The Long Walk Back

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.’

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