d is for destruction.

Saturday - 14.23

Dana doesn’t turn up for the scheduled surgery at fourteen hundred hours (not a big one, just a bout of kidney stones, but the man’s been in horrible pain for several weeks), so they proceed without her and call the compound after they’ve stitched him up. Surgery went without complications, she wasn’t as such a necessity, but she’s always been reliable and John wonders what’s kept her.

They get the machine. So, someone finds her private number, but after a few hopeful beeps, there’s no reception. Everybody is looking at each other, saying nothing. Everybody wonders.

Saturday - 16.07

By some twisting, informational detour, someone somewhere hears that they got her, in the mountains, outside town. It’s a difficult claim to prove, because all the locals they ask are reluctant to even mention the rebels indirectly, but eventually a young woman speaks up and admits that she saw them take her, grab her off the street and drive off, one second to the next.

They call headquarters and by official channels, the police and the armed forces nearby are informed. The organisation makes no statement, waiting for a ransom note, dreading a video or whatever other kind of mixed media the rebels might use.

Saturday - 17.58

Nothing comes.

They continue to work as best they can, John picking up Dana’s shift of shots on toddlers, sitting through 30 little kids poking him in the face with their tiny, uncoordinated hands, burping and babbling things in a language they can’t properly speak and he can’t properly understand.

Saturday - 21.14

They call for an emergency meeting at the kitchen of the compound, sitting around the table, all 13 of them, volunteers, staff members and the local directors, staring at the blank whiteboard with just Dana’s name in the middle.

Her relatives have been notified of the situation, they’re told. They’re willing to pay the ransom if they are at all able, so Doctors Without Borders only have to cover a percentage, the practicalities. John sits at the long side of the table, near a corner and has a perfect view of the small congregation. It feels like they’re pricing her, the worth of her life, really, and perhaps they are, because they can’t pay just anything -- or anything at all, as long as they got no ransom notes.

Eventually, they finish talking the situation through and there’s nothing more to say. They are left with no options but to wait till the rebels state their claim or whatever they intend to do.

John offers to make coffee.

Saturday - 22.39

The rebels wait till after dark, of course, to make their move. It doesn’t come in the form of a ransom note or a video, it comes in the form of her. They dump Dana in front of the Bab al-Yaman, for everyone to see and only after a precious fifteen minutes does someone dare pick her up and bring her to the hospital.

John’s still at the compound when they bring her in, but they phone him and he runs, with a local chaperone right at his heels, to the hospital when he hears. They’ve taken her to their makeshift version of an A&E, x-rayed her and readied the operating theatre, waiting for his assessments. His order to-go.

Severe internal bleeding, he assesses from the x-rays. Lacerations to the vaginal walls, most likely. Blood loss from that -- as well as several deep cuts to her chest and stomach. She’s been beaten, horribly bruised, nose broken, lip bust, fingers sprained. To say she’s been through the wringer would be an insensitive understatement.

He gives the order to prep her for surgery, well-aware.

Saturday - 23.47

They work on her for an hour.

Oh, but he fights the good fight for her, recalling that time she did a cartwheel for him, when she took pictures of him all day for Sherlock’s sake, keeping in mind that she’s been serving this mission for a year, give and take. He fights and he fights and he fights, getting her heart pumping again twice before A’isha says doctor with just the right amount of emphasis and he puts down his scalpel, his needle and gives up.

Sorry, Dana, he thinks as he closes her eyes and pronounces her dead.

He leaves the nurses to stitch her up. She was a friend of theirs as well.

Sunday - 01.49

There’s champagne in the fridge. It’s Dana’s -- she kept it cool in case we need to celebrate and John grabs it, first thing when he gets back to the compound, dressed in his own clothes again, blood washed off and surgery mask removed so he can breathe again. Except he can’t, really. Breathe.

Retreating to his room, he sits down in the corner of it, doesn’t turn on any lights, just sits there between the wall and his desk, legs extended and feet pointing up towards the ceiling -- with a cool champagne in his hand that he pops as quietly as possible before simply resorting to drinking from the bottle. He drinks all of it, 150 centiliters within the next two hours. Stays out of sight, below the windowsills and within visual range of the doors, because that’s how you do it, isn’t it?

Keep all entry points within view, soldier, or you’re dead.

Sunday - 05.09

Eventually, the bottle lies empty next to him and he falls asleep, sitting with his back against the wall, head at a weird angle and that’s going to hurt in the morning, but what bloody well isn’t?

Sunday - 08.00

When he wakes up, he’s got the lovely predisposition for a hangover and he really doesn’t want to think, so he ignores the instructions they’ve been given and drags himself out into the streets of Sana’a to find alcohol which is somewhat of a feat, but he does manage to find a store that carries cheap whiskey and that’s good enough for him right now.

They gave him the day off after he’d filed Dana’s papers the night before, so he’s got until next sunrise to sip some whiskey sans ice, because ice is water waste in this heat.

Lots of things are -- horrible wastes, honestly, when you think about it.

John doesn’t.