Little Sister

Don't call me a hero.

Please.

I'm not.

I've known heroes. I've seen people do things that still amaze me. But me? I'm just a guy; I went where I was told and did what I was supposed to do, all the while trying to maintain my no-extra-holes-no-missing-parts  warranty status.

Now Kate,  on the other hand...

'Petite' didn't come close. Everybody figured she'd passed the minimum height requirement by wearing heels or something.

And cute - distractingly cute, one might say. Good figure, curly brown hair cut shortish, eyes the colour of worn denim.

But tough. I sweated out something like 20 pounds that year. She didn't have anything like 20 pounds to lose, but she was right there, all the time, carrying her own load and a full medical bag to boot.

Oh, sure, we got other medics assigned from time to time, especially early on, but as time passed and informal teams firmed up, she became our usual.

The whole platoon worshipped her. She was our  medic, the one dropping out of choppers with us into much the wrong neighbourhoods or humping damned near her own body weight to keep up with us. Asides from the routine, against both odds and expectations, she'd kept two of us alive long enough to make it back to the Role 3 hospital and then on to the general hospital in Ramstein. We trusted her, felt safer when she was with us.

Neither simpering Barbie nor dour priss, she fit in, pulled 101 percent of her own weight. Somebody else might've been disruptive, but as far as we were concerned and in the best possible way, she was definitely one of the boys. She took the jokes with a grin, handed out her own without mercy, shared cookies, took a grateful nip when the camp bootlegger (don't roll your eyes out loud, buddy, there's always one) came up with a bottle. Sure, there was a line one didn't cross with her, but that wasn't difficult and there were always several dozen 'big brothers' watching her six.

OK, and more than just that. The rifle she carried wasn't just for decoration. Keeping casualties alive sometimes involved more than bandages and QuikClot. It had happened just once - her patients became cubs and she Mama Bear. Respect is earned and hers came in triwalls.

She was ours.

Our little sister. With fangs.

OK, yeah. So, it wasn't entirely , um, 'sisterly'. This was a woman, a very, very pretty woman, even with plum-skin fatigue under her eyes, dust head to toe and white salt stains under each arm. While any of us mutts would have come up out of our graves to protect her, I can't think of one whose eyes didn't drift quickly over her figure when she'd dumped helmet and thirty pounds of armour, nor notice that pert bottom when, inevitably, she leaned over then to shake the helmet-head out of her hair.

And then, darkest morning, our world filled with a balrog's malevolent lightning, the flat, too-loud-to-hear blast hammering our fire-bell ears, echoes of echoes, and the only one to hear Hayden's screams was sidewindering into the open on her belly, head down amidst little silent puffs of bullets hitting the dust around her, raindrops on a millpond, until she found a grip on his harness and somehow returned our shattered prodigal to us.

There was a mud-brick shed and we had them inside it in seconds, leaving her to do her work and we ours.

It took a while. The furor didn't just stop; it eventually just slowed, faded away, each separated, single shot leaving us wondering if it was to be the last.

Until it had been and then we did what we had to do - reported in, reloaded, counted heads, welcomed the traditional five-minutes-too-late arrival of close air. The usual.

When I had a free moment, I went to see about Hayden.

Blood to her elbows, she turned to me, the look on her face one of bleak devastation. It was, I think, the first time I'd ever seen her cry; silent, sobless tears covered her face.

"I could've done it!" she whispered. "He could have made it, but he wouldn't try. He just... gave up!"

The tears began to wash away a smudge of Hayden's blood on her cheekbone. I saw an open dressing pad on top of her bag and, with a man's lifelong hesitation about female tears, used it to wipe her eyes.

"He could've lived, Sergeant." Her voice was a bare whisper now. "Why?"

She sagged and the sobs finally started, beginning somewhere about fifty feet below us, growing in power and dominion as they rose and filled her slender body.

I knelt beside her and she fell onto me, her head on my shoulder. This I could do. My arms came around her, gently, stroking her back, holding her head to my shoulder. I murmured wordless noises of comfort as her body shook, shuddered with grief and failure.

