by Holly Hart
My stomach turns a bit. I'm a nurse, after all, not a soldier, so all this glorifying of death doesn't always sit completely right with me. I think the kid can kind of sense that because he's quick to mollify me.
"Trust me, this guy saved hundreds of lives. He's a god damn hero."
"How?" I ask.
"He was up there doing overwatch" he says, looking at me expectantly. It quickly becomes clear to him that I have absolutely no idea what that means.
"It was just him, his buddy and the dog up on that hill, but there was a base about two clicks up the road, and they hadn't finished building the walls up yet. If they hadn't given those guys the warning, trust me – the hospital would have been a hell of a lot busier than it was."
I blink, and suddenly, I can see Mike up there on that rocky hill, firing away at an insatiably aggressive and violent enemy and I realize exactly what kind of guy my patient is. The kid's right. He's a hero.
"What about the dog?" I press. "What happened to it?"
"They took it to the pound," the kid says, looking at me doubtfully. “I don't know if you'll get it back."
"Why not?" I ask desperately – the last thing I want is to have made it this far, only to fall at the final hurdle. I don’t know how I’ll be able to go back to Mike without Jake’s leash pressed between my hands.
"There's a shortage of dogs. It'll probably already have been sent back out to the field…"
"They wouldn't do that, would they?" I ask, horrified. Sometimes I forget that I'm on a military base in the middle of a warzone, but that just seems so heartless to me. Any fool could see the bond between Mike and his dog. It would be frankly evil to break them apart.
He looks at me sadly, as though he doesn't have the heart to break the truth to me. The look's enough.
I know what I'm up against.
Chapter Five - Mike
A month ago, hiking up a five-thousand-foot-tall mountain with a forty-pound rucksack on my back would have been a piece of cake – but looking at the metal bars in front of me, my stomach fills with an overwhelming sense of dread, and all I want to do is turn around and hobble back to my hospital bed.
"What if I fall?" I say, eyeing the rehabilitation equipment doubtfully.
"You're a big boy, aren't you?" Katie bites back with a sly grin. She's right, I know what I need to do, but that doesn't make it any easier. We still haven’t addressed the elephant in the room: the fact that three months ago, I fucked her like she’d never been fucked before, and as soon as I was finished, I left to go to war. What must she think of me?
"Do you think playing me like that's going to work?" I grin. "I know what you're doing…"
"Playing you?" She smiles back, flirting with me as wickedly as she did that night. "What makes you think I'm messing with you? I'm just doing my job…"
"But seriously, what happens if I fall? Won't my stitches open up?"
"Maybe," she says with a sad look on her face, "but if you don't start trying to walk now, while the tissue's healing…"
"Then what?" I ask, concerned by the sudden turn the conversation's taking.
"No, I don't want you to worry. It's nothing," she says, flicking her hair in a nervous gesture and turning away, pretending to busy herself with clearing up the detritus left after a previous rehab session. It doesn't fool me; I know what she's doing – she's just trying to distract me from a truth she doesn't think I'm strong enough to hear.
"You can't just say that!" I protest. "I'm obviously going to worry now," I say, hobbling over towards my crutches and grabbing her gently on the shoulder. The thrill of the touch sends me spinning for a couple of seconds – I still can’t believe I’m so close to the woman I spent so many weeks fantasizing about. I want to look at her – actually, I want her to see me – to see what affect her slip of the tongue has had on me.
Her soft, delicate skin feels warm to my touch, and I don't know what comes over me, but I leave it there for perhaps a second too long. I quickly realize from the subtle widening of her eyes and the tightening of her lips that I might have overstepped the mark.
"I'm sorry, ma' am… I didn't mean to –" I begin, but don't finish – because just as I start saying it, my left crutch slips from under me on the unforgiving, slippery plastic floor, and I start tumbling to the ground. The crutch drops to the floor with a clatter and I stick my arm out quickly, reflexively, and grab hold of one of the parallel metal bars that I'm supposed to be doing my exercises on – and as quick as a snake, from the other side, Katie grabs hold of my torso. At a hundred ninety pounds, I'm too heavy for her to stop completely, but she does a pretty good job of protecting my bad leg from bearing the brunt of the fall.
All of a sudden, I'm sitting on my ass on the cold hard ground, my left hand still gripping so tightly to the metal bar I caught hold of on my way down that my knuckles have gone white. A jolt of pain rocks my legs, and as I'm processing it – slowly, because my brain seems to be running at half speed, if that – Katie says something.
"You were saying, Mike?"
I look to my right and see, with horror, that I brought her down with me. All thoughts of self-pity suddenly drain from my head.
"Oh my God, I'm so sorry…" I say, realizing that Katie’s now awkwardly kneeling on the ground in front of me, her arms wrapped around my waist, and my arm clinging to her shoulders.
"Don't worry about it," she says with a smile on her face. "But Mike?"
