The burns on my back were tight, but not too bad. No worse than stitches or staples, even if the injuries did cover a larger area. They'd healed pretty well, with Miss Lily-Rylee helping me take care of them. I looked at them in the mirror after I took a shower and for the most part they were just splotches of pink now on my back. Which was weird, it made the scars really stand out.
There were a lot of smaller scars missing now. The rune Aine had carved in my shoulderblade was still there and for a moment it made me irrationally angry.
It had been to protect me.
But Pru was dead, and I hurt so bad inside.
I ate breakfast, just two fried eggs and a piece of toast, left the plate and fork on the counter, and went out to the back deck to smoke a cigarette. I just stared at the woods surrounding my little house...
...my empty house
and smoked cigarettes, going through the jar of sun-tea slowly.
The crunching of the gravel let me know that someone was here. I sighed, put out the cigarette, and went back into the house. It was Doc what's his name and another guy in a relaxed brown suit.
Probably the psych.
They knocked on the door and I wandered over to open it.
"Morning, Texas," Doc said. "This is Doctor Planter, can we come in?"
"Sure, Doc," I said, turning around and walking away. They came in, shutting the door behind them. I flopped back on the couch. The Doc walked over and pulled a chair out.
"Let's get a good look at you again, Texas," he said.
I sighed, stood up, and moved over to the chair, limping slightly.
The Doctor went through the doctor things. Blood pressure, a little on the high side of normal for a man my age and size, still six-two, a little heavy at two-twenty since I'd gotten soft over the years, but other than the burns on my back I was doing pretty good.
"You've been leading a sedentary life the last few years?" The Doc asked me.
"Yeah," I nodded.
"Office?" He asked me.
I nodded. "Last ten years of so I've mainly been going to meetings, stuff like that. Real estate development, working with the Governor, stuff like that," I told him. I thought for a moment. "Now that I think about, I haven't even walked more than from the limo to the boardroom in years. I did work out now and then but nothing like I used to."
"You need exercise, get outside more," Doc told me. "You're a large man. You need to exercise regularly if you don't want to get fat. You're old enough you need to start watching your diet too."
I nodded.
"Other than that, your burns are healing nicely. That knee of yours we'll need to keep our eye on, but it should be all right for a few years," Doc told me. He leaned back in the chair. "I received a copy of your medical records, and I have to say, Mister English, you should have been under a doctor's care years ago."
I shrugged. "I feel fine."
He nodded. "Still, I want you to come to my office next week. I'm going to write you a couple of consults. I want to see what's going on in your chest, for one. X-ray that knee of yours," He tapped his folder. "But, we can check all of that next week."
The Doc got up, putting his stuff in his bag. I put back on my T-shirt and flannel.
"I'm Doctor Planter, Mister English. Doc Rutheford asked me to come see you," the other man said, stepping forward and holding out his hand. I stood up, shaking it. Afterward he waved at the couch. Let's get more comfortable, shall we?"
I nodded, moving over to the couch.
"I will see you next week, Mister English. My secretary will call you and set up the appointment. For now, you can go back to normal activities, including moderate exercise, just remember to stay hydrated," Doc Rutheford said.
"Thank you, Doctor," I told him.
"And remember to take your medications," He said, right before he shut the door.
We were silent for a moment before Doctor Planter cleared his throat.
"The VA gave me a redacted copy of your mental health treatment and history," He said. "Rutheford listed me as your primary mental health care physician and between that and the fact I used to work for the VA treating prior service, I was able to get a much better copy. Still largely redacted, but much more clear."
I just nodded, knowing this was the part where he let me know he was informed and could treat me.
"The biggest thing I noticed was that you received no mental health treatment once you left the service, and your separation was rather sudden in the beginning of 1992," he said. "Is there any reason for that?"
I shrugged. "The VA at Waco was understaffed."
"Did you see any private psychologists?" He asked me.
I shook my head. "No. I had nightmares for a little while, but they eventually went away," I told him. "Nothing like flashbacks or anything like that. I never really went in for the game hunting trips a lot of my peers did or anything like that, I'm not really a gun nut or anything," I shrugged. "I got out, I was fine."
He nodded. "So you feel your nervous breakdown was more in line with your wife dying?"
I looked down at my hands. "I think so. I don't know what came over me, what happened."
"How are you handling your wife's death now?"
I thought about it. I almost told him how angry it made me that she left me all alone, how now I was lost in a world I didn't understand because she was gone. I didn't. "I'm coping with it."
He just nodded, his face carefully neutral. "Do you have any hobbies?"
I pointed at the X-Box sitting in front of the TV. "A friend is getting me into online gaming."
"Any addiction history?" He seemed to change the subject.
"I had an alcohol abuse problem when I was in the military, but now I only drink socially. Usually at parties and the like, and even then only a glass or two of wine," I told him. "I don't even really have the urge to drink."
Another note. "Your file shows multiple high intensity conflicts, multiple injuries from enemy action, including getting shot in the head by an enemy agent," He said.
"Yeah," I shrugged. "He tagged me good, but I've never really noticed any problems from it."
