under your fingertips and collapse against a tree somewhere and come to terms with reality. You’re probably going to be the only real practitioner for the foreseeable future. The thought isn’t filling you with confidence.
Lunch is supposed to be your solace, your little time to yourself, but for the first time since last night, Ghost approaches you. He must read the apprehension in your body language as he draws closer, but he doesn’t stop.
“Lunch break?” he asks.
“Yeah.” You look up at him from where you sit. He’s got dust all over him. “You need something?”
He’s silent for a moment, before he shakes his head. “Come find me after your break’s ended. There’s something I need to consult on.”
“Consult?” You frown. “For what?”
“Come find me after,” he repeats. Then he turns to leave.
This man is the mystery of all mysteries, the enigma of all enigmas. You don’t understand what made you so drawn to him in the first place; fine, he did save your life on multiple occasions and fine he did look kind of good doing it, but even after that, you enjoyed conversing with him.
You honestly thought you had something going. But then he had upped and left, without much notice, and you don’t even have the basis to be mad.
You weren’t anything. To call you friends could be considered overestimating your intimacy levels.
But still. He needs to ‘consult’ you on something. That sounds like business, and you know he’s been avoiding you all day. It must be some serious business, and so you shove the rest of your meal down your throat and swallow haphazardly as you hurry to catch up to his large back.
“Ghost!” He startles at the sound of his name. “Hold up!”
He stops, pivoting to look at you. He stares down at you, almost surprised when you skid to a stop beside him. “So,” you breathe, “what did you need consulting on?”
He exhales in a heavy way that you would call a sigh if it weren’t for the fact that it was muffled by his mask, and he gestures to where him and his team are currently conducting their rescue mission. It’s the massive three-story building that had imploded on itself, where Alex had been saved from. “We need to head over,” he says ambiguously.
“Okay,” you mutter, “but I can’t leave the tent unattended. I still have three people waiting.”
“Farah can take care of those,” Ghost replies, and when you turn around to look at your medical tent, Farah is already using first aid skills to tend to superficial wounds. You wonder when they spoke. “Follow me once you’ve got your pack.”
Grabbing your first aid kit is easy, and you toss it over your shoulders and strap it tight around your waist. Farah gives you a solemn nod when you pass her, reassuring you that she’ll be fine to look after the rest of your patients.
You only really left the non-urgent ones for after your lunch break, so it’s not impossible for Farah and Alex to work together to get things done. They have some serious teamwork going on, both on and off the battlefield.
Ghost is patiently waiting when you return. When you nod at him, he turns, heading for the building.
You gain a weird sense of deja vu when you trail after him, eerily reminded of the first time you met him. It had been a Doctors Without Borders mission gone wrong, stumbling into the middle of a political crisis. In the organisation’s defense, the village you were going to was strictly said to not be involved, but some illegal workings had the village under seige. Ghost was the one to pull you out of a collapsing hut, hissing, Stay close and follow.
You can still remember what it was like to be so terrified that you didn’t even know what you were doing. For your heart to thrum in your ears, fingers latched tightly onto the back of a stranger’s tactical vest, hoping to high heavens that you weren’t going to die.
This time though, you walk almost side by side with Ghost instead of behind him. And instead of fear, all you can feel is a cold anticipation start to build.
He’s not saying anything. Why isn’t he saying anything?
“Price,” he calls, poking his head into the small crevice that leads into the inside of the building. “I’m comin’ in with the doctor.”
“Copy that,” the captain’s voice floats from beneath.
“Wear this,” Ghost orders, handing you a hard hat. “Keep that on at all times. Step only where I step. It should be stable, we’ve made sure of it, but don’t go runnin’ off on you’re own.”
“Roger,” you reply, offering a smile.
His lips quirk. “I’ll go in first.”
With his massive build, it’s a wonder how he fits in the small entrance. You silently follow, keeping your eyes trained on your feet. You step exactly where his foot was, and make sure not to make any kinds of wild movements.
Ghost leads you downwards, helping you hop one gap. His hand was warm and solid in yours, but you had to force yourself to pull your hand away before things get weird. He doesn’t seem to notice how much you deflated when you had to let go of his hand.
