Title: The Soldier in the Mirror
Author: Tiggertoo
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Angst, violence.
Summary: Shortly after the escape from Ft. Bragg, BA is alone in Chicago trying to deal with the horrors of war and the person they've made him. Fits with sss979's Scars of War/Nature of Trust storyline
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This piece fits into the timeline established by sss979's work. It isn't necessary you read that first (it's a LOT to read and most of it is not yet posted), but this may contain spoilers for the pieces that have been posted - namely "Scars of War."
BA woke up to the sound of screaming. Instinct had him simultaneously rolling out of bed and drawing out his gun from under the pillow. Heart pounding, he scanned the room - tracking with his gun, searching for a target. The room was dark. Still. Nothing moved, or made a sound. He waited, still, as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Moments of tense silence where broken only by the sound of his own rapid, harsh breathing.
Where was every one? Where was he? Still prepared for an attack, he fought to make sense of his surroundings. There was a hard floor and a bed… Saigon? No, it was to cool to be Vietnam. A bed, walls, alone…
Chicago. He was back in Chicago. The screams where his - no one else's. He was having nightmares again. No, not just nightmares. Memories. The kind that nightmares were made of. His head dropped and he lowered his gun, his body struggling to deal with the sudden excess of unspent adrenaline.
Despite the cool air of the room, sweat was running down his brow and burning his eyes. His hand shook as he wiped the back of it across his forehead. It was the third time this week he'd woken up screaming. Ever since he had gone to church with Mama, the dreams had gotten worse. That preacher had stirred up too many things that were better left alone. Too many things that no amount of praying had changed, or would ever change.
This time it was about that kid, the Private, what was his name? Face would have remembered it; he was good with names. Face. BA shut his eyes, ignored the stab of emotion that just thinking about him brought. It didn't matter; there was nothing he could do for him now. Nothing he could do for Hannibal, either. Or Murdock. The team as he'd known it was dead and gone. Separated. Fugitives. He'd never see them again.
That red head kid from Minnesota had been standing next to him, unloading supplies. It was the safest thing BA had done in weeks. BA had just handed him a box when his head exploded. Blood everywhere - splattered all over BA's clothes, eyes, hair. In his mouth. He could still taste that kid's blood and brain matter. It didn't seem right that he couldn't remember his name.
BA slowly stood up and walked the two steps to his bathroom. He flipped the light switch allowing the bare bulb to illuminate the dingy room. The cold water tap let out a squeak and a series of tapping and banging noises before it finally spit out a stream of slightly rust colored water. Leaning down, he kept the gun in his right hand as he rested it on the chipped and stained sink. He cupped his other hand, catching the water, splashing it over his face and behind his neck, and then rinsing his mouth out trying to get rid of the memory of the taste. It didn't work.
There had been more to the dream - random pieces, memories. Murdock screaming, Face covered in blood, looking at him with that dead flat gaze, Hannibal crying. Those memories were forever seared into the backs of his eyes. Even when wasn't dreaming, he was seeing them, over and over again. It filled him with desperate frustration. What was the point? There was nothing he could do about any of it. It was a waste to think about. He couldn't do a thing about it in Vietnam and he couldn't do a thing about now.
His jaw tightened as he caught sight of his reflection in the cracked mirror. There was a scarred stranger with cold eyes looking back. The soldier in the mirror. The ghost in the mirror.
Gingerly, he touched the round scar high on his chest. He had caught a bullet on the run for base. The run had been pointless; they didn't make it. They all end up in that camp… Crowded cages, hunger, fists, bamboo and pain, blood pooling in the dirt… As his fingers ran over the scar, he waited for the feelings to come. Horror, shame, guilt, anger… anything. But there was nothing. Just a big empty space where he used to be. It had happened; it was over. Nothing he could do about it.
