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Casualties
Chapter One
Hannibal's blue eyes fluttered open. Where was he? He started to sit up and felt hands push him back down. Firmly, but gently. He still didn't know where he was. Or what was happening. He cast around, realized he was indoors – pain tugged at the back of his mind. He was injured. He didn't like where he was. He started to sit up again and a face came into focus. A young woman with dark hair.
The French put things back in focus. 'Nam. He was in 'Nam. Last remembered, he was in General Chow's Death Camp. Wherever he was now – this wasn't it. He'd been rescued somehow.
"Wh –" he cleared his throat. "Where are we?"
She put a finger to his lips and made a soothing noise as if to quiet a baby. "Ca va bien."
He moved her hand away with his own. "Parlez-anglais?"
"Oui," a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "You are sick." She touched a hand to his forehead and smoothed back his soft hair that was beginning to turn silver prematurely. "We found you. You were lucky. Not many survived. I will take care of you."
Hannibal cast an eye at his surroundings. He wasn't in the hospital. Possibly a hut. A private residence. So it wasn't a military operation that had gotten him out – but a guerrilla force – hiding, biding their time, trying to help the Americans and French.
She held a cup to his lips and helped to some water. "Drink slowly, John."
"Hannibal," he replied. "Hannibal Smith."
She picked up the dog tags on his partly bare chest. "John."
"Mmmm... People call me Hannibal. It's a nickname."
She smiled again in response. He thought to himself the women had no place in war. Yet it was in their own country. How could they not be involved? He felt a wave of impatience sweep through him. What good was he, lying here? He tried to sit up again and her hand gripped his arm. "You are a bad patient!"
"Believe it, sweetheart." He muttered. Even in the state he was in, he won the brief struggle. He immediately wished that he hadn't. Pain shot through him suddenly and he gritted his teeth against it.
"Why are you doing this? Where will you go?" Frustration laced her tone. "You are safe. You need time to heal. Lay down."
Some part of his mind told him that she was right – but the other part – the stubborn part that was so much in charge of him that he hadn't broken, even under torture, made him lurch to his feet. She rose with him, distressed. She barely came up to his chin. "No!" She cried. "Down!"
He grabbed hold of her arms, gripped her strongly. "Where are we? I –" he swayed drunkenly. Closed his eyes against a wave of pain.
"Hannibal." She looked up at him. "You are safe."
"I –" his breath caught in an almost sob . He went down on his knees, nearly taking her with him. Her arms were around him suddenly. "Shhhh."
He buried his face in her shoulder, a hitch still his breathing.
"You're safe." She told him again. She helped him lay back down. "It is okay." He was shuddering.
"Yeah," he said softly, feeling vaguely like a confused child. "What's wrong with me?"
"You lack water. You lack food." She brushed his cheek fondly with the back of her hand. "You have bruises, you lack sleep."
Dehydration. Exhaustion. Contusions.
"You have too much heat."
Fever. Sunstroke. He wasn't sure what she meant.
"How many others did you save?" He asked.
"Five maybe six."
He gritted his teeth. "So few."
"You worry about you. You need to get better."
"Oh, okay mother." He replied with a half smirk.
She took his hand. "I think you need a mother now."
He squeezed it lightly. "Maybe I do."
Hannibal drew in a ragged breath and closed his eyes, the tension leaving his face a little. "I'm tired."
"Good. Medications make you sleep." She talked to him soothingly for a few minutes until he drifted off.
Chapter 2
Xua watched the soldier's blue eyes flutter open. She could tell immediately that he felt better. The vulnerable confusion was gone – the clouded look. Now there was an exacting intelligence about them, and as he looked at her, a bit of mischief.
"Good morning," he said with a half smile, less like he was a sick patient and more like he were waking up from a one night stand. Xua approached him with some warmed soup. His smile widened. "Breakfast in bed." He propped himself up on one elbow.
She knelt down next to him. "You are trouble."
"Only as much as you want me to be, Doctor." Barely able to move and already his tone and eyes were promising more than his body could handle. Trouble indeed.
