"What's up, shit for brains?"

I grin as First Sarn't Sorren's greeting burns down my spine. The phone hasn't even rung once on my end before he’s picked up. "Good to hear your voice, First Sarn't."

"Yeah, well, keep your panties on. How's civilian life treating you?"

"I'm not sure," I admit.

"What do you mean, you're not sure? You either like it or you’re regretting your life choices. Which is it?"

I rock back in my chair, needing a hell of a lot more than coffee for this conversation so early in the morning. And it’s an hour earlier back at Hood. But as a senior NCO, First Sarn't Sorren is already at work. Probably has been for hours. Because that's just how we were wired.

"It's good, I guess. I'm working at this place in Durham. A bar. The owner does a lot for vets in the area."

"Yeah? Sounds like the kind of place I need to tell my daughter to avoid when she comes out there for college next year."

I grin, imagining him dropping his kid off at college. "Yeah, well, we have a couple of guys who need your size twelves up their ass, that's for sure."

He makes a noise. "I've got plenty of those around here." He clears his throat roughly. "So, what's up with Sarn't Ryder?"

"She pulled up here a couple of months ago."

"I figured that out already, dickhead," he grumbles.

God, I love this man. Anyone else would be terrified of him but I know him. I've bled downrange with him.

He's got a warrior's soul and… Jesus, I've been around college kids too damn much if I'm thinking about him like that.

I opt not to tell him that.

"She's not sleeping. She won’t admit it. She seems stressed the fuck out and I don't know how to reach her."

He's silent for a long moment. I glance at the screen to make sure he hasn't hung up on me. "Can you get her to the VA?"

I make a rude sound. "Do you really want me to answer that?"

"Probably not."

"What do I do? I don't want her to end up as just another statistic but she won't fucking talk to me. Or anyone, for that matter. At least not that I know of."

"No family, right?"

"Not that I know of. We were her family."

He sighs hard. "Look, I'll be out there next week for a campus visit with my daughter and training down at Fort Bragg. Want me to come up?"

I try to imagine what Kelsey's reaction would be if First Sarn't Sorren walked into The Pint. I have a hard time picturing it but I imagine it would have to be good. She'd do anything for him. Just like I would. "Yeah, I think that would be good, actually." I frown into the phone. "What are you doing at Bragg?"

"Some stupid ass school the Army is sending me to in order to be a sergeant major."

"No shit? Wait, I thought the Sergeants Major Academy was out at Fort Bliss."

"It is. This is something different. Some resilience bullshit with the Special Ops community there."

I laugh. "Holy shit, they're putting you in charge of resiliency? That's like putting a porcupine in charge of free hugs at the petting zoo."

"Fuck you and the civilian horse you rode in on," he says roughly.

I'm still grinning. God, but it's good to talk to him. "Yeah well, for what it's worth, I think you'd do a damn good job. The battalion is lucky you're getting promoted. It'll keep the officers out of trouble, if nothing else."

He laughs. "You have no idea how much of my job that already is."

"We've got a good one here. The guy I was telling you about? The one who owns the bar? Believe it or not, he's a West Pointer, too. Imagine that."

First Sarn't makes a noise. "Some really great people come out of West Point."

"Yeah, I know. It's only about ten percent who are raging dickbags." Exhibit A: Caleb the Destroyer.

"And on that, we agree. Anyway. With Ryder, just be there for her, you know? Sometimes, you have to force your way into these things. Especially when someone doesn't know how to ask for help."

I know the feeling all too well. My throat closes off. My eyes burn. "How do you do it? How do you tell someone that what we did matters? When nothing we did over there matters?"

He doesn't answer for a long moment. When he finally speaks he says, "You can't judge things the way they are now. When we left, things were getting better. When I got back, our counterparts were glad to see us." He clears his throat roughly. "You have to believe that what we do matters. In the moment. Not down the road. Not looking back on it. In that moment."

"Do you believe that?" My voice is rough. It burns, deep inside my chest, an ache that will never heal.

"I have to," he says simply.

That's not encouraging. What happens when we stop believing in what we've done? What happens when we see the futility of it all? The pointlessness when the country we lied to ourselves about tears itself apart because of what we did? The senseless loss of life for a war that none of us believed in when we went and most of us question when we come home?

"I wish I still did," I say quietly.

"I can't help you with that. But I'll tell you this much. Dwelling on how pointless everything was is a fool’s journey. We can't control the larger mission. All we can do is take care of those around us. The bigger picture stuff? You're right—none of that matters. Did you take care of your brothers and sisters around you? Did you do your best to bring everyone home? That's the only thing that matters."

I want to agree with him. I want that certainty of belief. That coherence of thinking about the world that makes it easier to sleep at night. But I'm not sure I do. I'm not sure I ever did.

"That helps," is all I say instead.

"Stay with her. Tell her you love her. That you're there. Whether she wants you to be or not." He pauses. "I mean that in the non-stalker sense of it."

I laugh. "Yeah, I kind of figured that."

"Shut up, dickhead. I'll see you next week."

