After Iraq, the Road to Recovery
By Mickey

Status: Completed 2/23/2009

Archive Permission: Ask first. I'll probably say yes.

Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue.

Word Count: 3,133

Author's Notes: Many people asked about a sequel to my fic "Forgotten". It has been over three years since that fic was finished and here it is! At first, I really had no intention on doing anything more with it, but about a year or so ago, my muse started bugging me to write more. I started on it then it got pushed aside for a while. Many thanks to my beta, Cyn. Thanks also to Cyn for help with the title!

I've only been in this bed for two days and I'm already bored out of my skull. I've had visitors, well a visitor, they won't let anyone in yet except family. Since Sara, Charlie and Mike are the only family I have left, Sara and Mike are the only non-hospital staff people I've seen. They've visited me a lot, Sara has actually only left my side once and then only for a few hours to shower and say hi to Charlie. Charlie, on the other hand, hasn't seen me yet at all. Not even once. I forbade it. No way in hell was my kid going to see his Daddy like that.

I'm being allowed other visitors today. General West will be making an appearance, or so I'm told.

Joy.

The rest of the guys from my unit will be dropping by at some point as well. Except for Jonsey, he was hit as the helicopter was taking off, caught a round right between the eyes. Poor kid never stood a chance. I look forward to seeing the others, well Franklin and Jacobs, anyway. Cromwell can go rot in hell for all I care. If I ever see that bastard again it'll be to damn soon.

Sara says he tried to see me as soon as I was admitted here. She tried to tell me that he was "all broken up" over this whole "ordeal", but I refused to listen to her. I don't give a shit what that rat-bastard says, he left me behind. Apparently, I didn't handle the situation well because I began having trouble breathing and the nurses had to shoo Sara away. I wound up apologizing, profusely, to Sara later because I had cursed her out. To say I was not a happy camper during that conversation is an understatement of massive proportions. I actually don't really recall much of what happened, I was still pretty doped up at the time -still am now- but I do remember cursing. She was pretty upset about the whole thing. She doesn't blame him, not now anyway. If she ever did, she since forgiven him.

I do. Blame him that is. I'll never forgive him. Never.

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"GET OUT!" I bellow. "Get the fuck out of here now, Frank!" I try to sit up further, but can't. Cursing my weakness and inability to bodily remove my former friend, I settle for glaring at him and tossing my empty water cup -regrettably, not glass- at him.

Frank easily dodges the projectile but makes no further effort to move, just stands at the end of my bed staring at me sadly.

"Jack," he begins, "I didn't know you were alive. I swear to you, I never would have left you if I'd known you were!"

"I don't care!" I yell. I don't want to hear his apologies. They mean nothing to me. The man before me has been my best friend for ten years. He was my best man at my wedding. He's Charlie's Godfather. But I don't care. None of that matters anymore. He did the unthinkable. He left a man behind. He left me, his best fucking friend, behind. "I said get . . . out of . . . here!" My chest is really starting to hurt and it's getting hard to breath again.

"Please, you have to calm down," Frank pleads as he starts moving towards me.

"Don't tell me . . . what I . . . have to do . . . you son of-a-bitch! You. Left. Me. BEHIND! Do you know what they did to me? What they did to Kaylee?" He looks at me blankly and I know he has no idea who I'm talking about, but I don't give a shit. "They beat . . . me. They elec. . . ." A particularly sharp pain lances through my chest, stopping me mid word. After a few seconds, I recover enough to continue. "Electrocuted me over and over again. They raped her. Repeatedly. Night after night . . . day after day. They . . . just kept hurting her . . . and I couldn't . . . help her!" I pause for a moment, gasping in pain and to revel in the look of revulsion on his face. It's cruel and a low blow, but at this point I just don't care. "They tried to . . . to . . . "

I can't say it, just can't bring myself to admit that, if not for Kaylee, they would have raped me too. That is something none of doctor's or shrink's tests can tell and I sure as hell will never tell anyone. Frank goes pale as he realizes what I didn't say.

Making his way around the bed, Frank comes to a stop my side and stops, stretches a hand towards me then reconsiders and drops it by his side. "Jack, please, calm down. You're going to hurt yourself. Just listen to me, please. You have to believe that I would have come back for you if I could. I wanted to, but West wouldn't allow it." He reaches out to me, placing a placating hand on my shoulder and speaks again, "I pleaded with everyone to let me come back for you. I was even willing to rescue you on my own, but they refused to let me!"

That does it, his hand on my shoulder sets me off and I don't hear anything else he's saying. I lash out with a vicious punch that, in my current condition, has much more power behind it than it has a right to. It connects with his head right next to his right eye and sends him tumbling back. Then I'm screaming again, "DON'T . . . EVER FUCKING . . . TOUCH . . . ME AGAIN!" I gasp for breath, feeling very much like the proverbial fish out of water. "Get out!"

