Abby came into the small office area off the ward, to see Kate surrounded by various charts and files.
‘He got you doing paperwork? I swear, he’s in such a rotten mood today.’ Kate smiled at her friend, standing up from her position sprawled out on the hard canvas covered floor and stretching out her aching limbs.
‘Yep, it’s my punishment, and I am afraid the bad mood is probably down to me too. I’m really sorry that I put you all in that position. It was my choice, you shouldn’t have to suffer.’
‘I get it Kate, you had the ability to save him, and you didn’t want to let him just slip away like that. I get it. Anyway, it’s done with now. He’s alive. Trevor is more pissed at you than us.’ Abby nodded to the countertop, clicking on the kettle. ‘Coffee?’
Kate looked at the desk next to her, where an assortment of dirty cups littered the surfaces. ‘Sure, one more can’t hurt. I won’t sleep anyway. You might need a mug though.’ She got to work, dumping all the crockery into the sink and washing them. She passed two mugs to Abby, who was busy munching away on a cereal bar like a starving squirrel. ‘How is he?’
Abby snorted. ‘I told you, he has a major bee in his bonnet. He’s making anyone who doesn’t look exhausted already clean everything in sight. I thought one of the soldiers was going to punch him earlier. He didn’t—’
‘No,’ Kate said, moving closer. ‘How is he?’
Abby’s eyes sparked with recognition. ‘Ooh, HIM!’ She stage whispered the rest. ‘He’s stable, but still out. He’s hopefully going to be weaned off the meds a bit tonight, we’ll see how he feels then. The operation worked though, signs of sepsis are gone.’
Kate felt her heart beat, as though it had taken a misstep. ‘Drain? Any signs of wound infection, tissue necrosis? Urine output?’
Abby took the barrage of questions in her stride. ‘Drain should be out tomorrow, no infection or necrosis. The site looks good Kate, you did a good job. Urine output is low, but he was a little dehydrated from the field anyway. We’re still pushing fluids.’
Kate ran through the knowledge in her head, looking for anything she missed. Abby tapped her on the arm.
‘Kate, you didn’t miss anything. He made it. He will make it. You did good. For what it’s worth.’
Kate didn’t hear the praise. She just thought about what it would take to get to see him before he left. She had to make him understand, even though she wasn’t entirely sure herself what her reasons were. She thought of her conversation with Neil earlier. Yet again he had called to moan about how much he had to do; the washing, Jamie, work. He was mad at her for leaving, though he never said it outright. It just hung in the air between them. He seemed different, more stressed, distracted. She had apologised, as she always did; she apologised for choosing to keep chasing her own career, quenching her own drives while the product of her womb was cared for by another. He was looked after by his own father, who helped make him, but this of course went unsaid, as usual. She often wondered what the world would look like if humans were like seahorses, and the men had to carry babies through to birth. Odds on, it would grind to a shuddering halt.
‘Has he been awake at all?’
Abby shook her head, making the coffees for them both. ‘Nope, thankfully. He needs the rest. Does his family know? I haven’t checked his file yet for contact details.’
Kate shook her head. ‘No, he has no one.’
Abby pursed her lips. ‘Jesus. Well, he had someone to fight for him. If it means anything, I think you were right. I’m sorry I got in your way. You have some balls, Kate Harper.’
Kate took a sip of her own drink, feeling the jolt of caffeine top up her already wired body.
‘Thanks,’ she said, heading back over to the piles of paper she still had to wade through. ‘I hope they both see it that way, eventually.’
Abby went to head out, but Kate’s voice stopped her.
‘Abs, if you get an opportunity, I’d like to see him … if you could turn a blind eye.’
Abby spoke without turning around. ‘Keep your phone on. I’ll text you when the coast is clear, but if he catches you, I wasn’t part of it and I absolutely oppose your decision. I need the reference.’ Kate saluted her.
‘Ten four. I get it, no warpath for Abby. Appreciate it, thanks.’
Abby gave her a fake cheesy grin. ‘Right, time to pretend I am very happy to be working with him today, and everything is sunshine and rainbows!’ She waggled her phone at Kate, before thrusting it back into her zip pocket. ‘Phone.’
Kate nodded and Abby left, leaving her alone with the piles and piles of charting and silent recriminations of her actions and words of the last few days.
