Survivor's guilt: Feeling guilty about having survived a traumatic event. A common feature is blaming oneself for not being able to save the others involved.
Survivor
Why isn't it you lying there on the ground and being covered by some kind of blanket?
You watch dully as the people around you go about business as usual: the medics shuffle around and try to patch up the injured as good as possible, give them meds for the pain and send them off to Bethesda in an ambulance if necessary. Meanwhile firemen do what they can to search for the missing, most likely buried beneath the debris. The smoke in the air weighs heavily on your lungs.
A young woman approaches you and asks if you're alright. You just shake your head. You don't feel anything. She makes you sit down and continues asking you questions about your name, your job, everything that comes to her mind. A small gasp escapes her lips as she sees your forearms and hands. Slowly you follow her gaze and the sight of the reddened and slightly burnt flesh makes you sick. It smells like someone made bacon for breakfast. You watch the woman do something but you don't feel anything. She makes you focus on her finger, probably trying to figure out whether you have a concussion or not. No matter how hard you try you can't keep your eyes on her finger. What does it matter if you've got a concussion? People are dead!
There are so many things going on around you and you can see Agent Langston, stripped on a gurney, ready for his transport to Bethesda no more than ten metres away from you. He seems barely alive. As the medics close the door you see them ripping off his shirt and preparing to use a defibrillator. You swallow heavily and close your eyes, praying to a higher power that he'll make it for the sake of his three children- four, his wife's pregnant with number four already.
It should be you in that ambulance fighting for your live. It should be you on the ground waiting for the ME to take care of you.
Yes, if anyone than it should be you. You've got no real family to speak of. Apart from your work you've no social life. It's not like you haven't tried to have one. You did and you tried to befriend people, but it's not easy being friends to someone and lying about your job at the same time.
Your phone is lying on the ground next to you. The display is cracked and you can't help but to wonder if someone will call you, just to make sure you're alright and if someone cares about you at all.
It was the bloody Navy Yard and HQ of NCIS and not just some tree-house Dearing attacked- the pictures must be all over the news. Whenever something dreadful happens the cameras aren't afar. You don't know why people like to watch others suffer on telly. You really don't.
Just then your phone vibrates. You don't even greet whoever called you. You don't feel like talking at all. It feels like something big is stuck inside your throat, something that makes you choke as you open your mouth to speak. The voice on the other end of the line sounds anxious, and concerned. You let its owner babble without even hearing what is being said, but it still feels good that someone called you. They tell you to take care and that they love you. But you can't believe them.
You should be dead.
You'd be better off dead for everyone you ever met in your life.
It is beyond your understanding why God would let your live and take the lives of those who are needed, have a family and will be dearly missed, who have someone that will cry for days on end.
Someone puts a blanket around your shoulders and wishes you to get better soon. Then they're gone.
You bury your face in your hands and are shaken by silent sobs. Damn, why are you crying?
You should be happy that you survived the bombing and that you're not one of the dead bodies lying on the cold, hard ground waiting to be taken to the morgue. You should be lucky to be alive. But you've never ever felt more miserable in your entire life before.
As a federal agent you should be used to see people dying.
Hell, you even killed a few yourself. They deserved it. Your colleagues, on the other hand, did not. They have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. They're just casualties. Deaths that won't matter to people who see this in the news, deaths that will be forgotten in a few days and you know that it is wrong, because they so do not deserve to be forgotten. They have people who will mourn them, people who will have to learn how to live with a whole inside their chest for the rest of their life until they're over it just like society expects them to be.
You shiver. Sudden cold creeps into your bones and you feel nauseous.
A hand squeezes your shoulder in support and you jump, nearly shooting the person next to you. The next moment, however, you're glad you haven't pulled the trigger. It is your mentor, who slowly sits down next to you and pulls you into a one-arm-embrace. You welcome his warmth and his silence.
If anyone does then he is the one that truly understands you. His presence makes you feel safe and secured. You feel that his hands are shaking as he hands you your inhaler. You feel selfish for thinking you'd be better off dead earlier on. Your mentor would miss you, maybe. And he would have killed you, if you had died today. You're a survivor. For better or worse, but you're too tired to think about it. You exchange a small smile with the older man beside you and then lean against him, closing your eyes. He'll keep you safe and sound.
"What's a four letter word for surviving a terroristic attack?" you hear Gibbs ask as he is about to leave the squad room. Some dark power seems to be radiating from him.
You know that the MCRT has a close tab on Dearing, maybe even closer than he FBI. You've been eavesdropping on their conversations for hours now. In secret, of course. You shudder as you think that David could kill you with a paperclip.
And you hope that they'll make him pay for what he's done, that they'll kill him and that they won't give him a chance to talk to a lawyer. He doesn't deserve this. You're very imaginative when it comes to ways of make Dearing pay. But it probably comes with the job.
"Luck," says DiNozzo and you find yourself smirking. Yes, it was luck that you survived. Luck that you are still here. Some would probably call it fate. And fate can be cruel.
"Watch out for each other," Gibbs replies, looking back one last time before he heads for the elevator. You can't see David's face, but you're pretty sure she's upset that Gibbs won't let them help him bring down Dearing. You know you would be. McGee is still paler than usual and Tony sits there taken aback by being left behind. He'd probably follow Gibbs and be his back-up if Gibbs would let him.
A four letter word for surviving a terroristic attack… Maybe someone up there, some higher power, wanted you to stay alive which crosses luck out. If it had been luck than all the others would've survived too and there wouldn't have been any dead this day. Federal agents tend to have quite a lot of luck and some had even nine lives.
You don't believe in fate, never have. Could be that God has something in plan for you, but that doesn't mean you can't choose who you are and it doesn't mean that you have to wait until fate strikes. Surviving a terroristic attack is a gift.
A gift you sure as hell won't take for granted.