His hand wandered to several small irregularly shaped scars randomly scattered over his chest. The official record said they were the result of a training accident. It was a lie. They had been in Cambodia when one of the Yards had stepped on a mine. BA had been wearing his flak jacket, but the heat had kept him from zipping it closed. Those special fatigues with all that infrared stuff in them - so that Covey could track them on the ground - were damn hot. The medic had dug the pieces out of him, and cleaned him up as best as he could. Some of the small marks were from pieces of the mine; others were from pieces of the Yard. He guessed it didn't really matter which was which.
There were more scars, but his mind was on the ones that ran all across his back. The thick lines of slightly raised skin - the ones he never looked at. He never wanted to even think of them. But every time he lifted his arms he could feel them pulling tight. He couldn't put his shirt on with out being reminded of them Used to be when he thought about it he would have to fight to control his emotions. Now there was nothing - no emotion at all. He was numb to the pain of those memories. What had happened there was nobody's business - not even his. He had locked those memories away so tight nothing escaped. Not even the feelings.
Thinking about it didn't changing anything. Not thinking about didn't change anything. The scars were there. They always would be. BA briefly closed his eyes and splashed more water on his face.
When they'd run from Fort Bragg, Hannibal had said splitting up was temporary. That was a lie. BA knew it then, and he knew it now. Hannibal was never coming back. No plans had been made on how they would contact each other, and none of them had questioned it. They had just walked away, given up. BA knew in his heart that Hannibal would never leave the unit; he had proven that. But this wasn't Vietnam, and they weren't a unit anymore. In Vietnam the team had operated as one, but they had broken - been broken - and no one, not even Hannibal could put the pieces together again. They weren't soldiers anymore, they were criminals. With Morrison dead and the orders gone, that was never going to change. In the eyes of the law they were no different then the dealers, crooks and thugs that he lived with.
His hand was steady when he tried to turn the tap off. Of course, no matter how hard he turned the handle, it continued to drip. It would be easy to fix, but why bother? Who knew how much longer he would be here? He could have to leave without a second's notice - if the MPs come around, if people start asking too many questions, if the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
He stood straight up, eyes still on the stranger in the mirror who was wearing his face. He didn't know who he was anymore. He didn't know what mattered, what was important. Inside, he was frozen. Alone, with no hope of anything changing, not able to do anything about it.
Still gripping the tap handle, BA closed his eyes. Three years he had spent every moment surrounded by people. Privacy didn't exist in the Army. In the showers, chow line, hootches, everywhere; there was always other hard eyed soldiers around. Men who knew what it was like to spend every second just trying to stay alive, so they could kill tomorrow. No one here understood that. Maybe the people at the VA or VFW would, but those places where off limits. If he tried to go there the MPs would have him back in a cage. No way he would let that happen. He'd die first.
But outside of standard meeting places, he wasn't likely to find other veterans. No one ever freely offered that they had been in Vietnam; it was a dirty little secret kept hidden from the spoiled cowards who liked to use words like "baby killer." No one who was ever in Vietnam needed to be told they were murderers. They knew it already. They'd seen death up close. How many people had he killed? What was the penalty for that? And did it even matter?
It didn't matter. There was no one here would ever know or care. He was alone. It might be comforting if it wasn't so lonely. So dry and unfeeling. He went for days at a time not saying a word to another soul. And every one of those days was exactly the same. Go work at the mindless job of the moment - the kind of job where they didn't ask questions, like your name - twelve hours fixing what other people broke, then dinner from a can or what ever he got on the way back to whatever rat and bug infested hidey hole he was calling home. Exercise out of habit, shower and bed. For days on end, no one to talk to, no one to care, no one to notice. No one who understood, no hope of it changing, just day after endless day, alone.
BA opened his eyes gain, just in time to watch a cockroach skidder down the drain. No one cared, not even God. He had prayed hard, but God ignored him, so he stopped praying. Maybe God didn't want to help a killer, especially one that was so good at it. He lost his faith in Vietnam; he lost hope in the States. Neither existed anymore. All that was left was living in silence, working crap jobs, and staying in shitty apartments, until he died.