***
Kate was back in her bunk, sleeping off the exhaustion and taut limbs that a day full of paperwork and reasoning with Neil in her head had brought on when her phone beeped. She jerked awake, reaching for the handset. Abby had messaged an emoji of a pair of eyes, with the words COAST CLEAR. Kate deleted the text quickly, and sprang from her bed. She shoved a clean pair of scrubs on, dressing quickly and quietly as others slept and relaxed around her. She turned her phone to silent, not wanting it to go off while she was in the medical tent. It was late, and the patients would be sleeping. She entered the tent, and thankfully there was only Abby there. Abby had her back to her, bent over her desk, but she waved her hand towards Cooper’s bed. Plausible deniability. The girl was smart. Kate took a breath and looked around. There were only three patients in the beds, the others having been patched up or medevac’d home. Kate walked over to the Captain’s bed, looking to see if he too was asleep. She neared the foot of the bed, and he turned his head to face her. He had been awake, seemingly staring at the wall. Kate felt a jolt as he looked straight into her eyes. He looked pale and exhausted, his jaw set like a block of stone. The green of his eyes weren’t diminished though, and she had a flashback to the day he came in. The look in them was very different today. There was nothing in them but hate, reflected straight back at her.
Kate stopped walking, looking across at the chair at the side of the bed.
‘Do you mind if I sit?’
He didn’t say anything at first, he just looked at her with those green eyes. He was acting like he was chewing his tongue. She wondered if he was suffering. She took a step closer to the chair.
‘I’m sorry, are you in pain?’ She went to reach for his chart. ‘I can ask Abby to give you some pain relief, I just need to check—’
‘Don’t touch my chart. I don’t want you anywhere near me.’ Kate’s hand stilled.
‘I understand you’re upset, but I just came to check on you.’
He chuckled under his breath. ‘Check you haven’t got a dead man on your hands you mean. You might still have, so I hope you kept my leg. I would like to be buried whole.’
‘Captain, I—’
‘—am not interested in anything you have to say, Doc. I will be suing you for not following my orders. I never asked you to save me. In fact, I pretty much insisted that you do the opposite.’
Kate noticed that Abby had stood up and was making her way over, a panicked look on her face.
‘Kate,’ she whispered. ‘Everything okay?’
Cooper growled. ‘Great, sure. She was just trying to save her rich bloke some money on lawsuits.’
Kate turned back to look at him, and she felt her guilt and worry turn to rage.
‘My rich bloke?’ Abby reached for her arm, but she shrugged her off. ‘I earn more than my husband ever has, and I’m not some pathetic woman that you can shout down with your big scary temper and your macho muscles.’
His lip twitched, but his face turned back to anger quickly. ‘You’re a doctor; you do what the patient says.’
‘Exactly, I’m a doctor, I took an oath to save lives. I could save you, so I did!’
‘I never asked you to!’ This was boomed out, and Cooper started coughing. His monitor beeped faster. Abby rushed to his bedside, helping him to sit up a little.
‘Kate, you need to go. Now.’ Kate looked at them both, Cooper still coughing and wincing in pain, and turned on her heel. She didn’t stop till she was back in her bunk, which was when the tears started to flow.
The next day, Kate was on desk duties again, but she and Trevor both knew that it couldn’t last. There were too many things to do, they were too busy to be able to afford a doctor not seeing to the patients. It was thankfully quiet, but the other doctors would be feeling the strain soon.
She decided that she would have one last talk with Captain Cooper, try to make him see that what she did was for the right reasons. She should be worried about her career, the lawsuit, but she knew it was more his state of mind that bothered her. She just wanted to make him see that his life was worth saving, and that he could still have a life. It wasn’t the end. She knew from her job that people coped, and adapted. He could too. Anyone who would be brave enough to walk into battle and be responsible for the people under his command must surely see the preciousness of life, and the necessity to survive. She was just standing up to go to the medical bay when her phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket and pulled a face, walking into the corridor. Trevor was coming her way, and her gut clenched. Everyone had a bone to pick with Kate today.
‘Neil, it’s not a good time. Is everything okay?’
She winced as she heard the sound of sirens and machinery in her ear, and her husband’s panicked voice stopped her in her tracks.
