Combat!/Witch World Crossover
By: Alice A. 2006

Some indefinite time later, Saunders drifted back to consciousness. He was being jolted along, probably in a makeshift ambulance, and for the moment his whole body felt cold and numb. He felt Doc checking his pulse, pulling the blanket up tighter around his shoulders, doing whatever he could to ease suffering.

Saunders' mind wandered back to the winter he was twelve and had almost died of pneumonia, when such a raging fever had burned through his body that nothing had relieved it. Nothing... until as a last resort, the doctor had told his family to wrap him in sheets soaked in ice water. He still remembered those hellish hours. How he'd ached so much from shivering that he'd begged his mother through clenched teeth to at least give him a blanket, so he wouldn't freeze to death. She'd wept bitterly even as she followed the doctor's orders, sitting beside him all night, soothing him as she caressed his face, her gentle hands the only comfort in his frozen, feverish world.

Doc's square competent hands were nothing like his mother's delicate fingers, but he had the same tenderness, the same calming touch, the same ability to hold pain and death at bay when all other remedies failed. He struggled to open his eyes, staring into Doc's worried face.

“Just try to hold on a little longer, Sarge.”

Doc caught Saunders' intense blue gaze resting on him, with that momentary calm and clarity that sometimes came in extremis before a patient lapsed into a final coma and death.

“Take care of the others, Doc.”

“Just take it easy. It won't be long now till we get you to proper help.”

Saunders coughed, a bloody froth showing at the corner of his mouth. “Tell Caje... he's in charge. He can... trust the major... but not too far. He needs fighters... and he's seen... how good... the squad is.”

Doc answered sharply, “Tell him yourself. We're not goin' anywhere without you.”

Saunders' legendary temper flared as he gave a weak snarl, “Don't be a fool. I‘m done... but get the men back... as soon as the major can open the gate.”

“We're not leaving without you, Sarge.”

Saunders gave him that extremely patient look he only used when one of the squad made a particularly stupid mistake, “You know... I'm not going to make it... but the squad has to get back....”

His urgency triggered another coughing spell that left him weak and breathless, and Doc tried to calm the noncom without openly lying to him. “We'll make it back, Sarge. All of us. We're not leavin' you behind.”

to be continued...