Certain things leave a mark on the soul.

Some events are so profound, they slash in deep jagged wounds, pulling at the flesh and ripping through tendons with such ease one would think the soul was made of nothing more than a pad of soft butter forgotten beside the stove.

Birth, heart aches, love, death. All of these leave their marks. Some bigger than others, but nothing leaves a mark quite as deep as watching the one you love, die.

ACT I

He was energy. He was warmth, cloaked in the color green that suited him so much better than the crisp white of your own uniform. The white that never stayed white in this dusty tent. The makeshift medical bay in the middle of a field, far enough away from the vicious combat to keep the bits of shrapnel and fire from the grenades and exploding bombs from piercing the canvas walls, but close enough to the action to see the steady stream of wounded men pouring in through the parted tent flaps.

He was mischief and brevity as he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against an empty medical cot, eyes flipping around the tent quickly before he moved to slip his fingers slowly and carefully into the front pocket of your skirt, removing a handful of morphine capsules and pocketing them with a wink of his eye when you gave him the best school teacher disapproving expression you could manage.

“Thanks, beautiful,” he leaned hard into the wink to sell it and you held a hand out, palm up, expecting him to at least pretend that he might return your medical supplies.

“What if I get into trouble?” you pouted and he looked down at your open hand with his lips curled at the edges just enough to let you know that you wouldn't see a single vial of that medicine back.

“Then my men will appreciate your sacrifice when they’re bleeding out in the mud.” His pretty eyes held you hostage. The sounds of explosions surrounding you was a constant and neither of you flinched when a particularly loud explosion shook the walls of the tent, despite being a bit closer to the medical tent than they usually landed. His eyes merely blinked once and took on a far away focus that seemed to give you permission to look over his face.

Manliness and dirt. Oil and grime and the smell of gunpowder mixed with some other kind of smoke mingled around his entire being, yet his face remained untouched. The small scab from an old superficial wound marred his temple and his black hair laid just beside. He was beautiful. His face belonged at the front of a fashion runway, not at the front line of this ed up war, yet he brushed off the names the other men called him behind his back easily. Their words rolled off his back like water over well oiled feathers. The only indication that he had even heard them was the occasional narrowing of his striking eyes that preceded some order he shouted out to a subordinate, the easy authority evident in his voice held almost as much power as those eyes did. Almost as much power as the bombs that kept shaking the walls of this tent.

Whenever he stared at you, you found yourself breaking some of your own rules. Rules that were kept in place to protect you from getting too close with any of them. Rules that reminded you that you were surrounded by enough death to choke on and you knew better than to wonder about him. Rules that you felt slap you across the back of your hand hard like the ruler of a strict nun every time you stared for too long at his lips. Every time you felt the pull inside your chest when you would catch him watching you from across the mess room with an unreadable expression on his face and that same far away look you often saw when he wasn't eating the food on his plate, or listening to the words coming from the soldier who sat across the table from him.

You knew better than to glance down at his left hand and catch the tiny flash of gold that adorned his ring finger and then scoff at the tinge of disappointment that filled your gut each time you saw it.

Of course he had a girl back home. With a face like that, the man would have been snatched up long before he was drafted. As your mind drifted along that vein you couldn't help the images of the happy reunion. Him stepping off the plain into the open arms of the most beautiful woman in town, the kind of beauty he deserved. The kind you'd never even scrape at. Elegant and perfect enough to deserve to look into that face every morning over breakfast. When the daydreams began to include little miniature versions of himself dancing happily around the couple as they embraced to flashing cameras and triumphant fanfare you cleared your throat and smacked the palm of your hand noisily against your head, annoyed at yourself for taking things so far.

There was a burst of chaos through the door. Something that happened so often you no longer felt that surge of panic as the bodies were dragged, carried and reeled in through the doorway. Bloodied and screaming men arrived, many with life altering injuries, some with that vacant shell shocked look on their faces as their minds tried to protect them from the trauma they had just endured.

“Soldier, report.” He spoke up from beside you, addressing a soldier who carried a limp man who had long lost consciousness from blood loss.

