Chapter 28: Empty
BANG!
Wayne Sneedon winced at the sound and peeked cautiously around the door of the garage.
He hadn't meant to stop here; he was intending to go to Shana's quarters, see if he could get Snake Eyes to come to the rec room, where the Joes were doing their annual Christmas tree decorating, rather belatedly. Usually they did this the first week of December, but this time with a third of Joe base on the Congo mission, they'd decided to hold off until the team was back. Now they were, and decorating for the holiday was underway even if there was a noticeable gap in the arrangements.
He hadn't realized just how much Shana did around base, particularly around the holidays. At this time last year, she'd been singing Christmas carols in the rec room, as she decked the room in evergreen garlands, hung mistletoe over the rec room door (and roped Snake eyes into helping her so she could sneak a quick kiss under it) and giving everyone helpful suggestions on what to get certain Joes. He swore she carried a directory in her head as to what hobbies each Joe favored, memorized even the most offhand remark about what this person wanted and passed that information along. For the guys, it was invaluable; Flint went to Shana to find out what to get Allie for Christmas (He wasn't much of a shopper) and even Wayne had taken advantage of Shana's memory early; Shana had suggested he get Courtney another Swiss Army knife after learning that the blade had snapped on the one she had (which he'd also bought her) a couple years back.
But he'd heard the thumping, banging and clanging, albeit muffled, through the door of the garage, and although he had a pretty good idea what was happening (and who was responsible!) he decided to jump feet first into the emotional storm brewing in that garage.
He stepped into the garage and closed the door behind him.
The first thing he saw was the old '65 Mustang sitting in the middle of the floor. The car was a rust-colored primer red, though he had an idea that at one time it had probably been a gleaming bright candy-apple red. There were spots of rust along the body, but nothing major, and all the trim and emblems were there.
The next thing he saw was the engine hanging off an engine hoist a foot above the open hood of the car. He wasn't much of a car guy, but even he could tell the engine was in pretty good shape for being in a car that old. Oh, there was the usual grease spots and smears and inevitable wear and tear, but it still looked like it was in remarkably good shape.
The last thing he saw was the long legs of his favorite girl in the world.
Courtney was draped over the front bumper of the car; up on her tiptoes so she could stretch forward and reach into the engine compartment, and it pushed her butt even higher in the air and made Wayne think things that were very un-soldierlike. He cleared his throat to chase those mental pictures out of his head (it didn't help at all) then stared at the engine hanging above the car instead of the two round, firm butt cheeks (that helped a little). "Hey, Court."
She jerked upright in surprise and startlement, then yelped as she took a couple steps back from the car and the back of her head impacted the hanging engine so hard that involuntary tears sprang to her eyes. "Oh…owwww…"
"Oh jeez, Court, I'm so sorry!" He was half-laughing as he wrapped his arms around her and rubbed the back of her head to ease the smart from the impact. "I didn't mean to startle you like that."
"It's…okay…I wasn't really paying attention to what was going on around me." She leaned against him for a quick moment, rubbed the back of her head, then pushed him away. "Get out of here."
He would have gone, but something in her voice, the set of her shoulders, the way she moved, stopped him. He'd known her for too long not to see the tension in her shoulders, the tilt of her head; when she was worried or thinking hard about something, the vehicles in the garage tended to mysteriously come apart, and he guess that this car—wherever it had come from—was Court's latest victim. "This car's new. Where did we get it?"
"We didn't get it. Alex did." Court sighed wearily, grabbed a grimy shop towel, and scrubbed at the grease smears on her fingers. "Since she came back from the Congo that first time and saw Liv's blue Mustang," Courtney waved a hand at the opposite side of the garage, where a royal blue '65 Mustang, identical to the one Courtney was working on except color and condition, reposed, "And she's been wanting one ever since. Liv has vanity plates on it that read 'Alex'," and Wayne had to laugh as he saw the plates Courtney was talking about, "Alex wanted a matching Mustang that has Olivia's name on it and she finally found this one within her price range and in decent condition, and I offered to do the work on it." A slight smile. "I loved working on Liv's 'Stang. This one's not in as good shape, but that makes it challenging."
"And it's also a way to work through whatever's bothering you." He saw her look. "It's Shana."
She looked like she was going to deny it for a moment, then she folded her arms and leaned back against the side of the car. "Yeah. It's just…She's my commanding officer, she's the most capable of all of us, and her bonds with us are the strongest. This morning I started to throw all my clothes in the laundry and I swear I heard Shana tell me just before I tipped the basket into the chute, 'Corporal Krieger, make sure to take out any clothes that have motor oil and grease on it so it doesn't contaminate everyone else's clothes!' She scrubbed at her eyes. "I swear it was like she was actually standing there and talking to me. I turned around almost expecting to see her standing there, and when I turned and she wasn't, it felt so…empty. I'm so used to seeing her here that I can't imagine this base without her." Her lower lip trembled, a movement that Wayne would normally have found sexy as hell but right now just looked vulnerable and sad. "I was on the extraction team that went out to Entebbe to get Flint's group out the last time we went to the Congo. I saw what…what Alex looked like…when we picked her up. It was so horrible. I couldn't even think at first, just reacted and then cried on your shoulder later." Wayne nodded.
