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Natalya stood in the compound kitchen, watching her tea steep and winding her still wet hair into a coil against the back of her head. She slipped three bobby pins into it to hold it there before moving to retrieve a spoon from a drawer. Her hair hadn't been so long in, probably, ten years. Until she'd been recruited, she'd worn it in a straight blond sheaf, all one length, always tucked behind her ears and falling to the small of her back. Then she'd cut it to her chin and kept it there, a sleek bob that worked as well under a helmet as at an important function.

Hair cuts. Those used to happen. She mused on the nature of how mundane her life on the island was compared to how mundane her life in Russia had been, at least in between assignments. In some ways, Russia actually won.

She turned from the drawer to lift her mug and slipped the spoon into the steaming water, metal scraping gently against the porcelain, and when the tip of the spoon hit the bottom of the mug she went blind.

Or she thought she had, for a moment. All she could see was white. She was lying in the snow on a hillside, among drifts and heavily-laden trees. There was a low concrete building half buried in the stuff in the small box canyon below her. Seven figures, barely discernible against the ground in their white snowsuits, white and grey encasements on their guns and flashbombs, moved toward it. For a moment, as her body acclimated with ready ease to the cold and the gear and her hands fitted themselves more comfortably, naturally, against the weight of the rifle that was butted up against her shoulder, that she was completely mad. And then Llyumzhinov stepped on a landmine. The white lit up even more brightly, although the spray of red and black char and the orange-hued smoke that billowed upward quickly tempered the brilliance.

This wasn't happening, this couldn't possibly happening. Two doors of the compound kicked open, and enemy combatants rushed out, the muzzles of their AKs already flashing. The forward four were dropping to their knees and returning fire. She put her eye to the scope, knowing she'd see two go down quickly, recognizing the faces of her first away team as she did. Zacharov, KIA, Demichev, KIA. Eight Spetsnaz versus a militia. There were worse odds.

It became problematic when one factored in the presence of the Special Air Services. Four mercenaries Natalya knew were going to poke their heads out any minute. Three Chechen insurgents came out of an upstairs doorway to lay down fire on her remaining teammates. She shot the first through the eye. She shot the second through his left cheekbone. She shot the third more cleanly through the forehead.

It was as easy as breathing, although breathing, at the moment, felt very, very hard.

As far as dreams went, this was one of the more horrifically vivid she could ever recall. Scanning the rest of her team to take inventory, it became immediately and immensely more so. Faces that should have belonged to two of her fellow Vympel did not. She was so startled she sat back, up into plain sight, before leaning down and refitting the rifle to her shoulder.

Yorick Brown pushed his goggles up onto his forehead, and her stomach lurched.

This absolutely could not be happening.

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She could count off the beats in her head as they happened- the landmine, the firefight. The noise died down and she tried to move herself to the ridge, to look down and see what had happened to Sam and to Yorick. She rolled over and pulled back to kneel. By the time she was edging toward the lookout spot, there were footsteps, crunching and fast, in the snow to her left. She threw herself back and whipped the dragunov around to fire into whoever was approaching and the motion managed to move the point of impact from what would have been her throat to her shoulder. She gritted her teeth threw herself forward, colliding with the body behind the one she'd just put down, all fight instinct.

A knife came out and she crushed the assailant's face with the butt of her rifle, worsened it with her elbow, and drove his knife into his own ribs. She went to the ridge and looked down, heedless of the blood pouring out of her shoulder.

Three standing Spetsnaz, over-whelmed, being taken inside. One of them was tall. Petrenko, Sam, Yorick. So regardless of her interference, three would always be taken.

Four if she joined them, but why do that? Her mind was suddenly spinning very fast, working past the adrenaline, panic and pain.

They could only suspect the team would have a sniper in their support. And they would only know if she confirmed it. If she didn't, it guaranteed more people to get through one she got inside the building. If she did, it gave away her position and put people on her tail.