When Deacon asked me about the VA, I could have told him about this: about the lines and the questioning and the skepticism that I'd actually been to combat.

All to get a refill on prescription meds that I can't get through school without a fucking psych eval. To get a woman's health exam that I need every year because of some stupid policy that says I have to, whether I think I need it or not.

I'm pretty sure the universe is fucking with me. Either that or the lady in the Veterans Administration office got some message from the powers that be that I kicked puppies in a former life.

I haven't had nearly enough coffee or vodka to deal with this shit at barely nine a.m. on a Tuesday.

I swallow my righteously bitchy response and smile instead. Honey versus vinegar and all that, right?

I'm not Sarn't Ryder anymore. I can't make people do what I want, especially not a civilian who looks overworked and underpaid.

"I'm the sponsor," I say sweetly, responding to her question about my nonexistent husband's social security number.

My sweetness apparently isn't enough to establish even the tiniest human connection.

She doesn't smile in return. She looks at me like I'm a burden, as opposed to the reason why she has a fucking job. Was that bitchy? That sounded bitchy. And entitled. It's probably a good thing I’ve kept it to myself, then, isn't it?

"Oh, do you have your DD214, then? So I can verify your eligibility to receive care here?"

My blood pressure is rising. If this keeps up, I'm going to be on blood thinners before I'm thirty. "Ma'am, you are the fifth person I've talked to this month. Every single time, I get asked for my discharge paperwork and every single time, they tell me I won't have to provide it again. So please, at what point are you going to update the system so that my service has been verified and I can start getting treatment?"

My words are tight. Annoyed.

I'm reaching the end of my patience. Again. Which doesn't get me any closer to a refilled prescription. Along with maybe getting a referral to a counselor who isn't a complete fucking lunatic like the last one I paid for out of pocket.

Her expression doesn't budge. "Do you have your discharge paperwork or not?"

I hand the paperwork over and hope my expression is blank enough that she can't read the blazing fuck you that's flashing over my head.

"And why are you here today?"

Same questions. Different person. End result? Me not getting an appointment. Again. "I need some referrals. An annual well-woman exam. And I'm seeking to get reevaluation of my medical records to tie certain conditions to military service in combat and to get my characterization of service changed."

It's a dirty little secret that unless you have an honorable discharge, the VA gets even more complicated than it already is.

And my characterization of service was not honorable. So there's that.

I might as well go rob a bank.

She frowns and looks down at my paperwork. "There's nothing here that says you were in combat. Or that you're entitled to services at the VA."

I hand her two sets of orders that deploy me and redeploy me to Iraq. "I was stationed at Taji, both times. I ran more than three hundred combat logistics patrols in my two tours. I am a combat veteran and therefore eligible for treatment at the VA.”

She shakes her head and hands all the paperwork back to me. “You’re going to need to provide verification of combat exposure before we can consider any reevaluation. This discharge paperwork says you weren’t honorably discharged. I’m not sure we can help you."

I can feel the enamel chipping off my teeth. "And what does that verification need to look like? Because I've got my combat tour award, the citation for the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star with Valor, and a letter from my former battalion commander, all verifying that yes, I served in actual fucking combat on these two tours."

She doesn't flinch at my profanity. I suppose she's probably used to it. "Let me make copies and run them through our review process. I'll call you when your case is decided."

My hands are shaking. I bunch my fists and hide them behind the counter. I won't give in to the frustrated rage. I won't. "I'm out of my sleep medication. Is there any way I can be seen while we're waiting for this to be adjudicated?"

"I'm sorry. Until we've verified that you're eligible to receive care, you're going to have to wait like everyone else."

You ever have that moment when you feel like you've been assigned to that waiting room in Beetlejuice? And you're stuck for eternity sitting between a dude with a shrunken head and the headhunter who did it to him?

That's how I feel, standing in the lobby of the VA, trying to convince this woman that yeah, I'm a veteran, too.

This entire organization is the biggest lie. It’s a fucking fraud.

I'm trying really hard not to be bitter that the medical treatment I need is being arbitrarily denied on the whims of a bureaucrat who decides who gets to see a doctor or who gets moved onto the eternal waiting list.

That's what they should call it. The Eternal Waiting List to Hell.

But none of that bitterness gets me treated. None of it changes the fact that I got the shit blown out of me, among other things, and I can't get fixed. I've been biding my time, treading water, through legal and other means that we won't talk about, hoping that at some point I'll get seen by a real doctor.

"Could you step to one side so I can get to the gentleman behind you?" she says after a moment when I refuse to move.

"I'm not finished, ma'am," I say tightly. "If we assume that eventually, I will be deemed eligible to receive care, is this VA even capable of providing the services I need?"

She blinks, unfazed by my tone. "It's not my job to engage in hypotheticals."

I can feel it: the need for a drink. The burning grit behind my eyes telling me to try and sleep even though I know I won’t be able to. I'm not even fighting it anymore. I gave that up a long time ago.

I leave the VA, barely managing to remain polite, and move out smartly. It’s definitely time to start burying the day in a coffee laced with Baileys and vodka.

Again.