A/N: Hello! Thank you for looking in on this story. If you've come back 'cause you read my other stuff and liked it, welcome back! If on the other hand, my other stuff isn't your cup of tea at all (which is fine, nothing wrong with that, everyone's tastes are different) a big welcome to you as well. This story is my attempt to write something that might appeal to a broader audience.
If you're new to my work, you're about to discover I write the most ludicrously long authors notes. This one is actually relevant, so pretty please, actually read it! I did discuss this at the beginning of Confessions but that was a while ago.
Mr Reilly is rather flexible in his dates. Case in point: Ice Station is set in the late nineties, Scarecrow sometime after 2008 and yet Schofield ages only 1 year… Rebound on the other hand goes through an even more incredible change! In the space of 24 hours (the period in which Ice station is set) he manages to lose two years, going from 23 to 21. Very impressive!
So, I've tweaked the numbers a bit to work out a chronology that I reckon works pretty well and is hopefully logical. Schofield does end up a bit younger than is canonical but I reckon that fits better with the oddly maternal way Mother is always looking after him and the almost sibling like tension between him and Book II in Area 7. Plus, technically most recon marines are between the ages of 18-28. If you're a currently serving recon marine who's older than 28, that's not a huge issue but you can't apply for recon after that age.
Anyway…
As an officer, Schofield would have had to complete four years of university whilst earning his commission. Add a bit for basic training and flight school and he's probably 22/23ish when he's serving in Bosnia. After the accident, another 10 weeks of OCS to retrain as a ground marine. A year and a bit later, he's a recon commander being posted to an obscure ice station in Antarctica at around 24/25
Although he doesn't come into this story at all other than a mention in passing, Book II (who we know is 25 in Area 7) is only just younger than Schofield at 21.
Okay, essay concluded.
One more little thing, I work in a hospital so my medical knowledge is pretty good but if anybody else actually trained as a nurse or a doctor spots any glaring mistakes, let me know!
Thanks.
Chapter 1
He saw the way they looked at Schofield.
They saw a razor sharp mind behind enigmatic sunglasses.
They saw a tough young lieutenant who pushed them hard and expected no less than everything they had, because that's what he always gave himself.
The younger ones saw a leader to be admired.
The older ones saw potential that deserved their respect.
A cool-headed commander under fire and a marine to the bone.
But that wasn't what Buck Riley saw when he looked at Shane Schofield.
One Year Previously
Buck "Book" Riley wasn't sure exactly what he was still doing sitting in the drab, sterile room. The harsh fluorescent light that throbbed behind his eyelids drained him of what little energy he had left as effectively as it bleached his skin. His fatigues were torn and streaked with mud and other dark stains he tried to push from his mind. His muscles, still weary and strained from the mission, were not aided by the cramped, plastic chair he was currently perched on.
Had been perched on for nigh on twelve hours.
He should have gone home – called his son just because he could, kissed his wife goodnight, reassure her he was alright as he tried to forget what he had seen.
But he couldn't.
Which was why he was still here.
Lingering in the soulless room, empty save for the chair upon which he sat in the corner and the cold light of the morning.
The doctors had taken him straight to surgery, charging out as soon as the helicopter had landed with a fierce determination in their eyes. Amid hasty shouts of numbers that meant nothing to Book, they dragged the young marine out, with masks and needles and lethal looking instruments already at the ready. He was still dressed in his blood-soaked fatigues and immediately, one of the doctors started to cut him out of them, exposing his chest to view as they ran. His chest was covered in lacerations and deep punctures. Book didn't mind looking at the chest though, if it meant he didn't have to look at those eyes.
Although he had stopped screaming several hours ago, lapsing into unconsciousness, the marine stirred feebly on the trolley, the attention no doubt aggravating his wounds.
The soldiers had watched, relieved, as he was taken away on a gurney and into far more capable hands than theirs. They had done their job, they had got him this far, still alive and now they could move on to the next mission. Their young chopper pilot looked particularly shaken. Buck supposed that so far above the ground, pilots felt untouchable, got cocky, and to see another young man such as himself brought to ground in such a cruel way…
He patted his shoulder wordlessly in what he hoped was a reassuring way before following in the wake of the trolley.
Nurses, doctors, patients and visitors all turned to look as they rushed through the corridors and Buck wasn't all that surprised. Whilst the young marine was certainly drawing a lot of the looks as he lay helpless on the stretcher, doctors working feverishly on his exposed body, covered from the eyebrows down with blood; such a sight was unfortunately not unusual by the standards of a military hospital. No, Buck thought, it was equally likely that it was he himself, wandering slightly lost behind the frenzied procession and also streaked liberally with blood – not his own, he was one of the few of the recon team who had been fortunate enough to return unscathed – was also attracting attention.
Lights flashed above his head, doors blurred past his sight, the noise of the hospital was all around but it all simply passed by Buck Riley. He only had eyes for the huddle of people surrounding the gurney as it disappeared through a set of swinging doors. Not watching where he was going, they came flying back and almost knocked Book off his feet. Suddenly, a hand was on his chest. A hand wearing a white glove and connected to a pale blue scrub gown.