“Commander, there was a surprise attack, two clicks from here. The enemy has broken through the stronghold from last night, forcing us back again.” The soldier's voice was worn and rusty and you tried to concentrate on stopping the bleeding in the man in front of you. The bleeding that was moving fast enough that told you no matter how quickly you moved, the damage had already been too significant.

The unconscious man on your table was the wrong color and the only reason the blood loss slowed was because there simply wasn't enough left to flow.

You'd seen it enough to know that you simply couldn't stand to waste the extra blood on someone who didn't stand a chance and the commander’s eyes followed your hands as you laid a flat palm over the dead man’s forehead, you uttered a quick prayer and removed the dog tags from around his neck. They clattered against the dozens of others occupying the small metal bucket that sat at the feet of your medical station.

“Morgue!” You shouted and two medics retrieved the casualty.

The commander was busy with the map and crackling radio that sounded out on the table top. He rarely let the stress show on his face and sometimes you'd wondered if he ever let any emotion show on his face at all, but the more you worked around him, watching his face too closely if you were being honest, the more you began to see his well hidden tells.

Most of his emotion was hidden behind those eyes. The same eyes you were certain watched your face a little too closely at times to catch your weaknesses as well. As much as you didn't want to admit to yourself, those eyes were gaining ground in becoming your greatest weakness. It was a good thing you could hide your emotions so well. The man would remain oblivious, complete his duty and return home to the wife that waited for him.

A soldier with a gaping wound in his thigh appeared on your bench and you got to work sterilizing and suturing the wound. He winced hard when the needle pulled bits of his skin together and you felt in your pocket for your morphine before recalling the commanders wandering fingers moments before the bombs.

“We’re moving. We pack up tonight. Let's put some distance between us and those ing bombs before this whole base gets wiped off the map.”

Soldiers gave their salutes and your eyes widened at the thought of having to pack up and move everything. Sure it was all designed to be portable but you'd been running on maybe two hours of sleep in the past three days since the onslaught began and your limbs were beginning to grow heavy and sluggish no matter how much tepid instant coffee you choked down.

An order was an order and although you weren't a soldier you felt the pull against your gut to fall in line. The other nurses did the same as they hastily began packing up supplies, rolling up cots, packing the bleeding wounds tight with rolled gauze, enough to hold for the move and as you worked with them you felt it again.

That nagging pull to him that felt like a warm blanket of sunshine coating your skin. A clean warmth, much different that the sticky humid sweat that coated your skin here, the warmth you felt at your back was as tempting as a hot shower with steam pouring out. With the smell of shampoo and soap and the splashing of water as your lover waits for you to join.

Surely you were imagining this. When you turned you were sure you wouldn't find a single thing of interest. Everyone was working hard, you had to have been imagining this.

The nagging was too strong and you gave in. When you turned turned your eyes found his instantly, as if pulled by a magnet you found those eyes and he had you again, trapped in his net.

It only lasted for a second, but the warmth spread from your back around to your neck and chest and crept its spindly fingers up your cheeks. He looked away quickly. Busying himself with whatever he had been pretending to do as he watched you instead and you stared at the shape of his back for longer than you should have. Watching the way the muscles moved just below the fabric of his army fatigues. Wondering just how his skin would look below. You knew he was firm. You'd brushed up against him enough times to feel the heat his body generated and the solid way his body moved against your arm, against your back, against your...

“Careful there,” Maria, one of the other nurses and the closest friend you had here whispered over your shoulder and you jolted to life. Shaking your head to rid yourself of the commander. You your lips and shrugged into a small smile.

“No harm in looking. Besides it's just war stuff anyway.” You defended against the knowing look she shot you and you did your best to ignore the short scoff.

“Not when he looks at you just as much,” she said, leaning in to you for privacy. It seemed unnecessary given the amount of noise going on around you.

“And is wearing a ring,” she said under her breath shaking her head and you screwed your lips shut tightly, with no retort that could justify this.

Even as you said it, you could feel the lie in your own words as the harm coursed through your veins and brought with it the guilt for even giving any voice to the temptation.