An alarm of some sort starts to blare and my visions blurs. God! It hurts! The last thing I see is Frank's panicked face as the nurses rush in. Before the darkness claims me, and over the shrill alarm, I hear Frank say, "I'm sorry, Jack, so very, very sorry." My last conscious thought is, *rot in hell, Frank*. Then I lose the battle to stay conscious and fall into the waiting abyss.

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I'm so pissed right now I could spit nails. I just found out that I missed Kaylee's memorial service. There was no funeral, her body was "disposed of" by the Iraqis, but I really wanted to be there for the memorial. I don't know what, if anything, I would have said to her husband and child, but still. . . .

I begged and pleaded with the doc, but she refused to budge on this issue. She was more adamant about this than anything in the week that I've been here. I guess she's still worried about me, and pissed at me, after my confrontation with Cromwell two days ago. She hasn't let me out of this bed since that frigging day, other than to go to the bathroom, and even then either she or one of the nurses wheeled me to it in one of those damned wheelchairs.

Doc isn't really angry with me, I can tell. Disappointed, maybe, but not angry. I think she's just angry I didn't do any permanent damage to myself. I swear, I think that woman is going to dance a damn jig or something, maybe throw a party, when I am finally ready to be released.

I can't stop thinking about her, Kaylee. I barely knew her, but Kaylee and I became very close in the few short months we were locked up together. She was a tough kid . . . woman. People bitch about women in combat, citing things that might happen -like what did happen- as reasons they shouldn't be there. Too many say that women wouldn't be able to handle it, even if they weren't captured or anything. They say women don't have the guts for it.

Bullshit. That's what I'll tell anyone who ever says that within earshot of me ever again. I seriously doubt any man could experience what Kaylee did for as long as she did and still be able to hold herself together the way she did. Sure, she cried a lot, especially in the beginning, but she never broke. I'm not sure I could have held myself together for so long if not for her. I'd probably have been completely bonkers, or close to it, by the time I was released one week after I'd been put into that cursed cage, injured, freezing cold and naked.

Kaylee kept me sane. During that whole . . . ordeal, she was always there, never judging. She talked when I couldn't, listened when I had to say something, anything. She was a shoulder to cry on, on the rare occasions when I just couldn't hold the tears at bay. I did the same for her. We were a lot alike, which I think is part of the reason we connected so quickly. We're both married; both have a young son at home. We both love hockey and a nice ice-cold Guinness.

Oh, God, I miss her.

Why me? There were four of us locked in that cell. Why am I the only one left?

Why me?

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I never thought I'd enjoy a shower this much. The water pressure in this hospital sucks, but it's better than what the Iraq's tried to pass off as a shower. Having buckets of freezing cold water dumped on my head just isn't all it's cracked up to be. Nor is having a high-pressure hose, also spewing ice-cold water, turned on me.

Then again, three weeks confined to a hospital bed -four, actually, I was stuck in a hospital bed in Iraq for nearly a week before the doctors there thought I was well enough to travel back home to the states- has made me appreciate a lot of things I once took for granted.

And water. Fresh clean, clear water.

Oh, and coffee! Man did I miss coffee. 'Course, I wasn't allowed to have any until just a few days ago. Even now, the doc only lets me one cup a day and then it's decaf.

I'd like nothing more than to stay under the warm spray until my skin becomes more wrinkled than a Sharpei's fur.

I can't.

Sara and Charlie are coming to take me home today.

Home. The word sounds so foreign to me after four months in that hellhole. Home, now, is nothing more than an abstract concept. It's a nice dream, a place to hide mentally when I couldn't physically escape the torture and pain. But it's not real anymore, not something I can see or feel.

I sigh heavily as I turn off the water, grab a towel, and step out of the shower. Limping slightly, I walk over to my bed and get dressed as quickly as my still healing body will allow. As I slip into the outfit Sara brought for me from home, my favorite loose fitting pair of sweats and an old, faded Air Force t-shirt, I realize that even clothes are something I've missed. Clean clothes, that is. When you've been wearing the same foul smelling, dirty, tattered clothes for months, clean clothes are a huge luxury. Losing the open-backed hospital gown is a blessing in and of itself. Talk about feeling exposed. Even the scrubs they started to let me wear when I threatened to do my physical therapy in nothing but my birthday suit are nowhere near as comfortable as real clothes.

Leaning down slowly to put my sneakers on -Sara brought me a pair of those slip on kind that sorta look like sneakers because, until I can take this brace off, I can't bend my knee far enough to be able to tie laces-, my thoughts turn back to my kid. Charlie. My only child. God, I've missed him so much. For four months I clung desperately to the thought of seeing him and Sara again. Clung to it for dear life. I still haven't seen him yet. I didn't even want Sara to bring him today. I'm not ready to face him. Not now, not like this, when I'm still so weak. Most of the bruises are gone and my cracked ribs are healing nicely, but I still look like death warmed over. I wanted him to stay with Mike for a while, but she insisted. Seems my little guy has been throwing temper tantrums. He's not happy, actually he's downright pissed, that his Daddy is home and he can't see me. That's not like him. Sure, Charlie gets angry, as all kids do, but temper tantrums are very, very rare with him. Mike says he has several now. Daily.