The light from the door was dimmed by a platoon-sergeant-sized silhouette. I looked up and saw his eyes widen. He looked to us, then to what was left of Hayden, then back to me. After a second, he nodded briefly and turned away. Screw policy, screw the No-Fun Form. This wasn't 'fraternization' anyway.

The sobbing slowed, finished with a soft hiccup. She stayed there another minute before her arms squeezed my waist and let go. "Thanks," she whispered, then looked down at herself

"Jesus, what a mess," she muttered. Producing a tissue from somewhere, she wiped her eyes, blew her nose and then, almost as if an afterthought, reached down and closed Hayden's eyes. We used the water in Hayden's canteen to flush away most of the blood off her, then I helped her get him into a body bag. The soft sigh of the zipper closing was the harshest sound I'd ever heard.

Her eyes were wide then as she grasped me by the arm.

"Please don't tell anyone," she said. "You won't, will you?"

"Everybody's entitled to one meltdown, Doc. This was a tough one."

"No! Keep this between us. Please!"

Her eyes were locked onto mine.

"Sergeant Weinstein saw," I said.

"I can handle him."

"OK then."

"Thanks, Sarge. You're a prince."

For the first time since we'd met, she stood on tiptoe and kissed my cheek. Then the woman was gone and the medic was back, moving to see to the lesser casualties among her cubs.

I didn't see her again until we were back inside the wire and then she disappeared into her own circle.

+

I awoke in the darkness, wondering, listening. I would sleep through jets and helicopters taking off a hundred yards away and even through the thud of artillery or rockets, but one distant round of small arms fire on the far side of the base would have me off my bed, rifle in hand, pulse in my ears like a methedrine bat.

I lay still now, listening to the susurration of night noises outside the tent. It was quieter than normal. My tent was empty but for me, the others being on leave, outside the wire and such.

What had it been?

"Sarge?"

The voice was low, hesitant. Her knuckles rapped gently on the tent frame and I realized what had woken me.

"Doc? Just a second." The hell? Was somebody hurt?

I pulled on a pair of gym shorts and opened the door. Her form was outlined against the scattered tangle of camp lights. Rifle slung over one shoulder, she was dressed in a pair of civilian shorts and an issue t-shirt.

"I'm sorry to disturb you," she whispered. "I know it's late."

I tried to stifle a yawn, took a quick look at my watch. 0130.

"Z'ok, Doc. Is everything all right? What can I do for you?"

"I really need to talk, Sarge."

"Something that can't wait until tomorrow?" I saw the look in her eyes, changed my mind. Obviously not. "Hang on. I'll get dressed and we can go over to the gym. Or maybe the cooks will have coffee on or something."

"I'd prefer a bit more privacy, please. Can... may I come in? Just for a minute, I promise."

I looked up and down the line of tents. The night seemed deserted, but this would be pushing things. On the other hand, rules were sometimes guidelines...

"Of course." I stepped back out of the way.

Inside, I held open the flap of fabric marking off my cubical and she slipped past me. We had electricity by then and I fumbled for the switch. I pulled the light blanket up over the mattress (yup, one of those, too) to straighten up the bed and sat down on one end, my hand pointing at the other end in invitation. She sat, her rifle between her legs.

"So, what's up?"

Her gaze was down at the floor, her shoulders sagging.

"I just really need to talk to somebody, Paul." It was the first time she'd used my given name and it added to my curiosity.

Her voice seemed raspy, uncertain. Looking at her in the stark light of the single unshielded bulb, her eyes looked swollen.

I made a non-committal noise.

"You want some water?" I asked.

She nodded slightly.

"Please."

I fumbled under the cot, found the half-opened flat of bottled water, pulled out two.

She started to twist the lid open, found her weapon in the way. She laid it down carefully on the floor, opened the bottle, took a tiny sip, then another.

"Thanks."

"I'll put it on your tab."

I waited for her to say something, but she simply sat there.

"So, um.... You said you needed to talk. Is everything ok?"

"Yes, I do and no, it's not." She took a bigger drink, set the bottle down and looked up at me. Her eyes indeed looked like she'd been crying.

"I haven't slept for two days, not since we got back." I could see the admission was a hard one for her.

"Have you seen the stress debrief team? They're supposed to be pretty good. That was a pretty crappy day."