‘Kate, Kate, don’t hang up! It’s Jamie, th-there’s been an accident. It’s bad Kate, I am so sorry.’ Neil started to cry down the phone, a wet whimpering sound. She cupped the phone to her ear, her legs falling out from under her. Trevor, aware something was wrong, appeared at her side, lowering her to the tent floor.
‘Kate,’ he said in a tone of voice she had never heard from him before. ‘Kate, what’s wrong?’
She willed her mouth to open, to form words, but all that came out was a whispered ‘Jamie?’
Trevor took the phone from her, and she let him, her arm flopping to her lap.
‘Neil, it’s Trevor. What’s happened?’
Kate looked up at Trevor, trying to decipher the news from his face. Trevor went pale, and she whimpered. ‘Jamie, my poor Jamie, no, no, no …’
Trevor said something into the phone and ended the call. He knelt down, pushing the phone into her hands.
‘Kate, get up. Jamie is alive.’
Kate’s head snapped up to look at him then, and the fog that surrounded her body lifted, leaving the adrenaline free to course through her veins. She stood up, gripping her mobile for dear life. Trevor put his hands on her shoulders and forced her to look at him.
‘Kate, listen, they had been in a car accident. Jamie needs you, okay?’ Kate felt the words wash over her as Trevor ran his fingers down her shoulders. ‘The chopper to go home will be here in a few hours, you need to be on it. Go get your stuff. I’ll sort things here.’
Kate looked at Trevor, numb. ‘Kate,’ he tried again. ‘Get packed up, that’s an order.’
Kate snapped back into reality and ran to her bunk. Three hours later, though it felt more like three months, Kate was being strapped into her seat by a medic, who was shouting instructions at his colleagues. They loaded a soldier onto the chopper, sedated for the journey home. One was already loaded, next to where she was sat. Kate looked across to the man strapped to a gurney and noticed that it was Captain Cooper. Of course. This was the flight he was going to take if he was stable enough. She couldn’t help thinking that he could have been on the same flight in a box, had she not interfered, and she wondered if he would make that connection for himself. Whether it would make a difference to him. Get him to rethink whether he was glad to be alive or not. She looked across at him more closely. The thought of him being there both terrified her and comforted her.
His eyelids were fluttering in sleep, but his colour was better. Kate checked his stats on the monitor next to him. He was stable, and he was looking good. He wasn’t even sedated, but she supposed that this was more down to his stubborn attitude than his medical condition. The chopper started to get ready for take-off, and she looked out of the window at the place she had called home for the past couple of months. A few tents in the desert, and she would gladly stay another ten years than face what she was coming home to. They hadn’t been able to get Neil back on the phone, and Kate feared the worst. Her boy needed her, and she had left him to come here, to this warzone, where men killed each other daily, snuffing out life wherever they found it. What kind of mother does that, she asked herself for the millionth time. Jamie needed her, and she prayed to god that he was still alive. A god she hadn’t seen much evidence of lately. She prayed silently. Save my boy, please, save my boy. If you save him, I promise, I will put him first for as long as I live.
She hadn’t cried yet, but she knew it was coming. Her tear ducts weren’t functioning, not listening to the brain’s command to release some of the pent-up grief, worry, anger and chest-crushing fear that invaded every nerve ending of her body. All she felt was a constant stinging, a never-ending pain in her eyes, in her head. She wanted to gouge her eyes out, to stop the pain, but she concentrated on slowing her breathing instead. In, out. In, out. Her heart had not stopped racing and she was feeling light-headed. She had to get it together. A sob erupted from her and she tried to squash it down, but more came, till she was racked with them, loud throaty sobs that stung her bone-dry eyes to the quick, that made her heart stab with pain. The medics sat nearby looked at her with concern, but knew well enough to leave her be. Nothing could be done to make her feel better, and they had work to do, with the sleeping heroes surrounding them. The sobs kept coming, and Kate was panicking, her breath getting shallower with every gasp. She started fumbling with her seatbelt, desperate to get up, get away. The medic nearest to her started to shout at her, telling her to stay buckled, stay down. At take-off, anything could happen, she needed to stay the hell down. She ignored him, focusing only on the monster of panic that sat on her back, weighing her down, till she heard a strong voice close to her.