Of course, wounded as she was, it would be difficult either way. She lifted her rifle and aimed, and couldn't keep it steady. Gasping with frustration, she dropped it and pulled out her side arm.

"Please let this work," she said, placed the barrel under her chin and, with every nerve ending screaming for her not to, forced the trigger down.

She was in almost the same place among drifts and heavily-laden trees. There was a low concrete building half buried in the stuff in the small box canyon below her, just as their should be. She got up and, crouched, started running along the ridge. She planted herself behind a tree, turned around it, and shot the treacherous spot of ground where the landmine was planted. Yards away, some of her teammates were knocked back, but at least none were dead. They scrambled, two not as quickly, to get back and out of direct lines of fire as insurgents began to appear on the roof. Natalya downed four before she was up and running again to a different place. She prayed silently that, knowing they'd be overwhelmed, Sam and Yorick wouldn't get themselves shot. She took up another position and killed three more men, and no one looked behind them. The exchange of fire masked the trajectory of her own- they didn't know where she was. Hopefully they didn't know she was anywhere. She started running again.

Creeping foolishly close to the building, crouching under iced over metal ladders and pieces of catwalk, she listened to the others being grouped and herded into the compound. Someone was struck with a rifle, but no more shots were fired. She held her breath and waited. When the sound of a heavy door being swung shut hit her ears, she looped her rifle over her back and pulled herself up onto the long-abandoned scaffolding attached to the building's side, and started climbing.

Yorick and Sam were alive in the building. If she took too long, that would cease to be the case. She pulled out her sidearm, checked the silencer, and proceeded along the roof top.

It took her a solid half an hour and seven corpses to get inside.

She spent a few moments crouched in a concrete room, listening for sounds of life and moving her ammunitions, flashbangs and knives around so they would be available in the order she needed them. She pushed her goggles up and started down the hall. It was slow going, picking her battles, stopping and starting as she went to avoid some people and quietly slip blades into the trachea of others. By the time she reached the hall with the holding cells, she could hear the quiet rattling gurgle of someone who had had their lungs kicked in.

She spun around the corner in a small, tight arc and place rounds in necks and faces of the four insurgent men- and one ex-SAS officer- and held her position until they collapsed. She strafed silently down the hall and ducked into the cell where the noises were coming from.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, looking over her comrade's vital signs as they failed.

When she slipped out of the cell a few moments later, the noises had stopped. She nodded to the other Russians as she passed them and moved toward the end of the hall, checking the fallen insurgents' pockets as she went. She rummaged over the body of the Australian for a moment, then lifted her head and pushed her weather hood back to look at Sam.

"Found you."

Things made more sense this time around, and yet without Natalya with them, even for a moment, they didn't. They had started over, the loop resumed, but how? Sam didn't remember anything past running. No, wait, his foot had gotten caught and then-- He must have been shot. Gunfire chattered around them and he did not have time to analyze it more thoroughly, but he must have. Why else would things restart? Or had Natalya done something that he hadn't seen? Or Yorick? It made less sense the more he thought about it, and he didn't have time to think about it, so he stopped. Whether Sam had died or not, staying alive now for as long as possible was what mattered.

Knowing Natalya was out there was the only thing that kept him hopeful and calm, but it also made him nearly mad with worry. The minutes ticked along, the threats of their captor following much the same line as before, and Sam fought to keep his face schooled, not to let on that he was waiting.

She would come.

It took longer than he wanted but not longer than he expected rationally. He didn't doubt for a second who was under that hood. His smile was crooked and inordinately pleased for Sam. "You did," he said. "Now let's get out of here."

She spared a moment to smile, however raggedly, back at Sam.

"Fucking shit for brains," she sighed, Russian rolling elegantly off her tongue, "no keys." She dug what looked like a cold war era PDA out of the dead Australian's pocket and started pulling it apart. After a few seconds she crouched over to the bars of Yorick's cell and handed him slender metal pieces of wiring and antennae.