Her voice was almost a whisper.

"No."

I thought about that, too. A lot of people didn't want to talk to the shrinks. That a medic didn't was maybe unusual, but what did I know? In any case, she wanted this to be informal...

"Happy to talk to you, Kate, anytime, you know that." I tried, almost successfully, to stifle a yawn.

She looked contrite, reached over and touched my arm with her hand.

"I'm sorry..."

She looked at over the curtains dividing the tent into sections, her eyebrows up.

"Just us, Doc. So, what's up? Bad dreams?"

She nodded.

"In spades. And flashbacks. Hyperarousal, too. You name a symptom, I've got it." She paused, then her voice dropped even lower.

"I'm just so scared..."

"Afraid? You?" My mind flashed back to the sight of her dragging Hayden into our lines.

"I've been terrified since we got here."

Her voice was so low that I'd had to listen very hard to catch that and her confession left me a bit shaken. Mama Bear, frightened? I thought for a second.

"Anybody who says they aren't nervous around here is either a liar or a damned fool, Kate."

"I'm not 'nervous', Paul. I'm terrified!  Every time we go out that gate, it's worse. I'm afraid of getting killed, I'm terrified of being injured, I'm scared of letting you guys down, of having somebody die because I screw up."

"Um..."

"And there's nobody I can talk to. The girls in my tent are all fobbits, they never go outside. They're nice people, good troops all, but they don't know!"

I pondered the leaden weight of her last word. No, of course not. You couldn't really know until you'd been there.

"What about the other medics?" It seemed an obvious question.

"It's... complicated," she said and was silent for a bit before shaking her head.

"I've got more in common with you than I do with them." Again, she paused before continuing with a course change.

"In one sense, it's been totally hard being with this unit."

My eyebrows went up and I started to stammer some form of apology, but she cut me off.

"No, no! You guys — all of you — have been great. You've treated me super well and I'm really grateful. No bullshit, no harassment, none of the stuff they warn women about."

"But...?" I asked softly. "What's wrong?"

"I'm still the only woman with thirty-odd men. And that means all kinds of stuff. Yeah, you guys check me out -- how could I not notice? But it hasn't been greasy. Anyway, that's not it.

"I'm the only woman here and that kinda means I represent all women in uniform. Oh, I'm pretty sure I could get special treatment, just 'cause I'm female. I could moan and piss about being the smallest person and somebody would probably carry some of my kit. That sort of crap."

She gave a momentary wry grin.

"Sounds totally stupid, now that I'm saying it out loud. But it's true! I keep thinking of what the guys'd would say if I pulled the girly card. Oh, yeah. Her. She was ok. For a girl...

"I don't think so," I said. "They really admire you, Doc. We all do."

"Yeah, well, maybe. They're nice, but I couldn't talk to any of them, not about this. But you  were there when I needed it. Don't you see?"

Her face turned towards me for a second, her eyes looking for something - reassurance, maybe.

"I'm still petrified,  Paul. Absolutely shaking every time we mount up."

"Me, too," I admitted -- and saw the surprise on her face. "I think everybody is. The important thing is that you've never let us down, Kate. Shakes or not, you do a good job."

I thought for a moment.

"Maybe I shouldn't be saying this, but I think you're being written up for what you did out there."

"That's stupid. I let him die." The bitterness in her voice could have been used to poison scorpions.

"Bullshit!" I hissed. I saw the impact my tone had on her face and tried again. "You crawled through everything they could throw at you to try and save him. All by yourself. If you were a guy, they'd be big brass ones."

She sat silently before whispering.

"You know the last time I wasn't scared, Paul?"

I shook my head.

"When you held me for a minute. Back with Hayden."

I was suddenly alarmed. Rules can be overlooked when there's enough smoking brass on the ground, but this was different. Just having her in my tent-space was a serious no-no, for starters.

"Doc..."

"No," she said. "I know the rules and I don't want to get either of us in trouble. But I've been wandering the base all night, afraid to lie down, afraid to sleep."

She looked up at me, her face almost pleading.

"You know what I need? I could really use a hug right now. Nothing more, please, but I'd die for a hug, just some human warmth, just for a minute."

