Well, it's not Valentine's Day, which is probably a good thing, after rereading this blurb.
It's not quite in the festive spirit, let's put it that way. ::cough::
Inspiration source: a rewatch of Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and the beginning sequence of him joining the military and subsequently being badly injured in a helicopter crash, landing him in Walter Reed Hospital for rehab.
I'm not sure what it was about it, but the combo made me want to write Sarris in a similar situation, although my focus is on the emotional journey for her as she struggles through rehab, and not on the "life after" portion. Not yet, anyways.
Mild content warning for the scrawl in general. There's not a lot of details, but Sarris was injured in a tangle with a bomber while deployed overseas, and is not handling the end of her career as a soldier very well. It's overall darker than I tend to write and there is some talk of PTSD. Just as a head's up.
Also, I was terribly lazy in the research department and just threw in details that may or may not be accurate to how the process actually works.
(Kudos to those who can guess who the "her" is that Sarris thinks about.)
It happens nine months into her seventh deployment.
Afterwards, they tell her about her own bravery, about the lives she saved in one blind moment of reaction. It’s on the news, on the lips of her nurses, her doctor, the members of her squadron who are allowed to make the flight to see her—everywhere she looks.
All Sarris remembers is the split instant where she’d recognized the telltale signs of a bomber on that man and her body had moved itself on instinct. The instincts that had kept her alive and uninjured through every tour she’d asked for until that point.
When she wakes up in the NATO hospital in Kandahar a week later, after days of passing in and out of agonized consciousness, red hazes of pain, they tell her about the people she’d saved before they tell her the price of those actions.
She’s never going to be able to walk the same way again. Her hearing is shot on her right side, and the shrapnel she’d taken all down her back limits mobility in her right arm and means when she first regains consciousness, she can’t feel anything past her hips.
They say she’ll be getting a medal—medals, in fact—and she couldn’t have cared less. She’s not going back to the front lines, where she has lived for the past eight years of her life. Where she belongs. The only place where the innocent blood on her hands weighs a little less.
Only her CO seems to get it, somewhere in the subtext, when he comes three weeks later, right before she’s scheduled to head to Maryland and Walter Reed to undergo multiple surgeries, heal, and then start rehabilitation.
“You’re getting an honorable discharge. The doc said there’s no way you’ll be back in the field, even if you do well in rehab. You’re done, Nadir.”
“I know.”
“You did well. You had a good run and we’re going to miss you out there. I know you’ve never been much of a people person, but you should know we trusted you to watch our backs, Master-Sergeant.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ll be alright. Get through rehab. Everything else will fall in place.”
She’d had no answer for that.
Ten years of her life she’d devoted to the United States Army, with no intentions beyond giving everything she had left of herself for others. Because of those two lives she had taken, had never been convicted of. That gang—the Shedek—would always be with her, inked as deeply in her skin as they were in her soul, but that doesn't mean she will ever stop trying to erase the damage they, and by extension, her, had wrought.
And now even that had been ripped from her.
//
The flight stateside was one of the longest she’s ever endured. Even longer than three years ago, when her squad had returned home less two members.
She starts refusing the pain meds the day before she’s scheduled to ship out back to the U.S., and not even the jarring motion of takeoff and the subsequent hours of turbulence bring her to submission. It doesn't mean her three attending nurses don't offer at least half a dozen times to hit her with a shot of morphine.
The doctor that meets her two days later in another white, sterile room doesn't have much more to say than the one in Afghanistan. They’ll operate, repair as much of the damage as they can, then she's going to rehab for at least a year.
Days passes in a blur of time, beginning and ending with a blinding veil of pain. It wakes her up in the middle of the night without fail, which she never admits, even when the doctor who comes in at oh-eight-hundred on the dime every morning asks her several pointed questions about it.
It’s late summer in Maryland, which means oppressive humidity outside if there’s not another sporadic bout of heavy rain. After her surgeries are done, all three of them, Sarris goes outdoors as often as her caretakers will both take her and let her. Which isn’t often, but she needs the change of scenery if she’s not going to lose her mind.
Television has never interested her—she knows all she needs to about the state of the world (she prefers newspapers anyways) and there’s no point to watching the countless television shows that are prolific on cable—and it’s hard to find a delivery address for Amazon if she wants to order books.
The nurses are too friendly—always asking about her family, if she’s sure there’s no one she wants to call, and what a unique set of tattoos she has, what’s the story? The doctors are too repetitive—always the same information, over and over.
Sarris considers trying to get in touch with her, but knows better than to even contemplate it. Their parting hadn’t been on good terms. Even though Sarris has recognized that missing piece in her life, she knows there is a very slim chance that she’s been forgiven of the things said that day.
(“He will be the death of you.”)
And there’s nothing that she can do anyways. It’s over and all that’s left is to pick up the pieces.
A month after her final surgery and some preliminary rehabilitation, the hospital staff moves her from her too-white room to an alternate ward in a different building altogether. She isn't mobile enough to take care of herself off-site and with no family being produced, the military becomes her primary guardian. Unless she improves in leaps and bounds, enough to navigate Baltimore unaided, the hospital will remain her prison until they deem her fit for release.
As she has with everything else life has bombarded her with, Sarris bears through the torment that every waking moment is with silent neutrality.
It is not the worst storm she's ever weathered.
It may be the second most devastating, but at least it is only her that bleeds this time. No one else. Just her.
(Murderer. Killer. You deserve this. This is punishment for your crimes.)
Sarris shuts her eyes to blank out the smiling nurse and the bag of fluids she carries and wishes the disembodied voices in her head could be blocked out just as easily.
//
“Hey, Nadir!”