"And now I keep remember I what Alex looked like, and oh God…I will die if Shana comes back looking like that, Wayne, I swear I will! If something like that could happen to her and she doesn't survive or doesn't recover, how will…how can…" She couldn't speak, now; her tears streamed down her face, and Wayne wrapped his arms around her, folding her into a big hug.
"I want her back! I want everything to be normal! I want all of this to have never happened. I want...I want…" she trailed off into sobs.
He stepped close to her, tucking her head under his chin and holding her, feeling her shoulders shake under his hands. "Ah, Court," he said quietly. "I can't promise you that Shana will come back. We're all military here and we know that the possibility is always there that we won't come back from a mission. That this one will be the last one. And the chances are there too that we'll be hurt, be too badly injured to recover from, that we'll have to take a military discharge." Her shoulders shook even harder. "But what I can promise you is that if she does come back, she'll have the best of care we can give her, the best friends anyone could ever have helping her get better. And you'll be among them."
"Yes." Courtney had stopped crying and was leaning against him, enjoying being close, drawing comfort from him. "She'll have whatever she needs to recover. And she'll be fine."
Wayne smiled. "There's my girl." He held her at arm's length, checked her over. "Now dry your eyes and come on, We're decorating the rec room for Christmas and if you have any gifts Allie wants you to put them under the tree now."
"I'm going!" Courtney grinned as she dashed away the last of the tears. "Thanks Wayne!" And she was gone.
Allie finished tacking up the last of the mistletoe over top of the rec room doorway and turned to Dash, standing in front of her holding the opposite side of the ladder she was on. Normally this was Shana's prerogative; she wasn't at all afraid of heights, not like Allie was, although she did usually enlist Snake Eyes' help. Though Allie suspected she got him to help more because they just did everything together and because Snake Eyes would take the opportunity to turn it into a foreplay session.
Which reminded her—Dash had been staring at her chest a little too long. She grinned as she leaned over. "Dash."
No answer.
"Dash!"
With difficulty he dragged his mind—and his eyes—up from her chest where they'd been a moment ago, and as soon as she saw his face she realized he hadn't been thinking what she thought he was thinking. His eyes were full of guilt and anguish and pain.
The burden of command. She didn't need to have Shana's mindreading skills to know what he was thinking. "We'll get her back, Dash. It'll be okay."
"Is it?" His voice was soft as he spoke. "Allie, you saw what Alex looked like when you rescued us from Zimurinda's camp back in the Congo this summer. After seeing her and what she looked like, can you honestly tell me that Shana's going to be completely okay?"
Allie got down off the ladder and leaned against him, slipping an arm around his waist. "Dash, I could tell you that she's going to be completely okay. I can tell you she'll be fine, that it will all be fine, that she'll come back and everything will be completely normal. The problem is that it won't be true. We all know, every time we go out on a mission, that this time, this could be the one, the one we won't come back from. But we still go out anyway because this is our job, this is what we were trained to do, this is what we're good at, and because we're the best there is at this job, there is no one else who will do what we do. So yes, I could tell you everything's going to be okay but you and I will both know it's an empty promise, that neither one of us can make promises like that. But we are going to do everything we can to bring her back, and if she gets back we are going to do everything in our power, everything we are individually and collectively capable of doing, to make sure that she does get back to a hundred percent. And even…"she swallowed hard, her voice dropping. "Dash, even if she doesn't, even if she never is exactly like she was before, she's still our Shana and we'll deal with it."
He looked at her, but some of the tight worry lines around his mouth, the frown lines at the corners, began to ease. "You're right. How do you always know the right things to say to make me feel better?"
"Because I know you, Dashiell Faireborn. We've been together for so long that while I may not have Shana's mindreading abilities, I still can read you."
"Speaking of mindreading…" he took a quick, furtive look around him, then leaned in and lowered his voice. "Did Clayton talk to you yet?"
"He hasn't said anything to me yet. Is it about the mission?"
"Um. Sort of." He took another quick look around. "He had a talk with Johnson and Johnson told him what Shana's secondary military specialty was. Hawk gave me to understand that he was only told because it has direct ramifications on how this turns out. She's an intelligence analyst, specializing in kinesic interrogation."