"Sip slowly, or you will get sick. Too much food after no food is hard on the stomach.
Hannibal sat up and took the bowl from her. He took a spoonful and his stomach made an ominous noise, punctuating her warning. After weeks of subsisting on only worm infested rotting scraps of whatever he could get his hands on, he really needed no reminder to take it slow.
"What's your name?" He asked after a moment.
"Xua."
"Well Xua. Do you make a regular habit of rescuing American soldiers?"
She tilted her chin up. "Yes."
He raised an eyebrow at her challenging tone. "Good." He set the soup back down, still feeling weak.
She sat next to his cot. "You are not used to being like this."
"Like what?"
"Tired. Helpless."
"No." He conceded. "No, I'm not."
She smiled. "It is good for you to learn."
"Oh yeah," Hannibal replied sarcastically. "Great."
"Your spirit needs lessons too . Not just the body."
Hannibal locked his blue eyes on her. "My body is very good at lessons." Something about his expression made her blush.
She laughed. "You are handsome."
"I am." His tone was neither a question nor statement.
"You are used to getting your own way… But…" She touched a finger to his nose. "You are my patient. You must listen to me."
He grinned, a flash of white teeth. "What are your orders, ma'am?"
"Rest." She touched his shoulder and help to lie back down. He found the action rather difficult. He groaned despite himself.
"See. It is good for you."
Hannibal gritted his teeth. "I fail to see how this benefits me."
"It teaches you patience. How to be vulnerable."
"Listen lady," he stopped as another wave of pain shot through him. Her hand was on the back of his neck, stroking gently. "You just need time to heal."
"Okay –" he acquiesced when he could catch his breath. "Okay."
Xua studied him a minute. "I think the medicine is wearing off. I will give you more."
"Would be nice."
Xua returned a moment later with a syringe. Hannibal didn't actually have time to ponder the sterility of it. She rolled up the sleeve of his shirt and talked to him and she worked.
"You are very brave." She slid the needle under his skin.
Hannibal felt better within a few seconds of the injection. A little tipsy, perhaps, but the edge was off the pain. "I'm just doing my duty. You people are brave. You're risking everything to help us."
"This is my home. We will do anything to protect what is ours. So it is my duty as well, perhaps. Why are you here? You Americans do not belong? It is largely our conflict."
"I'm a military man, was Xua. It's what I do. Some people farm, some people teach, and some of us fight."
She looked at him in wonderment. "This is your career? Why choose us?"
"I would have been a lousy farmer." He replied flippantly. Then more earnestly, "someone has to fight to protect the rights of others." His eyes slid closed moment.
"Do you miss your home?"
"Infinitely," Hannibal replied, a lock of silvery blond hair falling across his forehead. Xua brushed it back and Hannibal's blue eyes opened at her touch.
"What is America like?" She asked.
Hannibal was silent a moment. "Big. Vast. Not as hot as here and not as brutal, at least not on the surface. There are mountains, and plains, forests and cities. There is a river near where I grew up where used to swim in the summers. I think about it sometimes over here. I don't know why."
"Do have a family?"
"Not anymore. My mother and father are long gone… I have the men I command."
"No wife?"
"I don't think it would be very fair to her… Sitting at home wondering about whether I'll ever come back."
"You seem lonely."
He smiled his Cheshire cat grin. "I'm not lonely. Lonely is a different thing than being alone."
There was silence a moment as she studied him. "I have never seen eyes your color," she said at last.
"Blue? It's not that unusual where I'm from."
"I have seen blue-eyed Americans – but yours are different. Sky colored. Clear. Cold. There are some here who would find them disturbing, I think. Witch's eyes. You use them to see things others do not."
He shook his head. "I only see things that other people are too careless to notice." His eyes drifted shut again. He felt like he was floating. "Are we done with 20 questions?"
"I am sorry." He felt her draw away. "I am only curious."
You're allowed to be he responded, his speech a little slowed. He drifted into sleep once more.