Doc's not happy that I'm leaving. She thinks I should stay longer, at least another week or so, anyway.

Not a snowball's chance in hell that's gonna happen!

I agree that I could do to gain a few pounds . . . or thirty, but I can do that at home thank you very much.

My anxiety increases as I sit in the damned wheelchair Doc insists on.

"No chair no checkout," she says firmly. On this, I know she will not budge. I can see it in the set of her narrow shoulders and the determination in her eyes.

I don't like it, but I have to grudgingly agree that it is highly unlikely I'll make it down three steps, never mind three flights of stairs.

Doc says goodbye, surprising me when she leans over a gives me a quick hug. "Take care of yourself, Captain," she whispers in my ear. As she stands, I swear I see a tear in her eye. I smile and give a small wave as a nurse I don't recognize wheels me out of the room. I've never cared much for doctors, but she wasn't half bad. She didn't take any of my crap and she always told it to me straight. For that, I will be forever grateful. She's quiet a feisty woman for one so short. I think I'm actually going to miss her gentle bullying. And her wicked sense of humor. Her tongue is almost as sharp as mine.

At least just a little bit anyway.

I can feel my muscles tense against my will as we stop in front of the elevator and the nurse hits the "down" button. It seems like forever before the little bell rings and the door slides open. My apprehension grows exponentially as the nurse wheels me into the relatively small space.

Crap! Why do they have to make elevators so frigging small? The ride down feels like it takes an eternity. By the time we finally get to the first floor, I'm shaking, not violently, or even enough for anyone to really notice, but it's still damned embarrassing! Luckily, no one is around to see my little "episode".

We exit quickly, the nurse obviously picked up on my sudden uneasiness. She's sharp, almost as much so as the doc. She stops just outside of the offending space and gently lays a hand on my shoulder, a concerned look on her age-worn face. I give a small smile and nod my thanks then we're off.

When we reach the exit, I see Sara bringing the car around. I stand as Sara brings the car to a stop. She gets out and smiles at me as she opens the back door then helps Charlie out of his car seat.

My heart plummets as he stares at me, no sign of recognition on his tiny face. Then he breaks into a grin I'd have never thought could get so big on such a small face. The fear disappears as he runs to me and throws his arms around my legs as he yells "Daddy!" He looks up at me, wide-eyed and puts his hands up. "Pick me up, Daddy!"

When I don't move fast enough, "Up, up, up!" he demands. As I bend down to lift my boy, I get disapproving looks from the nurse and Sara, but I don't give a damn. It's been so long since I've held my kid, too damn long. A low groan escapes my lips and my ribs and right knee protest as I lift him, but I'm pretty sure I've covered it well enough that no one noticed. I hold him tight, soaking up the smell of his hair and the feeling of his little arms wrapped tightly around my neck.

"Hey, little man," I whisper. "I missed you so much."

Charlie sighs contently into my neck, his embrace not loosening in the slightest. "I missed you too, Daddy. Please don't leave me again."

My heart breaks at his words, but that's one promise I can't make him. Chances are, as soon as the doctors are satisfied that I'm fully recovered and the shrinks clear me, I'll be put back on full active duty and, shortly thereafter, be sent out on another mission. Such is the nature of Special Ops.

Sara wants me to retire. I could, I have my twenty years in. But I can't. Being an Air Force officer isn't just what I do; it's who I am. A big part of who I am. I can't just shut that off and walk away. Think I'll give some serious thought to getting out of Special Ops though. There are other things I can do.

After several minutes, I finally manage to loosen Charlie's death grip. I hold him away from me a little and just stare at him, into those beautiful, bright eyes that remind me so much of Sara. God, how I've missed them both!

"You okay, Daddy?"

Sara steps up and answers, "No, sweetie. Daddy's not okay." She tries to take him from me, but I won't let him go. He won't let me go. Apparently, she'd seen my grimace of pain when I lifted Charlie.

Concern fills those big brown eyes and I quickly add, "But I will be. With yours and Mommie's help, I will be." For the first time since my rescue, I actually believe it. I look at Sara as I speak and she smiles at me with unshed tears in her eyes. I'd almost forgotten how beautiful her smile is. It's one of the things that drew me to her when we first met. I fell in love with her smile before I even really knew her. It may be a cliché, but it's true; her smile really does light up any room she's in. Charlie may look more like me for the most part, but he's got his mother's smile and her eyes.

Surprisingly, I make it the whole three feet to the car, Charlie in tow, without stumbling at all. I know my recovery will be long and hard, months of physical therapy and many mandatory counseling sessions await me, but with the help of family and friends, I will get there. There is no doubt about that now.

THE END

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