A bright light erupts and completely blinds you for a moment when you turn a corner, and you yelp at the sudden intrusion. “Fuck—sorry,” Soap hisses, and the light shuts off, “this fuckin’ thing just doesn’t listen ta me sometimes. Sorry ‘bout that, doc.”
“All good,” you wave off, slowly peeling your eyes open again.
Soap peers from you to Ghost. “Not that I’m glad to see you, doc, but what’re you—” He must connect some dots, because his mouth forms an ‘o’ shape. “Righto. Carry on then.”
He nods with a smile at you before pushing past, going down deeper. Before you can ask him what’s going on, Ghost touches your shoulder.
“Look over here,” he says, motioning to the side. “This is Nasheem.”
It is a woman, impaled on some sort of metal reinforcement bar. It goes straight through her chest, dangerously close to where a lot of very important organs are, and you’re instantly checking her for signs of oxygen deficiency.
Her lips are pink, and she seems to be breathing fine, just with a little wheezing that’s more than likely to stem from a throat issue and not a lung issue. But she’s in intense pain, her whimpers only getting louder when she realises you’re fussing over her.
“Nasheem,” Ghost says, quietly. “This is the doctor. She’ll take a look at you.”
“Mama,” Nasheem whispers, in Arabic.
“No,” you reply in her language, “doctor. How much does it hurt? On a scale of one to ten?”
The woman sobs. “Twenty.”
You turn back to Ghost, standing. “You need to cut the bar. There’s no OR or anything, but Price says the relief team should be getting here by tonight, and they’ll probably bring the tools and facilities needed.”
“Doctor,” Nasheem wheezes, “doctor, it hurts. ”
“I know,” you say, gently brushing over her hand reassuringly, “and I’ll do my best to ease it. I have some medicine here, and I’ll inject it in you right now, okay? I just need you to be still.”
“Anything, anything,” Nasheem repeats, almost deliriously, “I’ll do anything. Stop the pain.”
Ghost watches silently as you pull out a needle and syringe, bending down to help you hold your pack upright as you dig inside for pain relief. “Thanks,” you mutter, finding the right canister, and quickly attaching it to the end of your needle.
“Stay still,” you warn Nasheem. The woman whines, but complies.
She relaxes as soon as the drug enters her system, either being very receptive after the lack of a few days’ worth of food or if it’s a powerful placebo, you’re glad her discomfort is eased. When you stand, you turn back to Ghost, tucking the used needle away in a biohazard package.
“As I was saying,” you continue, “we need to cut her out, ASAP. She won’t survive like this long.”
“Tell her that you’ll be back,” Ghost replies. “There’s one more place you need to see.”
Even if you don’t understand the man well, you know that he’s a professional above all else. So you relay what he says in Arabic, a little paraphrased, and a bit kinder. He doesn’t really care much, instead directing you towards where Soap had disappeared down to.
“Is it another person?” you ask.
“It’s another case, yes.” Ghost jerks his chin forwards. “You go first.”
This time, the gap is much smaller. You struggle to push through, but when you do, it’s to see Price and Soap waiting for you on the other end. Ghost stays behind, probably too big to fit, but he waits patiently back down the other end.
Price welcomes you with a wave of his arm. “Come over,” he says. “This is Asad.”
This is a boy who is crushed under the debris. He is reciting something to himself, over and over, and he offers you a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes as you approach.
“Hello,” he says in shaky English, “are you doctor?”
“That’s me,” you reply in Arabic. “Asad?”
“That’s me,” he echoes. “I’m a student. My mother said I might be able to leave one day.”
You nod to him, giving him a supportive squeeze on his shoulder. “I believe in you, Asad. I think you’re capable of leaving if you try hard enough.”
“That’s what she said,” Asad says, smiling. “But I doubt how hard I work is useful here. Doctor, I can’t feel my legs.”
You glance down at where his lower body is under a ton of concrete, reaching for your flashlight. Soap crouches down beside you to illuminate the space for you, silent as you take in the extent of the crush injuries.
Asad sniffles. “It’s not good, is it, doctor?”
“I’ve seen worse,” you promise. “You need to hold on, you hear me? I’ll give you something for the pain.”
“Don’t,” he says, suddenly, shaking his head as best as he can. “I can’t feel much, not as much pain as some other people might be feeling. You must not have an infinite amount of medicine, doctor. Save it for someone who might really need it.”