Yeah, red flags and alarm bells and I can't say I wasn't aware of how pretty she was. But, I thought, here was a hurting soldier, somebody in need of help.

Just for a moment, then...

I shuffled over closer to her on the bed, extended an arm.

She flowed up against me, melted against me, her body warm in the night. I was suddenly aware of the scent of her shampoo and tried very hard to ignore it.

Her breathing slowed down, her body relaxed more against mine. Her low voice came from under my arm.

"Thanks, Paul. I really needed this."

"No problem."

It was awkward, though. I was working very hard to not think of her as a highly desirable woman.

"May I ask you something, Doc?"

"Go."

"Is it your losing Hayden that's hurting you? I know, professional loss and all that, but he was pretty messed up."

"Partly. It was my job and he died, so, yeah, guilt. But I guess it's not just that. And it's not just being physically afraid -- although I am."

She took a deep breath, let it out slowly.

"I'm afraid of being seen as a pussy."

I could tell how much that admission had cost her, too.

"Don't be silly, Kate," I said, squeezing her shoulder briefly. "Cards read and the boys know what you do. Nobody thinks you're a coward. Especially not after two days ago."

"I'm the only woman in a platoon of men. Women have to work twice as hard to be thought half as good. Look, what if you'd been the only man in an all-female platoon and one of them was wounded. How would you, as a guy, have felt about it? Would you have waited for one of the girls go out there?"

I thought about that.

"I think I see. Different dynamic, but ok."

"I had to, Paul. There wasn't a choice for me."

I ran my hand over her head, down her back in a comforting way and stopped dead. I hadn't noticed it before, but there was no bra strap under my fingers. I stopped petting and pulled her into another squeeze.

"Doc, listen to me. You're a good troop, a good medic and the guys adore you. You're no sissy and — listen to me!   — you've got nothing to prove to anybody. You're not chicken. But..."

"But?"

"Tomorrow, you're going to go in and talk to the stress team...."

"I can't..."

"You fucking will! That wasn't a request and you cannot deal with this by yourself. Discussion ends."

I waited.

"The answer I'm waiting for is, 'Yes, Sergeant'."

Her slim form sagged a little in my arms, then she straightened up.

"Yes, Paul. I will."

Close enough.

I pulled away from her. She looked incredibly vulnerable. On impulse, I stepped further over the line, bent over and kissed her forehead lightly.

"Good girl."

The bluest eyes, even in the light of one bulb...

"Now git. I don't want to ruin our pristine reputations, Doc. And I'll be checking, count on it."

She rose and I stood up.

"Thanks," she said softly, then was again with her arms around me for a long, strong hug. I was very aware of her breasts against my bare chest, separated by one layer of t-shirt. Then, with one brief, chaste, career-burning kiss on my lips, she was out of the tent.

So, yeah, it took me a while to get back to sleep.

+

The tour ended, as they all do, one way or another.

She'd not come to my tent again and our relationship had been utterly professional after that. She'd gone home first. There'd been a parade shortly before that and, yes, the general pinned a shiny on her. Word filtered back that she'd taken her release, applied to be an Emergency Medical Technician.

When I got back myself, I took the leave coming to me, looked at my options and considered that I already had 20 pensionable years in. My knees demanded a vote and I found that the idea of being a student again had surprising popular support. For some reason, I chose psychology. The Army would pay tuition and the pension meant I didn't have to live on rice and beans.

We hadn't kept in touch. I'd thought of it, once or twice, but had chalked it up as one of those 'ships in the night' things.

Until the afternoon my phone hummed with an incoming text.

Is it you?

I frowned, sick to death of spam and phishing. Then I saw her name and my thumb moved away from the delete icon.

It's been over a year,   I thought to myself. I was shaken to realize that I couldn't picture her face, but had no trouble remembering the smell of her shampoo.

who else? hows it going?

ok. its taken me forever to find u.

It turned out we weren't all that far apart now, a day's drive. She'd aced her EMT training — no surprise — and had had no trouble finding a job. Yes, she was enjoying it. My courses were going well. No, I hadn't really decided what to do with my degree. The trauma debrief had helped, thanks, Sarge. Thanks back for keeping us going over there, Doc.