Tender Mercies and Tactical Gear

He called Rafe’s CO, the number memorized from countless nights spent waiting for news. Voicemail again. He left a message, his voice unnaturally calm, belying the panic clawing at his throat. “This is Captain Micah Bell. Lieutenant Mancini’s… friend. We were on a video call. There was an explosion. The connection cut. I… I need to know if he’s alright. Please.”

The words felt hollow, useless against the images flooding his mind—fire, smoke, the raw sound of that explosion, Rafe’s face in that last second. He paced the confines of his apartment, the familiar walls closing in, the scent of lavender and antiseptic suddenly cloying, suffocating. He needed to do something, anything, but there was nothing to be done. He was half a world away, helpless, useless.

The hours that followed were a special kind of hell. Minutes crawled, each one an agony. He tried the numbers again. And again. And again. Voicemail. Always voicemail. The news channels offered nothing but speculation, conflicting reports, none of them mentioning the specific base, the specific unit. The official channels were silent, a void of information that was worse than any bad news.

He thought of Rafe’s recipe card, tucked safely in a drawer. He thought of the shrimp and grits, the warmth in Rafe’s eyes when he’d tasted it. He thought of the way Rafe’s hand had felt in his, calloused and strong. He thought of the promise in that last, unfinished sentence. *Micah, I—*

The possibilities were a torment, each one a fresh wound. *I love you. I’m sorry. I’m scared.* The words echoed in the suffocating silence, a taunt, a torture. He sat on the edge of his bed, head in his hands, the weight of not knowing pressing down on him like a physical force. The fear was a living thing, cold and sharp, coiling in his gut. He’d known the risks. Intellectually, he’d understood the danger Rafe faced every day. But knowing and *feeling* were two vastly different things. This, this visceral terror, this feeling of his heart being ripped slowly from his chest—this was something else entirely.

As dawn began to bleed across the sky outside his window, grey and lifeless, Micah remained where he was, trapped in a purgatory of uncertainty. Waiting. Just waiting for the phone to ring. For news. For any sign that Rafe was still out there, still alive. The silence was the loudest sound he’d ever heard.

The shrilling of his satellite phone yanked Micah from a fitful doze. He hadn’t meant to sleep, hadn’t thought he could, but exhaustion had finally claimed him sometime before dawn. He fumbled for the phone, his heart hammering against his ribs, hope a fragile, dangerous thing unfurling in his chest. He didn’t recognize the number.

“Hello?” His voice was rough, raw with disuse and dread.

“Micah.” The voice was thin, strained, punctuated by static, but unmistakable. Rafe.

“Oh god.” The breath left Micah in a rush, his free hand clutching the edge of the couch for support. “Rafe. Jesus Christ. Are you okay? What happened? I’ve been calling and calling—”

“I’m okay.” Rafe’s voice cracked on the word. “I’m… alive.”

The pause was heavy, filled with all the things he wasn’t saying. Micah’s medical training kicked in, cataloging the subtle cues—the faint tremor in Rafe’s voice, the careful spacing of his words, the way his breath hitched slightly at the end. Pain. He was in pain. “How bad?” Micah asked quietly.

Another pause, longer this time. When Rafe spoke again, his voice was tighter, laced with something that sounded suspiciously like forced bravado. “Took some shrapnel. Left shoulder, mostly. Doc says I’ll live to fight another day.” He tried for a laugh, but it came out as more of a pained grunt.

“Don’t,” Micah said, the word sharp with a concern he didn’t bother to hide. “Don’t do that. Don’t downplay it. Tell me the truth. Are you ambulatory? What are they giving you for pain?”

He could almost hear Rafe’s sigh, the resignation in it. “Barely. And not nearly enough, according to my very high standards.” Another pained sound, quickly stifled. “Look, Micah, I can’t talk long. Comms are spotty, and the meds are kicking my ass. I just… I needed to hear your voice. Needed you to know I’m okay. Or, you know, that I will be.”