"You are pick locks now," she told him, already moving back to check the ammo clips in the guns she'd lifted off the fallen insurgents, and pass two of them through the bars to Sam.

"We are leaving."

Yorick nodded, grasping the metal pieces eagerly and reaching around the door. Natalya slipped an automatic weapon off her shoulder and knelt beside the chair in the center of the hallway, keeping it aimed at the far end. Yorick shoved the door open and moved immediately to Sam's door, working feverishly at the lock. Natalya didn't move. The lock clicked and sprang and Yorick stood back, pulling it open. Natalya, still crouched, darted forward to the next cell, shoving a gun through the bars and staying in front of Yorick.

"We are protect Yorick," she told Sam, "get everyone out. They will be come, we will stop thems, then go to roof for pick up." An insurgent came around the corner, calling out a question, and stopped short. Natalya pulled up her sidearm and shot him in the throat from an uncanny distance, given that it was a pistol. He fell gurgling.

"Here they are come," she said, and looked over at Sam. She flashed him a small, tight smile.

"Let's do this."

Edited 2010-11-05 00:00 (UTC)

Familiarizing himself quickly with the weapon Natalya handed him, Sam nodded his acknowledgment of the plan. Who knew if this was the way out or not -- the way out completely from this fucked up dream -- but it would feel good to get a little bit of payback. He sidled his way in front of Yorick, who didn't seem to mind, and propped one shoulder against the doorway, ready for the onslaught.

Knowing something was wrong, they came cautious, warning shots down the corridor, testing them. Neither Sam nor Natalya flinched, her sharpshooter skills relieving one of the gunmen of his hand when he waited too long. His screams sent a kind of panicked urgency through the group, a flurry of bullets following that was then thinned out by Sam and Natalya taking out one, two, three of the group and moving forward. Natalya put the screamer out of his misery while Sam shot down an insurgent running down the hall to his aid.

They kept to the walls, leapfrogging each other and keeping watch, Yorick tagging along warily at the end. Rounding a corner, Sam moved a little too quickly and cursed through his teeth as he whipped back around to the chatter of rapid fire and a stinging bullet graze to his right shoulder. It bled worse than it was and he hesitated two seconds before peering the corner again, returning the favor and then some.

"They're camped in front of the exit," he groaned, leaning back against the wall and looking at Yorick and Natalya. He had known this wouldn't be easy, but he didn't want to die again before getting out.

Natalya cursed. She managed not to keep darting glances at Sam's shoulder or Yorick's general well being. She leaned her head out in a darting glance, pulling back fro the sporadic hail of gunfire sent her way.

"Sam, Yorick- be closing your eyes," she said, then pulled something small, roundish and black out of her pocket.

"Flashbang!" she called and chucked it down the hall. It landed, rolled, and then a horrible burst of light and noise filled the small space. She flung herself out into the hall, landing stretched flat on her side, and put rounds in every available extremity she could. She scrambled up, running hard down the hallway, loosing short bursts of rounds from the AK she'd picked up, hearing the others moving behind her, when a glock came down practically on her temple from an alcove between the stairwell and the doors that led out, and up.

She jerked her body back, out of the way, and instinctively threw an elbow. It was caught and she found herself connecting with a concrete wall a little harder than she would have strictly liked. She pulled her body down and tighter together, like a boxer, like Rodya had shown her for grueling weeks of hand to hand before he'd even let her touch a scope, just dodging what should have been a blow to the head. She shoved back against the ex-SAS, older and heavier but not as fast as she was, determined as hell and- she could tell- angry. Surprised. Angry to find himself surprised. He hit her across the face, a dizzying blow that she refused to let shake her, and she came back by kicking him in the chest hard enough to send him three feet away. She whipped her rifle off her shoulder in time to use it to parry the muzzle of his pistol, knocking the shot into the wall behind her instead of her stomach. She almost didn't see the knife coming.

She flipped the barrel of the rifle to scrape the knife's hilt and use it as leverage to keep the blade away from her throat, where it was trying to go. There were no clever one liners to be uttered- she couldn't even find it in her to make sound. She practically held her breath.

