Rachel Dove - The Long Walk Back

‘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.