The unspoken ‘eventually’ hung heavy in the air between them. Micah closed his eyes, pressing the phone tighter to his ear, as if he could physically bridge the distance through the connection. “I was so scared,” he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. “When the connection cut out… I thought…” He couldn’t finish the sentence, the words lodging in his throat like shards of glass.

“I know.” Rafe’s voice was soft now, the forced lightness gone, replaced by a raw sincerity that was somehow worse. “I’m sorry. God, Micah, I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I’m sorry I put you through that.”

“You didn’t,” Micah said fiercely, the words tearing from him. “You didn’t put me through anything. I chose this. I chose *you*. Every damn second.” He took a shaky breath, trying to steady himself. “You come home to me, Rafe Mancini. You hear me? You get your ass on that plane and you come home.”

The silence stretched, filled only with the static hiss of the satellite connection and the pounding of Micah’s own heart. When Rafe finally spoke, his voice was thick with emotion. “Wild horses, baby. Couldn’t keep me away.” He paused, the sound of muffled voices in the background briefly filtering through. “I gotta go. They’re hassling me about rest. As if I could sleep now.”

Micah managed a watery chuckle. “You should. Let the docs take care of you. That’s an order, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir, Captain, sir,” Rafe replied, a ghost of his usual humor in the words. His voice softened again. “Micah… I… I lo—”

The line went dead, the connection cutting out as abruptly as it had begun. Micah sat there for a long moment, the phone still pressed to his ear, listening to the dial tone. The unfinished sentence hung in the air, a promise suspended. He didn’t need to hear the words. He’d heard them in the catch in Rafe’s voice, in the raw emotion beneath the pain and the fear. *I love you.* The unspoken words echoed in the quiet of his apartment, warmer than any verbal declaration could ever be. Rafe was alive. He was hurt, but he was alive. And he was coming home. That was enough. That was everything.

The weeks that followed were their own brand of agony, a limbo of medical updates and frustratingly vague military communications. Rafe was stable, then recovering, then en route to a stateside medical facility. The details were sparse, filtered through official channels and Rafe’s own stubborn reluctance to ‘worry me unnecessarily’. Micah clung to the memory of that satellite call, to the warmth of those unspoken words, to the promise of ‘wild horses’.

The call finally came on a Tuesday, a nurse’s calm voice informing him that Lieutenant Mancini had arrived at Walter Reed and was cleared for visitors. Micah was on the next flight out, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs for the entire journey.

Seeing Rafe in that hospital bed was a punch to the gut. He looked thinner, paler, the lines of pain and fatigue etched deep around his eyes. His left arm was immobilized in a sling, bulky bandages visible beneath the thin hospital gown. But his blue eyes were sharp, alert, and locked onto Micah the moment he stepped into the room. The sheer, raw relief in them stole Micah’s breath.

“Hey, handsome,” Rafe said, his voice rough but steady. He shifted, wincing slightly, and gestured to the chair beside the bed. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Micah crossed the room in three strides, his medical bag forgotten on the floor. He reached for Rafe’s hand, careful of the IV line snaking from his arm. “Hey yourself,” he managed, his throat tight. He drank in the sight of him, the warmth of his skin, the familiar callouses on his fingers. “How are you feeling? Really.”

Rafe squeezed his hand, a brief, painful smile touching his lips. “Like I went ten rounds with a fragmentation grenade,” he admitted. “But better. Now.” His gaze roamed over Micah’s face, intense, searching. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, Captain Bell.”

They talked for hours, about everything and nothing. Micah filled him in on the gossip from the hospital, the antics of his patients, the latest culinary disaster he’d attempted in the kitchen. Rafe shared what he could about his recovery, downplaying the pain, the grueling physical therapy ahead. They avoided the heavy topics, the fear, the future, content just to exist in the same space, to breathe the same air. Micah checked his dressings, consulted with his doctors, bullied him into eating the hospital’s unappetizing lunch. It felt good to care for him, to do *something* tangible.