The nurse was petite, at least a head shorted than Book, but the gentle touch stopped him all the same.
"You can't go in there," she said kindly, "but I'll take you to his room. You can wait for him there."
Book couldn't have told you how they got there but she somehow deposited him in the empty room and pressing a warm cup of tea into his hands, said reassuringly, "He'll be just fine. The doctors will do everything they can."
And with that, she was gone and Book was left alone.
That had been a long time ago.
The undrunk tea was cold, the room still empty and Book was starting to worry.
He couldn't go and ask anyone for news either. He wouldn't know what to ask.
He didn't even know his name.
He was sure they'd been told it in the briefing but then again, it had all been such a rush that such details might have been overlooked.
Hell, for all he knew, they might've rescued the wrong damn prisoner. They didn't do an id check and the kid they were rescuing was in no fit state to tell them.
But he supposed there couldn't have been that many more downed marine pilots hidden in the jungles of Bosnia.
It had been Book who had found him. Through the brutal fighting, he had broken his cover on a hunch. It was hard to tell in the carnage all around but there was a dark, suspicious looking stain at the base of a cupboard hidden in the corner of the barn.
It was ominously silent.
With his team covering him as best they could, he broke out and ran for all he was worth towards it.
He figured the extraordinary amounts of bullets flying round his head was a pretty good sign he was headed in the right direction. The Serbs sure as hell didn't want him getting to that cupboard.
There was no way he could stay in the open long enough to check it out though, so throwing himself behind the closest bit of debris to the cupboard he could see, he took up a covering position and beckoned his teammates over when he heard it.
A low moan coming from the cupboard behind him.
Alive then.
Their target was still alive.
Firing off another angry round, Book dropped another few of the crazed Serb assholes. Their faces simply dissolving into clouds of red as his bullets broke through their noses.
"Could use a hand over here," he hissed into his mike.
Another two marines hurdled from safety and ran at a half crouch across the open floor of the barn, towards Book's hiding spot, whilst the remaining marines laid down a deadly cover fire. Although the Serbian numbers had been drastically reduced – they relied on sheer strength of arms over finesse – the air was still thick with bullets. The younger of the two running marines' bicep exploded and Book heard him roar with pain but he still managed to stumble to the relative safety of the rubble. Despite his obvious pain, they couldn't afford to waste a second.
"Cover me," he ordered sharply.
He broke cover and ran for all he was worth to the nearby cupboard. A bullet still nearly took his ear off until a deafening spray of gunfire burst forth from his teammates. Angling his gun upwards, he shot the lock off. The pilot they were supposed to be rescuing, he reasoned, was probably slumped at the bottom and so shooting upwards was the least likely direction to injure him.
The door swung open.
Book blanched.
He was wrong.
They had crudely manacled the captured soldier to a wooden bar, wedged in the top of the cupboard. Book could tell from the angle he was hanging at that his shoulder had dislocated long ago. His fatigues were torn and dirty and his breathing was frighteningly shallow but none of that was what immediately grabbed Book's attention.
It was the eyes.
Or lack thereof.
Where there should have been pupils was a jagged open wound, made even more gruesome by the stark whites surrounding and the dirty, ragged flesh of his eyelids.
Book could hardly see his face through the blood that coated it.
The marine hung listlessly, didn't even look up at his rescuer.
He couldn't.
Another stray bullet ricocheted above Book's head, jolting him back into action. He might have wanted to crawl away into a corner and vomit but this kid's life was in his hands. He swallowed back hard and eyed the bar again. It would hurt like hell, for sure he thought, but it would also be a damn sight faster and speed was of the essence.
With no way of removing the chains that bound the marine, he instead aimed a vicious kick at the side wall of the cupboard, which shattered. Immediately, the tension holding the bar in place gave way and he slumped down. Reacting as fast as he could, Book caught him before he hit the ground and swung him over his own shoulders in a fireman's lift, bar and all, trying to be careful of the marine's injured shoulder. Nonetheless, the movement hurt and the marine, jolted back to an unpleasant consciousness by the pain, moaned aloud.
Book took off at a run and hoped like hell the two young marines who were covering him followed.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of them take a hit and the other, already encumbered by his injured arm, stopped only momentarily to throw his uninjured arm around the others waist and half carry him out the door.
To break out of the main entrance to the barn and into the bright sunlight was like blessed relief but he wasn't done yet. They had left their chopper idling in a clearing nearby and the steady thump of its blades filled the air, mixed with the strangled screams from the marine on his shoulders.
The door was already thrown open and the medic that had joined them was waiting with his arms outstretched. Book passed the rescued soldier over and quickly turned back around to help hoist his other injured team mates in before jumping in himself. He seized his weapon just in time as the remaining Serbian hostiles appeared crashing through the trees in hot pursuit of the final two members of the rescue squad.