"Yes, ma'am?" I blurt out, stiffening up with embarrassment. And I can’t help but notice that another part of me’s stiffening up as well. Clearly no long term damage where it counts…
"You can let go of me now…"
My cheeks flush red with embarrassment as I realize how tightly I'm still clinging to her.
"Yes, of course, miss" I reply, conscious of how enjoyable the feeling of touching her soft, firm flesh is right now, after days of having doctors and nurses poke and prod at my body with the best of intentions, but too little time for the overworked staff to translate them into anything other than a pressed and harried, all too impersonal examination.
Sadly, I let go.
"And Mike?" she asks with a cute little smile that lights up her face.
"Yes, ma’am?" I reply, on my best behavior as I realize the vivacious young nurse might well be able to read me like a book at the moment. I'm pretty sure that the blow to my head that I took on top of that hill scrambled a few eggs up there…
"Yes miss, yes ma'am," she parrots, but mimicking me with that same smile dancing on her face to let me know that she's just joking. "You can call me Katie, you know. I mean, after what you did to me that night, it feels kind of weird that you aren’t…"
"Yes m–" I say, almost falling back into old habits. "I mean, yes, Katie."
She’s talking about our time together. That must mean something, right?
She smiles, indicating that she caught my mistake. Not that it was a bad one, or anything like that, but still – she's quick, this girl.
"Come on, we've got work to do," she says, breaking the tension that’s beginning to form between us. I’m not sure I want her to…
"Do we have to?" I ask doubtfully. "I'm not sure I've got the energy for this."
"Every little bit helps, Mike," she says encouragingly. "And don't tell me you can't do just a few minutes. A brave man like you? I've heard what you've done…"
I freeze up, close up. The memory of Katie's laughter is just that now, superseded by the much stronger thoughts of terror, the faded smell of cordite and explosives, the feeling of heat beating against my body. She notices.
"I'm sorry, Mike – I shouldn't have…"
She looks ghastly, and looking at her response, I suddenly realize how bad I must look. With a monumental, conscious effort, I shrug off the alien feelings that beset me only a few seconds ago.
"Don't worry about it," I grunt, any hint of levity shorn from my voice. "You couldn't have known."
She laughs, but this time there's
no mirth in the sound. "Couldn't have known?" she asks. "It's my job to know not to do stuff like that. It was stupid of me. I'm sorry, Mike. I let myself get too close because of–"
"Seriously, forget about it," I say. "Let's just get on with the rehab, okay?"
She nods, but doesn't seem convinced by the stoic front I'm putting on. Honestly, nor am I. She lightly rests her hand on my upper right arm, and again the dancing sparks of electricity jump up the limb.
"If you need to talk about it, we have therapists on the base, you know?" she says, her face a picture of concern. A feeling of dread runs through me. Maybe it's not dread – terror, perhaps? I don't know, it's hard to tell, but my palms have gone all sticky, and I'm breathing raggedly all of a sudden as I try and contemplate a reply.
"No!" I grunt. "I'm fine, let's just get on with this, okay?" I say.
"Seriously, Mike – you should talk to someone," she says, pushing her luck, even if I am willing to give her a lot of leeway, given who she is and what we’ve done together. "It'll do you good to get it off your chest…"
"Do me good?" I hiss. "You don't know what you're talking about," I hear myself say, almost as though I'm experiencing some kind of out of body moment.
I barely have control over my own thoughts right now; it feels like all the adrenaline in my body just got dumped into my bloodstream. I know Katie's not the enemy, but my body is doing its damn best to convince me she is.
I bite my tongue, close my eyes and lick my lips, trying to reassert some semblance of control back over my body.
"Mike? Mike – you alright?" I hear her ask in the background, her voice emanating from somewhere deep inside the fog inside my brain.
I grab my crutches, set the fleshy part of my palms on the handles, and swing myself out of there fast as I can. "I'm sorry…" I mutter as I brush past her, the rational part of me embarrassed and ashamed by my actions, but unfortunately not in control.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a shocked, almost distraught look on Katie's face. I catalog the thought for future examination because my brain doesn't have the horsepower to work out the ramifications of that look right now.
Later on, I'll realize that Katie's not the enemy – in fact, she's about as far from that as you could imagine, but at the moment, I'm so confused and so consumed by nerves and worry and what must be some kind of latent, anxiety-driven fight or flight reflex, that I know I've just got to get out of this room.
And so I do, leaving her behind me with a hand clapped against her mouth.
Chapter Six - Katie
I need to get Mike his dog back. That much is painfully apparent, even to me – and I'm the one who was dense enough to push Mike to a place he clearly wasn't willing to go. I could have easily waited, given him time to come to me of his own accord.
But there's something about Mike that I can't get out of my mind. It's like he's a lifeline, a rope of hope someone's casting at me to save me from the dark, suffocating black hole of stress and depression my life's descending into. After that night we shared, he’s all I’ve thought about for months. Maybe that's not fair to him, but he’s all I've got right now. I just hope he’s got a place inside his heart for me.