That's what he was. He was a temptation. So what if it was war and times like this had different rules that were regularly regarded as ‘wartime rules’ where mistakes were plenty and comfort was shared as freely as were reports of goings on back home or the weather forecast for the week. The truth was he wasn't yours, could never be yours, probably didn't even really like you that much, and when this war was over he wouldn’t spare you a second thought as he rushed into the waiting arms of his wife back at home.

So what if sometimes he wasn't even wearing the ring around his finger and you wondered if perhaps he took it off on purpose so you would see him without it. How pathetic were the waters your thoughts liked to drift in.

So what if sometimes he stood to close to you and looked too closely over your shoulder as you worked on his injured troops and when he moved just right you could actually smell the him even through the mask. A smell nearly intoxicating if you really got down to it. Like grass, gun oil, faintly like diesel exhaust with a sweet undertone that you couldn't place and what you could only describe as the musk of a real man. A man who liked guns you figured. There were some rumors of his accuracy with a pistol that you were sure were a bit too tall to be real, yet spoken amongst the newly arrived recruits as if they were gospel.

Wartime rules were a cop out, designed to absolve sinners of blame. Those rules surely didn't apply to him and they sure as hell didn't apply to you. You could easily resist the temptation.

Probably.

At least he seemed content with watching you from afar and so far had kept any actual touching to a minimum. You were thankful for that because then one time you actually felt the brush of his fingers along your cheekbone, slowly tickling their way up toward your ear to tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear during a procedure, you felt so shocked and affected by just how warm his fingers were that you dropped the needle you had been holding right into the gaping wound of the soldier you had been suturing. Of course it was on a string and easily fished out, but your face burned with embarrassment for at least a half hour after you closed up the final stitch.

Supplies and equipment were all packed up. Even the walls of the tent were rolled tight and loaded onto flat vibrating trucks that spewed their exhaust into your nose and made you cough and sneeze . The whole camp was moved.

Even in the bustle movement there was direction and a strange sort of order as soldiers played their part under the watchful eye of the commander and the other higher ups. Soon your feet stood on dirt and you watched the other medical personnel climb into jeeps and trucks as the sound of gunfire and explosions muted the sounds of the engines moving through the forest.

The new camp, you overheard, would be several kilometers to the north and you welcomed the brief respite you knew would greet you with the move. Once there was some distance from those bombs, perhaps you would even get to sleep in a flat cot before the exhaustion caught up with you and you dropped out of necessity, closing your eyes in a heap at the corner of the medical tent as men wailed in pain or bled out mere feet from you.

You could feel the fatigue bumbling through your veins, catching up to you where you stood with your boots squarely planted over the bare dirt where the medical tent once sat. Looking across the bare field you saw where the makeshift camp was where your cot had been. Where you laid your head and drifted off, how many hours ago had it been? You felt the world swaying the longer you stood in your spot and someone ran a warm hand over the small of your back, leaning a shoulder against yours.

Your eyes were closed but your mind was awake and you swear you could smell him. That damn musk that had to be bottled one day so you could take it with you and spray it on your wrist and have it at will.

“When was the last time you slept?” Were you imagining his voice in your ear or…

When you jolted to life you could feel the blood rushing to your face as your cheeks heated up. Had you drifted off? Standing here in this empty field? When you jumped you felt the hand against your back tighten and wrap around your waist.

You turned to face the voice and met the striking eyes of the commander, watching you with what you could only describe as concern. It looked like concern but he was too close to you and your mind wasn't at it’s sharpest right now. You looked at his face, letting your eyes drift down to his lips that were moving and he held you at the waist with a strong arm, smelling like he did. How could someone be this tempting?

The field around you was quiet. The distant sound of gunfire sounded further away now, perhaps the troops had drawn the action in the opposite direction to give everyone a chance to leave. The sound of the trucks that left already a low hum in the background and you looked around at the well packed dirt looking for any sign of another human being.

They had all left.

