Chapter Text
“Alright, folks, keep moving. I know you’re exhausted and hungry and hurt, but we’re half-way there. You’re all doing great.”
Soap tries to hold up a steady stream of encouragement to the tired group of people they freed from their imprisonment. He doesn’t tell them that they don’t have much of a headstart, doesn’t tell them that he’s worried the hostiles will catch up with them before they are able to reach the exfil point, doesn’t tell them that he’s not even sure their transport will be large enough to hold all of them. No need to stress them more. They’ve been through so much already.
Intel had been shit. The briefing about the number of hostages the group has taken has actually been held over a week ago, so Soap might not remember correctly, but he’s pretty sure Laswell said the hostages were four male journalists. Not four families, four sets of parents and seven children, the smallest a four-year-old girl.
Nothing on their part of the mission had gone smoothly. When they tried to make entry, they found their entry point heavily fortified, guarded in addition to the high-class technology by a set of two very observant guards. Soap had managed to take them out silently, but they had needed more explosives to breach into the compound than expected. Inside this part of the compound, there were a lot more men than they were told, and though the two men from support did an excellent job, it needed a bit of creativity on Soap’s part and some badass shooting to get the upper hand and finally dispose of the guards. It was sheer luck that none of them managed to call for backup.
When they had finally cleared the building and breached the doors to the holding cells, they had looked in on the scared faces of 15 people instead of four. Lewis, one of the soldiers from support and a medic, had instantly started to triage them, finding minor scrapes and bruises, a few broken fingers and a broken arm, but mostly dehydration that affected the kids most. Nothing life-threatening. He was worried about one of the women who was heavily pregnant, but there wasn’t much they could do right there but pass around as much water as they brought and get them all out and to the extraction point as quickly as possible.
Soap had updated Laswell on their status, on the increased number of hostages and their health status, and had requested a bigger transport and medical assistant on landing. He could hear her discomfort about the faulty intel in her apology, and the promise that she would try to get them what he needed as fast as possible. All of it gave Soap a bad gut feeling but there was nothing to do but continue the mission. Together with Lewis and Michaels from support, he herded the terrified hostages out of the compound and far enough away into cover before pushing the button to detonate the prison complex.
The building collapsed beautifully despite the reduced explosives he had to work with, and he couldn’t keep the delighted and satisfied grin from his face, earning himself worried looks from the hostages and headshakes from Lewis and Michaels. He ignored them all in favor of getting their group to start moving towards exfil.
They have been on the move for half an hour by now, and he knows they have a tail, has heard and seen movement behind them. Not close enough for a gunfight, especially here in between the trees, but drawing closer constantly. Soap has sent Lewis and Michaels to the front of the group and holds his position at the rear to keep an eye on the approaching hostiles, to keep an eye on all of the hostages to not lose any of the kids, and to keep them moving and encouraging them to move faster. He knows what he’s asking of them, can see the exhaustion in their postures, the terror of what they’ve been through in the tear tracks that run down the cheeks of the kids. The pregnant woman is struggling the most and needs help from her husband. Soap has seen the father instructing his maybe fourteen-year-old son to take care of his little sister, and the boy has risen to the challenge. The pair of siblings has fallen to the back of the pack, right in front of him. The boy holds tight to the hand of his four-year-old sister, pulling her along, as he promises her heaps of ice cream and treats if she can just keep going a little farther. Wesley and Eva, Soap thinks their names are. He smiles at the siblings, while his mouth keeps shouting encouragements and his eyes keep scanning their surroundings.
It all happens in the blur of a moment. Out of the corner of the eye, he sees movement in the shadow of a tree, a hostile moving his arm in an all too familiar way, dropping dead with a bullethole between his eyes from Soap’s rifle the next instant, but it’s too late. The little ball of metal lands with a thud and a bounce a few feet to his right.
“Grenade!” The shout leaves his mouth as he’s already on the move. He scoops up the little girl, pressing her tightly to his front, and grabs her older brother on the arm, dragging him away as fast and as far away as he’s able.
He knows they are still too close when the little ball explodes, sending him and the boy flying, a wave of heat pushing them off their feet, searing the exposed back sides of his arms and his neck and showering them with shrapnel. He lands hard on his left side, the little girl curled up safely in his arms. Pain radiates from his left side and his back through his entire body, but there is no time to rest and catch his breath and hope someone else will take over. It’s his responsibility, so he pushes through the pain, compartmentalizing it away as he has learned to do. He releases Eva out of his tight grip, pushes himself up to his knees, and starts checking her for any obvious injuries. The little girl stares at him with wide eyes, her mouth hanging open without any sounds coming out. His first injury-check of her comes up empty, so he hands her off to Lewis who has appeared at his side for a more thorough check, while he turns to her brother.