He was getting taller and her spine was being crushed harder into the wall, but she was also turning the rifle as he pushed her, sinking down and wedging his hand further toward her neck as she did. Counter intuitive- very- but when she kicked his instep to set him off balance and his own chin found itself a few inches from the business end of her dragunov, it payed off.

The shot was loud in her ears, and she had to squeeze her eyes shut and turn her head to avoid the muzzle flash, but after a moment the mercenary's body fell slowly away from her. When he hit the floor, the back of his head didn't crack on the concrete only because it was no longer there. She slid down, panting, streaking blood across her skin as she wiped it away from her eyes, thinking idly that with her hair so short and pale and all the sun she'd gotten from the island gone from her complexion, she had to resemble the blood spattered snow outside.

She looked over the hallway, the armed and poised Spetsnaz behind her, Yorick looking grim but ready in the back and Sam looking... she had difficulty parsing Sam's expression. But he was there. They all were, more or less. She pulled her rifle snug up to her shoulder and gestured with one hand before kicking out the door and almost stumbling out into the snow. The Spetsnaz followed, and she let them take point while she waited for Sam and Yorick to join her.

"We are secure building," she said, voice rough in her throat, "signal team what is waiting. There is, eh. Nuclear element, here, must needs be- is raw materials are need careful treating. For these specialist, we are wait."

"Sounds exciting," Yorick said, a bit lamely, but Natalya flashed him a smile. He managed one in return.

"Da," she said. "Is typical Russian vacations." She nodded toward the stairs then started up them. When they exited onto the roof, she took a knee and scanned it before getting back up and, finally, lowering her rifle. Another officer was bent over a radio. She let out a terse breath.

"If it's done, it should be done. What are we missing?"

Edited 2010-11-13 09:07 (UTC)

A nagging feeling remained in Sam's stomach even as he surged forward, following Natalya's lead and never hesitating. He felt disconnected from the bodies falling, as though the pull of his finger on the trigger, the sound of the gun firing were unrelated to a man falling to the ground. It wasn't until they were outside, on the roof, the air fucking cold but empty of gunfire, and they could finally relax just the slightest bit that he realized.

It had been a year since he had killed. Anything. And now he had blood on his hands from cracking some guy's skull against a brick wall.

He would have taken off his gloves, but that seemed like a bad idea given their setting. Instead Sam set his jaw and tried to ignore it, crouching down by Natalya. "Is this how it happened?" he asked, trying to figure out where they all stood in the island's little game. "I mean, now what?"

"Nyet," Natalya said, eyes on the line of the hills against the sky as Yorick found a metal ventilation box to sit heavily down on.

"When this is happen for me, we are tortured maybe ten hours. I was last. I could no handle pain and fear, and while did no break, neither could I..." Her lashes fluttered as her gaze dropped briefly, but she shook it off, shook herself in fact, until her hair had settled around her face again and she felt steady.

"I could do nothing, for my team. After five or so more hours, away team was come and rescue. This is who we are wait for now." She frowned.

"But no more can go... wrong, now. Site is being secure. We are... I am not know what we are wait for." She didn't sigh, but carefully put her rifle across her back then sat. She looked at Sam.

"Prostite, Sam. I am sorry for... make you do this."

He shook his head automatically and half-raised his hand, weakly waving off her apology. "We did what we had to," he said. "Not your fault."

And yet, by the same token, Sam wanted to apologize to her, somehow, for her having to relive this. It wouldn't do any good and he held his tongue, but it was still there. A desire to make things easier for her, okay even, because he cared too much to see her in pain. Even if they were both hiding it well.

"Maybe it's just trying to be complete?" he suggested. "So you can see everyone get safely rescued."

She closed her eyes and let out a slow breath.