"Pick it up," he roared as he picked off the Serbs one by one with as precise a shot as he could manage from a moving helicopter.
The chopper had already left the ground when the last two marines hurled themselves at it desperately. Throwing the gun aside, Book and the others seized them and hurled them with all their remaining strength into the chopper just as it soared off. As the two new arrivals, including the only officer and commander of the small team, caught their breath, Book surveyed the unit. Other than the medic – working feverishly over the thing that only vaguely resembled a human being – and the pilot, who had both stayed behind in the chopper, he was the only uninjured member of the team.
"Nice work Riley," the captain said, grimacing and patting Book briefly on the knee as he buckled himself into the seat next to him. "That boy owes you his life."
The rattle of a trolley going past the door disturbed him from his recollections and, gratefully, his ears immediately pricked up. Unlike the others, this one slowed as it approached.
He sat up a little straighter, peering at the door and was rewarded when it swung inwards, forced open by the bed. Accompanied by a handful of nurses, they positioned the bed against the opposite wall so that he was facing Book and began to hang the various lines and bags and drips that came with him. With a quick nod to the third nurse, they left.
Didn't even notice Book sitting in the corner.
As the third nurse checked his vital signs and scribbled them down on the chart hanging at the end of the bed, Book cleared his throat.
"Is he okay?" He asked tentatively and the nurse jumped nearly a foot in the air.
"He's doing just fine," she replied, clutching her ample chest. "You must be the family?"
She was small and round with tight brown curls worn short and a little on the dumpy side but she seemed kindly enough. When she spoke, he could hear the warmth in her voice. It was like a warm soup on a cold night and he knew the boy would be well looked after.
But he still didn't leave.
Instead, he got up off his uncomfortable plastic chair and went to stand beside the young marine he'd rescued. They'd got all the blood off and replaced his fatigues with a pale blue hospital gown.
He smelt like fresh linen and antiseptic.
"No," Book corrected. "I don't even know his name."
Scott, he thought, or something like that.
Surely they had mentioned it at the briefing.
The nurse nodded but didn't press the point. She was now tucking the edges of the blankets in tight and smoothing the sheets down.
The hands resting on top of them were so pale, like bone.
"Is he going to be okay?" Book asked again.
She stopped her fussing and looked straight at him.
"Most of the wounds were shallow and the blood loss wasn't too severe, despite what it looked like. The puncture wounds present more of a problem but a tetanus shot and they should heal up alright," she began. "Shock and infection are his biggest concern at the moment. He's a bit malnourished but we'll have that fixed in a jiffy. His left shoulder was dislocated and seven of his ribs broken. At some point, one of the punctures must have hit his lung. Luckily for him, it was only the one hole in the one lung and although it collapsed, we've managed to put it right."
"See that tube there," she pointed at the prongs taped under his nose, "that's called c-pap. It's putting pressure into his lungs to keep 'em open, let him breathe easy."
Book looked hard at the boy in the bed. Tubes snaked from him everywhere – the c-thing from his nose, a clear liquid disappeared into his hand and a bag of thick, crimson blood was attached to a line going directly into his chest. He looked so small in the overly large bed.
So very small.
He couldn't have been much older than his own son, Book thought to himself. Maybe that's why he couldn't just leave him. Surely he was going to wake up frightened, if he woke up at all.
Somebody ought to be here for him then.
"And his eyes?" He pressed.
The nurse paused, pursing her thin lips.
"They did the best they could," she said slowly, "but we won't know for sure until the bandages come off."
Book had been avoiding looking at his face but there was no escaping it really. Thick white bandages were wrapped securely all the way around his head, obscuring his eyes and the hideous wounds that had destroyed them.
Sometimes, humans are capable of unspeakable cruelty, Book thought.
Apart from the bump of a (broken) nose, the only distinguishing features Book could make out were a messy mop of black hair and a fine jawline. It had been nearly two weeks since he was shot down, they had said but despite two weeks in the jungle, there was only a faint trace of stubble, marred instead by hundreds of scratches and more grievous wounds.
The boy's mouth was slightly open as he slept and Book thought he had probably been handsome.
Ruddy pilots.
"He'll be alright," the nurse said, patting Book's hand comfortingly as he looked down at the prone figure. "Now, what about you?"
"Can I get you a cup of tea?" She asked.
The untouched cup from before still sat on the windowsill.
"No thank you," he said.
"A shower then love?"
Book looked down at his torn and blood stained fatigues. Stained with the boy's blood.
No point in getting clean again if these were all he had to put back on.
"No thank you," he said.
"What about something to eat?"
He already had his mouth open to politely decline when his stomach answered for him with a loud rumble and he realised he hadn't eaten for over twenty-four hours.
"I'll get that meal then for you," she said, smiling knowingly.
"Thank you," he replied.
Smoothing the sheets one last time, she bustled out the door.
It was barely a second later when she reappeared though, head just peering round the door.
"It's Shane," she said, adding at Book's confused look, "his name,"
"Shane Schofield."