Another note. "It says here you were captured by the KGB, along with two other members of your unit, and exposed to 'enhanced interrogation' for a period of two weeks. That means tortue doesn't it?"
I nodded. "Physical, psychological, and sexual. We'd received training on how to endure such things, and I didn't really come out with any problems."
"It says you're a victim of sexual assault?" He made a note.
I nodded. "During my capture."
Another note. "It says here that you went for long periods of time, severely injured, without proper medical care."
I shrugged. "I survived it, and the people keeping me alive did their best."
"Says here you were caught up in explosion that killed thirty people," He stated. "Most of them you'd known for over a year."
I nodded. "Yeah. That one was bad. I got lucky, only broke my arm, that's how I got the fixators in my arm."
Another note and he nodded slowly. "Your psych evaluations show you've consistently scored high for recovery and are what's known as fairly stable."
I smiled. "Thanks."
Doctor Planter made a note. "All right. I want to stick with anti-anxiety medication for right now, along with some pills to help you sleep and another for mood regulation. Any intrusive thoughts?"
Pru doesn't like you talking to people about this stuff
"No," I smiled.
"Any unusual behavior?" He asked me.
"Just the manic phase during my nervous breakdown," I told him, shrugging.
tell him about that weird thing with the door locks...
...that's just a nervous habit
"All right. Here's my card," he set it down on the coffee table. "Call me if you're in crisis or having thoughts of harming yourself or others, all right."
I smiled. "Sure thing, Doc."
I could see the doubt in his eyes as he stood up. I walked him to the door, shook his hand, and closed the door behind him.
I managed to hold off until he left before locking and unlocking the door three times.
I sighed, sitting down on the couch. After a minute I got up, walking through the house, checking behind the doors, in the closets, doing a sweep of the house. Once I finished with that, I unlocked the back door and went out to check the sheds, the pump shed, then the trucks.
Satisfied I went back in, doublechecked the locks, and sat back down, digging out my cigarettes. I sat there and smoked, cracking the window.
The doctor had laid out a lot of stuff I didn't really think about. It wasn't that I never thought about it, it's just I quickly found something else to think about or do to take my mind off of it. I'd never really talked to anyone about any of it, especially after Colonel John Henry (No Relation) had broken up the Atlas Crew and Echo Five Actual.
I'd been busy running my site, Tony had been busy running his. After I'd gotten out, there'd been no reason to talk about it, nobody I really wanted to share the stories with. You didn't talk to strangers about getting ambushed and nearly killed by a KGB agent, and Prudence didn't like the stories. They frightened her, gave her bad dreams, and made her fear for me.
In some ways, the events had effected Pru, who hadn't been there, more than they had effected me.
but she's dead
and left me behind
Could it all really be effecting me over a decade later? Could Pru's death really have effected me that much?
God, just thinking about the fact she was dead was enough to make my chest ache.
Every time I tried to think of the trauma inducing incidents I could hear Pru's voice telling me not to talk about or think about those things. That I'd survived, wasn't that enough? That I'd come back to her, and that was all that mattered.
And that's how I'd looked at it all.
I'd survived. I wasn't Tony, who they just kept grinding away at, slicing away bits and pieces of him until by Desert Storm there was almost nothing left of the man I'd become best friends with. I wasn't Heather, my very eyes altered by the things I had suffered, sent again and again into situations where she was surrounded by death and suffering her medical skills couldn't prevent.
I was just a Texas boy, caught up in things bigger than myself, and the realities of the Cold War had been cold hard mathematics, nothing personal.
Alfenwehr, and everyone about it, was over a decade and a continent away, with no way to reach me, no way to draw me back in.
The house was quiet as I sat there, smoking cigarettes, and looking at the window at the grass around the double-wide mobile home. It would need cut again soon, and the dumpster had the room for it.
I'd make some sun-tea and do it tomorrow. Ride the lawn-mower around, drink tea, and work on the yard. Maybe get the fishing pole and go see if there was a good fishing spot on the creek that ran through the property. If there was, I'd cut a trail back to the house maybe.
Hell, if it was a nice enough spot I might even move a chair down there or build a little private nook that I could sit, drink iced tea, and relax with a fishing rod in my hand.
I couldn't remember the last time I'd gone fishing just to fish.
I'd gone on a few fishing trips in the Gulf of Mexico, but I'd largely watched other people fish, watched other people fight with the swordfish and huge tunas they'd caught. I just hadn't been interested in joining.
I'd caught a swordfish before, Heather, me and Tony strapped to chairs in the back of a fishing boat in the Med, the girls sunbathing on the deck while we fished. Fighting with the fish for so long the guide was injecting B vitamin shots right into our shoulders.
It made the fishing trips with suited businessmen seem pale and washed out by comparison, so I hadn't really felt like joining in. It was all safe, all so...
sterile.
Nobody risks the lives of men like I'd gone fishing with in the Gulf.
I sighed, putting out my cigarette.
where had everything gone wrong?
Why had everything gone wrong?
Who are you, Sam English?
I'm nobody.