In fact, I don't even know if he's the reason I'm doing all this. Is it selfish if I'm doing it for me – because it's something I can control, something I can do? Is it still selfish if he gets his dog back anyway? The dog's just a goal to me at this point. It could be anything, but it's an aim that I can keep clinging onto to get me through the days.
The beeper at my waist goes off.
Again.
I'm sure that the first few months over here weren't this bad. I'm sure that there weren't this many casualties, injuries, and worst of all – deaths – for me to deal with. Or maybe there were just more staff at the hospital to help out, maybe I wasn't exposed to as much of the misery. I push myself back to my feet, heaving a long-suffering sigh of abject dissatisfaction. I want to go home, but what I want doesn’t pull much weight – I signed a contract, and I can't afford to break it.
I start running, the same thought drumming itself into my head over and over again. I'm sure it wasn't this bad when I first arrived.
Ever since they started withdrawing, the base has been shrinking around me. Sometimes I'll go for a run in the morning, and I'll realize the army's dismantled another aircraft hangar or weapons storage hut overnight. It's like watching one of those documentaries about the Second World War that shows you a picture of a company of soldiers, and then greys them out one by one as they get killed, except I'm watching it happen day by day.
If it was just the buildings, I wouldn't mind so much – but it's not. There might be fewer soldiers left in the country, but that doesn't mean the war is any less vicious or any less deadly.
No, it just means that people have stopped caring. People at home, that is. It's really not surprising, after all. People can't be worried all the time. So then they just think about what's going on over here from time to time, and before long, it's just too much effort and they don't bother at all.
But that doesn't mean that we've gone anywhere. The lucky ones have; they've already been shipped back to the States. Whole battalions of soldiers, planes loaded up with expensive weaponry, tanks and vehicles have gone back, too. But there are still some of us left. Too many for my liking, and too few to handle the responsibility we've been left with.
I shake my head.
Snap out of it, Katie, I think to myself. Thoughts like this aren't helping anyone – not me, and not Mike, and descending into this misery definitely isn't helping get his dog back. My long legs easily pick up the pace, sneakers kicking up little puffs of dust and sand as my feet hit the ground. By the time I make it to the hospital, my thighs have an ever so slight but agreeable burn. I miss running back home, through the woods and forests, hell – even on the sidewalk. Over here it's either too hot or I'm running to save someone's life.
Kind of takes the fun out of it.
I crash through the flimsy prefabricated hospital's doorway, rolling up my sleeves and ready to help.
"What's the situation?" I call to the nearest person dressed in scrubs, a tall African-American man I've not seen around here before. Must be new.
"Gunshot wound," he says, greeting me with a serious, harried nod, "self-inflicted."
My shoulders sag with frustration. Not again. This is easily the third or fourth suicide attempt this year, and it's only just begun. We've been lucky so far; we've saved everyone. But our luck's going to run out at some point.
"Where are the doctors?" I ask, looking around desperately for someone in a white coat. The hospital's busy, chaotic even, white pieces of paper scattered across the linoleum flooring; hospital trolleys shoved wherever they would fit – some still covered in the detritus left behind after a serious wound: sticky, drying blood, discarded, blood-soaked bandages and the empty packages they came in. It looks like a war zone.
I suppose it kind of is. Just a different kind of frontline.
"Busy. A squad came in earlier, all shot up. It's up to us. Shit, I don't know what to do!"
The kid's panicking. That's the last thing I need. "What's your name?" I ask, trying to inject as much reassurance in my voice as possible. I need him onside, concentrating, and in this fight with me.
"My name?" he asks dumbly. "Why –? It's Brian."
"Okay, Brian, you need to calm down, got it?"
He nods mutely, but anyone can see his hands are shaking.
"Good. Now where's our vic?"
"Vic?" he asks, looking thoroughly confused. God, he's green.
"Victim. Where is he?"
The realization of what I'm talking about dawns on his face. "Oh, right. He's in operating room B."
I don't hesitate; I start striding down the long, dismal corridor to the operating theaters. "Who is with him?" I ask Brian, calling over my shoulder to the man scurrying along trying to keep up.
"I think she's called Sophia?"
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"Sophie," I say, grabbing a pair of latex examination gloves from a dispenser on the wall as I feel the cool, calm sensation of my training asserting itself. "Good – she's a safe pair of hands. Stay in the background, okay – don't get in the way."
It came out a little bit harsher than I had intended, but I did mean it, or at least the thrust behind my words. The rookie's so green that, right now at least, he's more likely to kill our patient than help him. That'll change. I was like that nine months ago.
I barge through the swinging doors to the operating theater, crashing into them with my shoulder to avoid touching them with my sterile gloves. Brian squeaks through after me, just avoiding getting hit by the closing doors.