“--don’t sleep when you have the chance you could make a mistake. Like standing in a deserted field all alone while the entire army moves camp. Do you want me to draw a target right on your back? Would that make you feel more comfortable?” He was nagging you and your eyes watched the way his lips pulled as he spoke. The way he tilted his head to emphasize the words he thought were the most important parts of his lecture and the way he spoke softer to you than to his men. The calm sort of sweetness you could feel just below the surface of his words. Sweetness that you were probably imagining. Hell you were probably dreaming right now and he wasn't steering you into the passenger seat of his jeep as you watched him lean in close, touching your waist to buckle the seat belt over your lap.

He was moving slowly, clearly not sensing any immediate danger you didn't feel a sense of urgency in his actions at all. Hestruggled to line up the buckle and press it into the space between your seat and the center console. He was so close you could see the individual hairs on his eyelashes as he squeezed his eyes in frustration when the buckle didn't fasten.

His eyebrows furrowed and he pulled it out again, leaning down to look closer he moved his other hand to hold the female end of the buckle, he pushed again and you heard a click before he sighed and relaxed his expression some.

“Sorry this one is--” he was speaking in front of you, too close and too handsome and you couldn't help it. You weren't quite in your right mind right now but he was here close enough for you to touch.

“--broken.” The small puff of air he expelled through his lips cut his words in half like a sword and the warmth of his face felt soft and inviting below your fingertips. He had a bit of dust along his jaw line and you brushed it away as you moved your fingers along his face.

His eyes were on you, moving over your face wide and alert but he didn't leave. He didn't reach up to grab angrily at your hand, pulling it down and shooting you an admonishing look for the liberties you had taken with his skin and his dust. Instead you felt that breath along your face. Warmth and musk and the inhale he took sounded unsteady and he closed his eyes.

The commander, the most self assured, confident, bravado filled, gun slinging, sharp shooting, downright scary at times when you got on his bad side commander...that commander, your-- commander.

Your commander… just inhaled the shakiest breath you had ever heard from another human being and he wasn't leaving. He wasn't storming away from you, straightening his posture and pulling himself in a huff around the jeep, into the driver's seat to drive your misbehaving to the new camp site so you could get some sleep and stop making mistakes. His eyes were closed through it and your mind sharpened to what you were doing.

Just in time for his eyes to open and you found yourself completely trapped with your hand on his face, your thumb brushing down near his lips and his eyes staring into your eyes with a sharp focus that made the skin on the back of your neck prickle.

Why wasn't he stopping you? Maybe he was caught off his guard. Maybe he felt this incredible force that was pushing you into him.

Something in his the way his eyes held yours felt too familiar to discount. Something in the quiet way he breathed in and out, close enough to feel the warmth against your skin felt like a ghost. A phantom that haunted you in a dream maybe. Was this just deja vu?

It wasn't just the exhaustion that made you do it. It was the familiarity with his lips that gave the final push into him.

He didn't even stiffen in surprise when your lips met his. He didn't react in any way that felt admonishing. He was frozen only for a fraction of a second before he came to life with a sharp inhale. His hands which had been bracing somewhere on your sides moved and he held your face.

And he kissed you back.

He held onto your face with warm, rough hands and a tilt of his head, a parting of his lips and a quiet sound from deep within the walls of his chest. The commander kissed you back with a desperate intensity that matched the feeling inside your belly that fluttered and swelled with every pull of his lips, every brush of his thumbs along your cheekbones, the fullness grew inside of you until you felt that perhaps you might burst at the seams. Despite the lack of oxygen as your brain grew fuzzier than it had already been, you felt it. That same familiarity in his kiss, as if this was the man you were made to kiss. This was the man you had been kissing in your sleep every single night since you saw his face-- no -- since before you ever saw his face.

The taste of his mouth was that familiar to you. It was comfort. It was home.

The man kissed you like you were his and he was yours.

His thighs rested against your knee and he didn't angle himself away from you to conceal his . The heat from between his legs pressed against you as he moved closer, stepping into you and you shifted. You felt tingles shoot down your thighs down to your toes. Your movement was restricted by the sea