I woke up again to Bushwhacker and Kahlan arguing in the hallway.
"What? What's going on now?"
Bushwhacker stuck his head back inside the room.
"You're going home. To the Chateau, anyways. Your lady here..." I heard a cough "...Says we need to be careful with your leg, and we can't risk bending it. I'm trying to tell her that you'll be fine once we get you into the jet."
"Jet?"
"Private charter. Medevac back home. This area's too close to the shit to keep you here for another month, and these doctors suck. Echo's call, not mine. HM's saying the same thing, we are not going to risk anyone knowing you're here."
"Kahlan, Bushwhacker's not going to screw up my leg. Let him do his job."
"Soren, the stitches won't hold up to much strain. You need to be careful."
My wife used that same tone of voice.
"I'll be fine, Kahlan."
Bushwhacker's phone rang and he tapped his earpiece. "Yeah, copy that. ETA 15."
He shut his phone off and fished into his backpack.
"It's time, Soren."
"Good. I fucking hate hospitals. People die in these places."
Then he handed me a pistol.
"Oh, it's like that, then?"
I checked the chamber and mag, then tucked it under the blanket. I'm not a trooper, but even for a pilot, this was undignified. I'm a professional, it's just not right to be shooting from a moving hospital bed.
PAYBACK Dynamics: Art of the Tactical Bed.
"Bushie, if I have to shoot someone from a hospital bed while half-naked, it's going to be embarrassing for everyone present. You'd better defend my dignity."
"Dude, you've been shitting in a bedpan for eight days. Dignity is that thing you had, and can never get back."
"Oh, right. Just get me on the plane before I start shooting at random stuff."
There was an ambulance waiting outside. I'd actually never been in one and conscious before. Bushwhacker did a good job of getting me into the ambulance, I only wanted to shoot him once. The trip to the airport went smoothly, and we were airborne before I got to shoot at anything. Once they'd strapped me into the airplane, it wasn't long until I fell asleep again.
I woke up over the Atlantic. Bushwhacker was sleeping, and had apparently found the plane's minibar.
Good for him, he needs a day off.
"Kahlan, you awake?"
"Yes," came the reply "you up for talking? For the book?
"Yeah, it's story time."
"Mind if I record this?"
"Not really. You want I should start at the beginning?"
"Yeah, sure."
"OK, so the first job was in Best Korea. North Korea, it was back then..."
As war stories go, mine have never been the stuff of legends and medal citations, instead being the stuff of police reports and FBI investigations. I've spent a decade flying for PBE, and in that time have gotten more than my share of blood on my hands. I've killed people with rifles and pistols, I've dropped explosives on them, and even gotten personal with a knife a few times. That's excluding the kill squad that started it all.
No one really talks about the killing, we all understand that it's impossibly rare to find someone who's going to get it. The people who join up to kill people normally get killed pretty quick, they're not in it for the job, and they go off mission and get shot. A few of them have been retired, several by my hand. That sort of thing is simply impossible to explain to civilians, so no one does.
But shit, it was good to tell the story. I'll give Kahlan credit, once that tape recorder started, she only threw up once. She's seen my blood all over an airplane, but hearing me talk about the early days, when PBE worked with knives as often as gunfire, it just wasn't something she was ready for. I've never really gotten a thrill from killing the way a few of the troopers do, but I enjoyed my work as a pilot, and I was very good at it.
I'd told the story of the first years when the tape recorder started clicking. That thing had been running for six hours. Kahlan wasn't looking at me directly anymore, that had stopped when I'd started talking about that clusterfuck in Burma. I thought I saw the beginnings of tears in her eyes.
Shit. It doesn't look like this is going to end pleasantly.
We landed at the Chateau at dawn. Hotaru and the medical staff was there to debrief me. At least this time I had a wheelchair.
"Boss, I don't know if I'll be back on active duty very soon."
"Oh, that's fine, Soren," Hotaru was wearing that grin of his. "Once Echo's got you back on your feet, several of the training cadre have offered their rehabilitation services. They feel they can accelerate the healing process if they take shifts."
"How nice of them."
"Only the best, company motto. Miss, how is the research for your book going?"
Kahlan coughed. "Well, I think I've got plenty of raw data, the trick will be telling the story. I should have a manuscript in a few weeks."
"Wonderful. I'm looking forward to it. In the mean time, feel free to spend some time talking to Soren, who's off active duty for a while."
She walked into my quarters a few hours later.
"Your boss wants..." She began.
"Wants us to end up together." I cut her off. "I know, and while I don't know why, I know he's pushing it. Fuck. This. Shit."
"What?"
"Look, you're a nice lady, so I'll be honest. I'm getting older, but I'm not going to retire for another decade. You know as well as anyone what I do for a living, and why I keep doing it. You're a nice lady, but being a family man was a dream I gave up over a decade ago, and I don't know if you're going to be OK with living with a merc. It's not for everyone, you know that."
"Soren...why did you say that? You just shut me down and locked me out, didn't even give me a chance to tell you what I thought. Do you do that to everyone?"
"Just the ones I like."
She laughed. Not a cynical laugh, either, but an honest-to-God laugh, something born of amusement.
"You never did learn anything, did you? I've seen you at your very worst, heard you talk about darker days than I've ever read in a novel. But you know what I saw? I didn't see the stone-cold killer you are when you have to be, I saw the nice guy you are when you're off the clock. Soren, you're a good man, who just happens to be paid to do horrific things to people.
"Soren, You've spent a decade killing people, or helping other folks kill people, and you're still that awkwardly-nice guy that I knew back in college. You're in the shit, but you don't smell like it. For all you've done, you haven't let it corrupt you. There are dogs in that yard out there that are going to have to be put down one day. You know that, and it still bothers you. You don't mind the killing, but you hate that it has to be done.
"I listened to you talk for six hours about a job you hate, but one you do because you won't trust anyone else to do it right. Back in college, no one understood that. You'd even state it, but no one got it. I get it now."
"Kahlan," I held up a hand. "Do you know,"
"Shut the fuck up, Soren, before you disappear for another decade of my life."
"What?"
She kissed my hand, then gave me a hug.
"Soren, we both know who we are," she said into my shoulder. "Let's see where this goes. Get back on your feet, take some time off, and show me the world. Remember how I wanted to travel?"
"Yes, ma'am."
The End.
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