‘Sit down,’ it said. She looked across at the medic, and he was busy talking to the pilot, the headset buzzing with their concerned voices in her ear. She ripped off her headset and heard the voice again, louder this time. ‘Sit down and shut up, doc.’ She looked around her, desperate to find the source of the voice. Was she losing her mind?
Something brushed against her leg, pushing it down as she half-sat, half-stood, wrestling against her seatbelt restraints. She grabbed at the hand, and it closed around her fingers tight. Cooper was looking right at her, a mixture of pain and concern etched on his features. She was blacking out, her breath rushing in and out of her too fast to help her stricken body. He squeezed her hand, and pushed her back down into her seat. She gave up and sank down into the chair, gripping the hand tight. ‘Look at me,’ he demanded, his voice dry and husky. She looked at him then, his eyes immediately shooting through her body, pinning her in place. Those eyes, she thought to herself randomly. I saved those eyes, and now they hate me. They hate me, and my son is probably dead. Her vision started to dim a little, a tunnel of black appearing around the edges of her vision.
‘Look at me!’ the voice said again, and she locked onto those eyes again. Cooper gave a little smile, so quick she debated whether it had really been there.
‘Slow down. Concentrate on my voice, okay? Calm down. Breathe, just breathe. In,’ he said, doing it with her. ‘Out,’ he said, pushing out a slow breath, wincing at the pain he was feeling.
Kate concentrated on those eyes, and the ins and outs of her breathing, as it slowed down. The fear, like a boa constrictor around her throat, slithered looser, before slinking off to another poor mortal. She lined up her breathing with his, focusing on those pools of colour in his beautiful, pale, scratched face, and she felt a little snatch of peace. She went to move her hand away, a little embarrassed that the man who hated her was her saviour, but he gripped her tighter, not giving her an inch to wriggle away.
‘Just …’ he started, struggling with his next words. ‘Just stay, okay? I’m here. I don’t know what’s wrong, but I’m here.’
She looked at the man on the gurney in front of her. Broken, battered, bruised, angry. She thought him, in that instance of time, the most exquisite thing she had ever seen. The strongest man she had ever known, and the thought was her undoing. Silent tears ran down her cheeks as she brought her hand to meet the other, sandwiching Cooper’s strong warm one between them.
‘I’m so sorry, I am so sorry, it’s my fault, it’s all my fault,’ she said, rambling softly. She lowered her head and kissed the back of his hand, a hot tear dropping onto the skin, making the hairs stand on end. He said nothing, just ran his thumb over her fingers, holding hers fast, an anchor holding her into this moment in time. She lay back on the seat, exhausted now, and started to close her eyes. Every time she opened them it felt as though her corneas were being sliced with razor blades, so she kept them closed, focusing on the sound of the chopper blades and the feel of his steadying hand between hers. ‘I think my son is dead,’ she whispered. The hand squeezed tighter, and the tears kept flowing, silently running down onto her clothes, and their entwined hands.
Hours later, Captain Thomas Cooper woke to the sound of the medic readying his gurney for moving. The chopper was still, and Coop could hear trucks nearby, people milling around the hangar. He looked across, but the seat was empty. His hand, still wet from her tears, was placed at the side of his body on the bed and as he flexed it, he felt something in his palm. Lifting his hand, he saw a piece of paper, ripped out of a notepad, the clumsy way it was torn causing a jagged edge, softer than the harder, neater edges. He recognised the handwriting from the walls of the hospital, from the notes written on chalk boards and white boards around the tent he had been housed in. He unfolded it fully, ignoring the medics milling around him, the groans of his comrades as they were moved gently, one by one. The note read:
Thank you. I don’t deserve your kindness, but I will never forget it. Now you need to do something for yourself, you need to live. You need to fight, this is not the end for you. Please, for me, fight. Make this mean something.
Kate
Cooper refolded the note carefully, holding it tight. When the medic came back to move him, he looked at him enquiringly. ‘The doctor who was here, where did she go?’
The medic, a young lad who looked like he had not slept in months, looked at him wearily.
‘She went home, Captain. Family emergency.’
Cooper nodded. ‘Where’s home?’ he asked.
The medic shrugged. ‘No idea, man. You ready to go?’
Cooper sighed. ‘Sure, nothing else to do, have I? And it’s Captain to you.’
The medic blushed. ‘Sorry Captain. Roger that.’