The boy lies on his stomach, unmoving, his backside blackened from the fireblast, a few pieces of shrapnel sticking out of his back and side. A quick thought flits through Soap’s mind that his back probably doesn’t look much better but it’s gone before it can grow roots. Carefully, Soap reaches for the boy’s neck, checking for a pulse. It’s there but weak, and he knows they have to be quick to give the boy a chance to survive this. He takes a quick look around to check on the rest. Michaels has taken up position at their rear, while Lewis has handed off Eva to her parents. The mother looks dead on her feet, clutching the girl tightly to her side, silent tears running down her face. The father has to support the mom so she won’t collapse on the spot, but he also looks stupefied with horror. At least they look unharmed. Like the rest of the hostages.
Soap doesn’t have time to console them now. He has to get them to the extraction point. They’ve already lost too much time, and he expects the rest of their tail to appear any moment now.
“Lewis, update Laswell. Tell her we need a trauma team on standby on arrival. Tell her we need that exfil now.”
Lewis nods and Soap rises slowly from his kneeling position at the boy’s side, pulling the kid up with him carefully, positioning him in a fireman’s carry over his shoulder. “Let’s move, folks. The faster we are at our rendezvous point, the faster we’re out of here.”
As he takes the first step, the people around start moving too, the kids crying into their parents’ sides, smaller ones getting picked up and carried by their fathers. This time, no one needs encouragement from him. They all move a lot quicker now following Lewis’ lead, as the rush of adrenaline gives them extra strength to master the last leg of their exfil.
Even through the adrenaline, Soap can feel the aches and pains his body has been subjected to, and he knows as soon as the adrenaline fades, he’ll be in a world of hurt. It doesn’t matter now, though. The only thing that matters is them reaching that heli. He can’t let his mind worry what will happen if Laswell didn’t get a bigger transport for them. He can’t let his thoughts drift to the other part of the mission, wondering if the others have met equally heavy resistant than they have. He can’t allow himself to worry if they got the HVT this time, if they made it back unharmed, if they made it out at all. Because he needs to focus on the here and now.
It doesn’t take them long to reach the LZ, but to Soap it feels like a lifetime. Michaels still covers their rear, but Soap still expects the hostiles to show up any moment. That explosion was just too damn close. Even with the adrenaline rushing through his veins, every step lets pain flare up in his side. His back hurts, his arms burn and his shoulder throbs. He’s lucky he’s still alive. Alive and walking. Wesley weighs heavy on his back, the body still limp and unmoving. He will get that boy to that heli no matter what.
Relief washes through him when he sees the heli they sent for pickup. They’ll definitely all fit in there. Lewis has already started guiding people into the bird when Soap finally arrives at the side of the heli, slowly lowering Wesley onto the floor, hopping up and in right beside him. As soon as Michaels is in as well, the bird lifts off and veers towards the base.
Soap turns to the boy on the floor. It takes him a second to realize that something is wrong. Wesley’s chest isn’t moving anymore. The parts of his skin that aren’t blackened from burns is pale, almost grey, the eyes are closed but the mouth hangs open, the lips a tinge of purple, unmoving and still. Soap’s shaky fingers find the pulse point on the neck, but there is nothing to feel. Just cold dry skin.
He shakes his head in negation. The boy can’t be dead. He’s been talking to his sister just a few minutes ago. Telling her how much ice cream he will buy her because she’s doing so great.
Soap turns the boy fully onto his back and starts chest compressions. He won’t let this sweet boy, this fantastic older brother, just die. Not on his watch. He doesn’t hear Lewis talking to him, throws Michaels’ arm off when he tries to pull him away. If he keeps the heart pumping, if he keeps the blood flowing until they reach the base, the trauma team might be able to get him back. Far off, over the thumping of the rotor blades, he can hear screaming. He thinks it’s a woman, the mother, but he can’t be sure, can’t stop to check. At some point, Lewis has given up trying to make Soap stop and assists him, shoving down a laryngeal tube and bagging the boy with an ambu bag, holding that too young lax face gently in his hands.
A soft shiver and a thud tell Soap that they finally landed at the base. Suddenly, the boy is gone from his grasp, and he can see the medical team rushing him towards the base hospital, Lewis at their side, probably filling them in on everything that happened to the kid.
Soap takes a deep breath, his surroundings coming into focus sharply, and he’s presented with scared faces. Michaels look at him for instructions, so he clears his throat and starts giving out orders.