You think of Nasheem and her immense pain, and Asad and his clear attempt at being brave in face of adversity. These souls are so precious. You need to do everything you can to save them.
“It’s okay,” you reassure Asad, “I’ve got plenty. And trust me, even if you can’t feel anything now, you might feel it later, at full intensity. It’s better to be prepared.”
Asad eyes you carefully. “Okay then,” he relents, “you’re the professional.”
“That’s right,” you tease, gently feeling for his veins on the closest arm, “and you know you should always listen to the professionals.”
He finches when he feels the needle slip in, and you have to hold his arm down tight to make sure he doesn’t twitch. When the woozy look settle in his eyes, you stand, tucking away the rubbish back into your pack.
Soap stays with Asad, making himself comfortable on a concrete step nearby. Price waits for you to clear a solid amount of distance before he speaks quietly.
“How is he looking?”
You sigh. “I don’t know. Either it’s shock preventing him from registering the pain, a loss of nerves in his legs, or paralysis. I can’t know for sure until we move the concrete.”
Price sets his jaw. “And Nasheem?”
“I don’t think the metal bar’s hit anything crucial,” you report, “and that it’s probably the thing that’s keeping her alive. It’s staunching the blood flow, which is very important. If we cut her out now and a decent OR team and facility flies in, she has a chance.”
“Okay.” Price nods. “Thank you. You should head up; we can’t risk anything happening to you.”
You’re confused. Is there a particular reason why they got you in there? You want to turn around and ask him if there’s anything more you can do outside of administer pain medication, but he’s ushering you back in Ghost’s direction through the small tunnel upwards.
Ghost has to help haul you up the final step before you’re moving back the way you came. Nasheem has passed out, probably finally having a moment of respite in the midst of all that pain, and you feel your heart twinge in sympathy when you pass her.
It’s only when you’re on the top floor that Ghost stops moving, standing in front of you with an air of heaviness. You take the chance to ask.
“What’s the plan? How are we going to get them both out?”
Ghost looks straight into your eyes as he says, slowly, “You’re the resident medical professional.”
“Yeah,” you reply, somewhat confused at how carefully he enunciates his words. It’s almost as if he’s not trying to avoid your question, but rather that he’s trying to find the right way to answer it. “What about it?”
“You get the last say when it comes to patient wellbeing,” he says.
You frown. This is getting nowhere. “Are you going to keep on stating the obvious or get on with it?”
“You need to pick,” he says, finally. He motions to the way you had just come out of, towards all the debris. “There are two patients in there, but you can only choose one to live.”
“What?”
“The piece of concrete the metal bar is set in is directly connected to the piece of concrete crushing Asad,” Ghost explains, devoid of all emotion. “If we sever it from her end, it’ll end up releasing enough pressure and weight to fully crush Asad. If we lift from Asad’s end first, the metal bar will move from a loss of leverage.”
“And Nasheem will get her heart pierced,” you realise aloud.
Ghost nods sharply. “We’re done all the calculations we have. We can’t do both at the same time; we don’t have enough people and tools. But if we don’t act fast, one of them will die on scene. We need your medical opinion as to who has the highest chance of survival to figure out who to save.”
You recoil. “You want me to choose? ”
“You’ve done it before,” he states firmly.
“Nothing like this,” you reply, “ nothing like this. I can’t just—I can’t just pick who dies, Ghost. That’s now how being a doctor works.”
Ghost is silent for a moment, before he reaches out to touch your elbow once more. His touch is fleeting, almost non-existent, but it’s grounding.
“You need to tell us,” he says. “We can save one.”
You turn away, but your arm is still in his grasp. You’ve triaged patients before, you’ve chosen a patient with the most need for urgent care over a patient with less pressing symptoms before. Fucking hell, you’ve even chosen between two almost-dead patients from a car crash before, but nothing ever coems close to this.
This is not because it is impossible to do. This is because you don’t have all the resources you could have, and so now you’re forced to make an impossible choice.
Ghost says your name. It sends shivers down your spine.
“I need—” You clear your throat, turning back to face him. “I need some time,” you say, lamely. “I can’t make a decision like this lightly.”
“By sundown,” Ghost tells you. “We can’t wait any longer and risk an aftershock.”
“Okay,” you whisper, “sundown.”
His grip on your elbow only tightens. Sundown now feels like a doomsday countdown.