Allie's eyes flew open. "That's how she somehow always knew when the people we shook down were lying! We would think they were cooperating, and Shana would shake them down, and they'd change their story!" Flint was nodding. "And how she always seems to know what you're thinking, and she'll answer a question almost before you ask it!"
"Yeah. Apparently the training she got at Quantico included kinesic interrogation, counterintelligence, and Hawk says that Johnson said Shana got training in narcointerrogation and narcointerrogation resistance." He saw the dawning realization in Allie's eyes. "Yeah, that's what I thought. It's…disconcerting—to think about them strapping Shana down to a table and deliberately injecting her with drugs so they can teach her not to talk while under them…but Allie, it's kind of like SERE training. We don't really like the idea of marching through the forest and being deprived of sleep and all the rest of it, but it does give us a taste of what it's like to be a POW."
"I understand it, I don't have to like it!" Allie snapped, then relented. "But she chose to do it, and it hasn't seemed to alter her personality anyway so it's not like any of us can say anything about it at this point." She sighed as she folded the ladder and stored it in the back of the rec room closet. "While we're talking about it...how is the rest of the team reacting? Besides Snake Eyes. I know he's been spending his time in Shana's room, and I also know Clayton's pretty much told him it's okay."
Dash sighed. "I've barely even seen him since we got back. Recondo, Brawler, Recoil, they pretty much keep to themselves. Alex, I think, is worried and guilty and upset but having Liv here on base so close to giving birth is definitely keeping her distracted. It's Cam I'm worried about."
"Come to think of it, I haven't seen much of her or Charlie since we got back."
"No, she's pretty much been staying in her room. I sent Ettienne to let her and Charlie know to put their presents under the tree, and I sent Stalker to get Snake eyes, so they should be coming along soon." He stopped talking as Courtney bounced into the room, Wayne close behind, both of them carrying an armful of packages.
"Snake Eyes?"
Snake Eyes spun as he heard the soft tap on the partially-open door of Shana's room. He stared to snap at whoever was disturbing his solitude, then but it back—barely—when he saw who it was.
"Um…" Stalker was plainly uneasy standing just inside Shana's room, facing a glowering Snake Eyes. "Snake, look, you don't have to guard Shana's stuff. I promise I won't touch a thing. I just came to tell you that if you and Shana had any presents to put under the tree in the Rec room, now's the time to do it. We held off decorating and setting up until the team got back from the Congo."
Snake Eyes nodded, folded his arms. After a moment, Stalker sighed, turned, and left.
Once he was gone Snake Eyes slowly turned to Shana's closet. When he'd unpacked her things, hung her clothes and put her boots back in her closet, he'd seen the glint of shiny silver paper in the depths; he hadn't had the heart to look. Holidays with Shana had always been so joyful; she made a game of hiding his presents all over the base where only he would find them, and he particularly remembered last Christmas; she'd left a note in his quarters late that night asking him to meet her in the dojo; and when he had he discovered her waiting with a huge red bow tied around her—and nothing else.
He'd had fun unwrapping that gift.
One by one he pulled the packages out. The sheer number of packages mystified him until he realized some of those packages were wrapped in red, green, silver and gold Christmas paper, and others wrapped in paper that said 'birthday' . The ones that had birthday printed on the paper also had tiny sticky notes stuck to them; 'Allie's birthday', said one. 'Courtney's birthday', said another. And four packages wrapped in baby blue paper that said 'it's a boy!' were marked 'Olivia and Auggie'. She'd already been shopping for all her friends.
Her thoughtfulness made a lump rise in his throat, and he had to swallow hard as tears threatened to overwhelm him. He sat there for a long moment, staring at the birthday packages, the baby packages, and the Christmas stuff. She bought all this stuff for everyone. Allie's birthday isn't for months. Neither is Courtney's. No, I'm not going to give them to The Girls. Shana will give them herself when she gets back. But he did take the four baby presents and added them to the armful he was lugging.
Allie took the presents without a word, but as she picked up the baby packages, the rec room grew silent. Everyone stared at the little boxes, which, by the feel of them, held blankets and baby clothes, and then Courtney gave a queer muffled sob and turned to bury her face in Wayne's shoulder.
"I think we'll wait on opening presents until Shana can join us." Allie's voice wasn't quite steady, and her eyes weren't quite dry. Another choked sob from the other side of the room had people looking in that direction, just in time to see Alex duck quickly out the door.
From the corner of the Rec Room closest to the TV, Cam folded her arms, and her voice had an edge to it that made her sound, for the moment, unlike herself. "I will not open anything until Shana's back."
"Neither will I," Olivia said quietly from where she was sitting on the couch, Clayton hovering behind her.
Hawk straightened up, "It's official. We'll hold off on the celebrations until Shana's back with us and can open her own." His eyes scanned the room. "Any objections?"
None.
"We're agreed then."
Cam fled the room, followed closely by Charlie.