he dreamed of her again last night. the woman from the woods. wood-brown hair falling around a lab coat, too white to belong in the thick of krovograd's rot. but she wasn't wearing a lab coat in the woods, was she? that came later. or before. she carried a notebook. she always did. deep in the recesses of fort varlamov, where she had never set foot, but where he saw her anyway. watching. writing. in the woods, where he had stumbled and fallen, his body writhing against damp earth and dead leaves. she had knelt beside him then, hadn't she? or was that another trick of memory, warped and stitched back together wrong?
in his mother’s house, the warm sea air slipping through open windows. she had no place there. but she stood at the kitchen table, flipping through pages as though she had been invited. the air smelled of home. of strong coffee, of salt. and yet, beneath it, the sharp bite of antiseptic. his father’s blood stained the tiles, red atop a sun-warmed orange. it stained the bottom of her boots.
vasco told himself it was the aftereffects. his body wringing out whatever had been done to it. nothing permanent. he had told only captain riley and lieutenant kilic when he returned. a truncated version, surely, because he hadn't remembered entirely what happened himself. but he was checked out and cleared fairly quickly. they had to, they weren't sending anyone else into this hellhole. they needed him ready.
still, maybe he was a bit thankful they didn't ask about the dreams. about the fleeting movement in the edges of his vision. it wasn't like it was making him unusable. he could still work. still fight. it was muscle memory by now. as long as he could stay quiet, he could do it by rote. even if, sometimes, he thought he could hear a pen scratching against paper.
too many people, too many shifting shapes in the fire’s glow. the noise pressed in from all sides. he had never liked crowds. but blending in was safer than standing out, and for once, he had no rifle slung over his back, only a pistol tucked into the small of his spine. he knew the others in bravo squad were around, shifting clockwise so one person never patrolled one square too long. vasco wasn't sure how alpha squad were placed, but this was the best option for the recon team. to wear a mask of their own.
the rusty anvil was in his grid for the next hour, so he'd stopped in. old gregor liked to glare at outsiders, but if you bought something it usually simmered him down to a heated glance every once in a while. a pint in his hand. a bite of something in his stomach. he felt... good. solid. he let himself breathe.
until she walked in. familiar. wrong. out of place. right at home. her eyes swept the room, scanning. searching. then they landed on him. his heart, as solid as it had felt today, he felt it drop. almost heard it bang against the floor. fucking hell.
