He doesn't have full memory of that day, just flashes, really. Flash, he supposes, chuckling wryly in his mind, being the operative word. The government shrinks had tried to make him relive it again and again, as if it would change anything, but he froze them out with a blank stare. He only allows himself to remember when he is alone.
He remembers Scarlett's face, filled with panic and exertion as she tried to free herself, bright hair whipping like ropes in the rotor wash. He remembers the heft of the trench knife in his fist, remembers staggering as the chopper pilot tried to juke sideways away from danger. He remembers losing his footing and sliding, crashing into Scarlett, feeling her hands clutching at his knife, at the scratchy material of the webbing that had snared her.
And then the light came.
He doesn't remember feeling pain, but recalls a smell, an acrid, biting char, and a sense of desperate fear. He could see Scarlett's face, contorted in a silent scream, eyes wide and rimmed all the way round with white. He struck out with the knife, blindly, and felt the resistance give way as the webbing tore, and then, somehow, he was airborne, tumbling, twisting, clutching at Scarlett's body as they plummeted together. There was no sense of a crash, just a sudden stop, an immediate not-falling feeling, and Scarlett jack-knifed over the top of him, limp and soundless.
He wanted nothing more than to lay there, stunned, watching the fire lick its way closer to his boots. Already the pilot was ablaze, inert and burning like a campfire log. But the weight of Scarlett's body across his legs brooked no delay, no time for navel gazing, and he forced himself to stand, ducking to avoid the greed of the flames rolling across the ceiling of the flight compartment. Grasping Scarlett under the arms, he lunged forward, dragging himself and Scarlett toward a window of blue sky in the choking black smoke.
His boots moved from twisted metal to shifting sand and he fell, ankle giving way beneath him. On all fours, he tried to gasp in a lungful of air, but he could only feel the sizzle of burned flesh rattling in his throat. One eye was rapidly swelling shut, but in the near distance he could see two men, friendlies, staring open-mouthed at him, motionless.
Hearing the whine of the still-roaring turbine engines, he summoned every reserve of strength and staggered to his feet, wrapping his hand around the straps of Scarlett's pack. Lurching on his twisted ankle, he started limping toward his allies, dragging Scarlett's limp form along behind him, her heels digging furrows in the sand like a sidewinder. Finally, his stumbling gait woke the other two soldiers from their stunned stillness, and they hurried forward, sprinting, their boots spitting sand behind them.
He remembers them talking, shouting at each other, though he can't remember the words. Remembers them arguing, worrying, vacillating.
And he remembers swallowing back his pain and stretching out his fingers to scrape shaky letters in the sand.
C M
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