Or got arrested.
BA's hands clenched. The feel of the wood stock in his had him looking down. He had forgotten about the pistol. Even staring at it, it seemed like the gun and the hand belonged to someone else. It felt heavy, solid and somehow alive in his hand. The barrel gleamed. He kept it clean; it kept him safe. So small for all the power it wielded. It had the power to change the future, the power to create options. Options. He needed an option…
Some far off corner of his brain recognized that he should be horrified about what he was thinking as he stroked his fingers along the cool metal of the barrel. He should feel something, anything. But the only emotion he could feel as he considered the weapon in his hand - the flash of pain that would lead to calm, welcoming darkness - was a detached sort of relief. He had an option - a way out. He had power, choice, free will and all those other things he used to care about. Things he'd been stripped of, daily, since his very first days of Basic. It would be easy, just one squeeze of his finger and he could be free.
And what other option did he have to look forward to? Every day was just another reminder that he could never do anything more than hide, alone, surrounded by people who could never understand. His good days were dead and gone, no end in sight. No one coming for him, no way out, no way to save himself, no hope... nothing. There was no way he could do it, no way he could keep going. And living in a cage certainly wasn't an option, either. He couldn't do that again. Nothing could make him do that again. He had an option…
The pistol seemed heavy as slowly raised it. Light reflected of the polished barrel and into the filthy mirror. The flash drew his eye back to the reflection as he briefly set the barrel against his temple, then slowly trailed it down his cheek, opening his mouth. The killer in him knew what to do. A shot to the temple might not kill. Executions were done at the back of the head, or into the mouth.
He could taste the gun's oil, feel the metal scrape against his teeth. Cold in his mouth. Unfeeling - just like him. He angled it up slightly, aiming for the back of the head, for the brain stem. The ghost in the mirror, standing in his boxers, aiming a loaded gun at himself. Should he be afraid?
Three years in the VC-filled jungle, and he'd lived through it. Starvation, infections, injuries and a goddamn POW camp. Bullets, fires, torture, death and mutilation. He'd escaped it all, seemingly unscathed. They'd all tried to kill him. Maybe, in some way, they'd succeeded. His jaw tightened at the thought of the joy any one of them would feel if they knew he was home, safe and standing with his own gun to his head, ready to blow his brains all over the wall. Just like that kid…
He wondered who would find him and what they would tell Mama. The picture in his mind of how that conversation might go made his grip on the weapon loosen involuntarily. Jesus, he had forgotten about Mama. This would kill her, she could never understand this. She would cry- not just a little, but for days. The way she did when Daddy died. But this time worse. 'Cause this time, she'd have no one left. BA was all she had in the world. And if he left her…
Echoes of emotion stirred in him, all jumbled and confused. The one he latched on to was anger. He was powerless again, he had no choice. His last and only option had been taken from him. He couldn't leave her like that. He wouldn't. There was nothing left now, just duty to Mama.
The mirror shattered as BA drove his hand, gun and all, into it. The fragments of glass sliced into his knuckles, and he dropped his head forward as the blood drained onto the broken reflection of the ghost within. It had to end, but he couldn't do it. Not now. Not like this. There was no way out. Nothing but endless misery and pain and loneliness.
He was so tired. Tired of all this dead time where nothing meant anything. Tired of being weak, powerless, of losing the things that mattered most. Tired of hanging on when it was useless. How long could he keep this up? It already seemed like he had be doing it forever.
With eyes closed, he turned out the light and took the few steps back to his saggy bed. He shoved the gun back under his pillow with his bleeding hand, and left both in place under his head. What did he care if he got blood on the sheets? It didn't matter.
Opening his eyes slowly, he stared at the stained, peeling wallpaper on the wall in front of him, heavy with shadows from the tiny window on the opposite wall. He had survived Vietnam, but he didn't know how much longer he could survive here. Eyes closing again, he wondered how long it would be before even Mama couldn't keep him from finishing what he had started.