Silence.
“Nadir?”
Nothing.
“Oh, come on, at least it isn’t your first name.”
Continued quiet.
“Alright, fine, Master-Sergeant Nadir, would you please stop and lend me a moment of your apparently precious time?”
"What do you want, Doctor Schaefe?" She doesn't lose focus on the task at hand—one foot in front of the other, one step at a time—hating the burn in her body over something so simple as walking. The two parallel bars are warming beneath her lingering grip.
Over-friendly, incessantly inquisitive. Warm brown eyes and genuine compassion for his patients. (She fights not to see it as weakness.) He plants himself in her path, too close for comfort and there’s nowhere to go besides backwards, which sounds two times as complex as moving forward at this point. "First, you've been going for twenty minutes and need to sit down."
She looks up, meets that knowing expression, that easy-going but not to be ignored persona that's been hounding her since day one in this personal Hell, and is aware that he's correct. Her body is shaking from the effort that every step takes, perspiration beading her forehead.
That doesn’t mean she’s going to let him know it, though. Tightening her fingers around the bars keeping her upright, Sarris stares him down, unflinching.
Schaefe narrows his eyes at her, pensive, but continues speaking after a short delay. “Second, the nurse said you left even the Ibuprofen untouched this morning. Want to tell me what that's all about?”
It surprises her that this hasn't come up sooner. They all want to talk about her chronic refusal of any pharmaceuticals before long.
“No.” Sarris glances over her shoulder, where she knows her watch dog nurse is on standby, waiting for the slightest hint that her assistance is needed.
The woman comes to guide her to a nearby seat, the doctor backs off without further prying, and the soldier—the soldier wishes that was what she still were.
//
Nights are the hardest. The longest.
When the doctors are gone and the nurses settle in for the night shift. There is only beeping in the halls from computers and monitors—they sound like an IED and Sarris has to tell herself to breathe.
Darkness blankets everything, because the rest of the patients are sleeping, and the lights have been flicked off for the night.
Sarris sits upright in her bed, fingers flexing, wanting of some sort of safeguard against possible attack.
PTSD, the psychologist says when three weeks pass and her nurses grow tired of her ceaseless vigils, calling in reinforcements to deal with what they see as a problem.
Sarris doesn't disagree with him.
He's right. She spent almost eight years over there—she knows the signs, from others and in herself.
But it’s also saved her life and for Sarris, it isn’t a problem; she knows how to run on four hours of restless sleep for weeks, even months, if that’s how long it takes to disconnect her mind from the belief that she’s still on the frontlines.
And she knows how to stop herself dead in less than a heartbeat to keep from killing someone when they approach without warning.
By this time, there is no solution to it for her. There is no recovery, no treatment, there is no coming back. There is just Sarris Nadir, once gangbanger turned soldier.
You don’t want to see me on drugs; is her only explanation, skipping his prognosis of ”you have severe post-traumatic stress and need to start getting help” altogether, and knows the psychologist’s mind is racing behind his neutral expression as she gets up to leave.
//
The weather starts to turn.
Sarris watches the leave start to bronze from her glass box on the sixth floor up.
The air is too moist still, too heavy with water for her comfort. She is used to scorched earth and deserts. Lips peeling, skin cracking, nose bleeding. Air so dry it sucks the life out of everything it comes in contact with.
Humidity sets her on edge, her senses telling her something is wrong, even when she slips into brief unconsciousness.
Fall begins to bear down on them and Sarris gets quiet. Says less. Withdraws further.
She hates the crutches, hates the wheelchair, and does not pass a day without wishing that that d--n bomber had done his job as well as she’d done hers.
Bleeding out in the sand would’ve been a less cruel fate than this.
The voices in her head have no sympathy. They pleasure in the black swallowing her, the helplessness killing her.
Sarris wakes up and aches to move. She wishes for death if only to escape the weakness of the body she has relied on for so many years to be strong. There is no strength in her legs, her arm will not respond when she needs it to, and the loss of hearing in her right ear has given way to an incessant ringing in her left.
Each morning is a reminder that she is never going to run again, is never going to be able to tackle an obstacle course, fire a rifle, swing a punch, or carry a comrade like she once did.
She is a soldier to her very marrow.
And living through every day in rehabilitation is a steady stab to her soul that tells her she can no longer be.
//
Cliffhanger!Siani strikes again and I am so sorry. Inspiration cuts in and out on a regular basis for me.
But, personally, I like this scrawl. I tried to get snips of a different writing style in there, focusing more on the abstract and letting reality drift in now and then, which... sort of worked. Maybe. You can decide.
It is kind of depressing, which I apologize for. But Sarris is a person of motion, of action, and, as we catch glimpses of in this au, repaying for a crime she committed years ago. And her method of payment has been ripped away from her in one fell swoop, depriving her of drive and purpose for life. It'll take a while for her to find a new way to keep pushing forward.
Her story actually parallels quite nicely with the original storyline, although, between the different galaxy version and the here on Earth version of Sarris' story, here on Earth has quite a few less extremes.
And yes, Novarr is a rehab doctor. Don't ask me. He's one of those stupidly talented people who can do whatever they want, more or less, if they put their mind to it. I think the doctor gig was a mid-life crisis escapade. Unusual, considering most guys might buy a car, but he's an unusual sort of chap.
Is love in the air?
Hard to say. He's the bane of Sarris' existence at the moment, but he's started that way in all the other 'verses too. We'll have to see.
As always, I welcome comments, critiques, or whatever ambly, rambly thought passes through your head. Let me know, yeah?
Thank you for reading. ^_^
Ad astra per aspera.
To the stars, through difficulty.