"Mmn... perhaps is so. Does this make me terrible person, to say would feel like empty victory, at this point?" She ran a hand over her face, left it there for a moment, and made a point to wipe some of the drying blood spattered there away when she dropped it. She blinked rapidly a few times, and looked straight up at the winter sky.

"I did not mean-" She shook her head a little and flashed Sam a tight smile.

"I am tired, only."

Maybe to another set of ears it might have sounded a little callous, but Sam didn't even blink until Natalya apologized. He didn't really think of this whole travail as anything other than an exercise in a different kind of torture, more subtle and without purpose.

He nodded. "I understand. It'll be over soon anyway." They hoped.

Natalya nodded a little, then said more quietly, "Thank you, Sam."

There was a distant mechanical growl like a motor, and Yorick stood.

"Never a cavalry when you need one."

Natalya lifted her head and looked in the direction he was facing. She looked weary and relieved, and almost without thinking put her hand on Sam's shoulder as she stood, simultaneously using him as an aid and tugging him up.

"Fucking thank Christ," she mumbled. She noticed where her hand was and didn't start, but squeezed Sam's shoulder briefly so it came across as comradely as opposed to just a lingering touch.

She was amazed that after everything, she could still be aware, let alone self conscious, of such a gesture. She dropped her hand to adjust the hang of her rifle.

"Maybe this will be end, da? If not, at least there will be vodka." She started across the roof to where it was almost level with the hill and the snowmobiles bearing more V troops, her brothers in arms, were pulling to a halt.

Whether the touch was lingering or comradely, Sam didn't care. He needed it just then, even if it was small. He needed, right then, some little human reminder, to be a shoulder to lean on and someone to be helped. Even if he didn't need the help standing up.

"God, let there be vodka," Sam groaned, tilting his gaze upwards momentarily. Not that anyone was listening, but he could have used something hard right then. "I'd trade not going back for some vodka."

Natalya caught the tail end of Sam's plea and flashed him a quick, genuine grin over her shoulder. Spetsnaz operatives, maybe another ten, were stepping onto the roof, some starting to make their ways down into the building. They went immediately to their fellows, checking for injury and trauma. One of them puzzled over Yorick a little, but Natalya figured that was to be expected. He was a puzzling young man.

She was striding toward the men in the jackets, tailored subtly different, that were XOs, and when one of them broke from the group and rounded on her, walking with just as much purpose and a longer stride toward her, and all the breath left her lungs. She stopped and stared.

He was as tall as she remembered, and as broad. His eyes were as clear, and warmer than one would expect from a premier sniper of his skill and experience. He wasn't quite clean shaven and his hair was clipped and short in that Roman way that meant he was busy or on active duty and didn't have time for anything else. Economical. He was so handsome she thought her heart was going to drop into her stomach.

"God, look at you," he breathed, stopping in front of her. "Is it true? That you staged an infiltration to recover the rest of the team alone? That's- Natalya, this is tremendous. You're going to jump rank, I can't-" She could tell he was nervous because of the lines around the corner of his mouth. No one else in the world would know.

"Well, you won't be my protege much longer, that's for goddamn sure." Her jaw worked a little but she couldn't say anything. He wasn't her husband yet. She didn't know how to to talk to him. In a year, they'd be so much more than familiar, but now she was stuck.

He gripped her suddenly and pulled her into a rough, tight embrace, which was a breach of etiquette to say the least but one everyone there would overlook. She was his student, his only one for the past year, and so they would understand the closeness. She lifted her hands to hold onto the backs of his shoulders.

"You're okay," he murmured, and she realized it was to himself. He pulled back after a moment, gripping the back of her neck like a brother, grinning fiercely at her.

"You're okay." He looked awkward for a moment and her heart broke, because that was the moment she'd realized she wasn't hallucinating the unspoken edge to their relationship.

And a year later they were married. Jesus.

"Head up to transport," he said, giving her arm a powerful squeeze and looking into her eyes before letting go and starting past her. Natalya turned, his name on her lips, and found herself staring at the doorway of the kitchen in the compound on the island.

He was gone.

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