Sergeant Vaughan Rice of Light Infantry had three commendations for valor, and the highest rank of marksmanship. He was called R Lee by some Kubrick fans back in the Gulf and had always taken a kind of morbid pleasure of his aim. He preferred the rifle to the handgun. There was more of brutal elegance to the weapon, something timeless and even though he had no qualms about using one; he hated the weapon.
That revelation often surprised people who thought they knew him. It was easy for them to assume because he was good at fighting and shooting, he enjoyed it or that because he took pride to perfect his talent, he reveled in it. All of those ideas were false. He despised guns and warfare. In a way Pearse use to say with uncharacteristic melodrama that only a soldier could hate it.
In truth, Vaughan hated loud noises, fires and the smell of oil made him wrench. He had an insuppressible hatred for yellow ribbons, Willie Nelson, and protestors. Once he had been cited for pushing a college student who was protesting Britain's assistance in the Middle East. Angie looked on his idiosyncrasies as a soldier's prerogative and had never cared more then to find out why. She had distaste for guns that bled into a discomfort whenever she was near Vaughan. Michael chalked it up to what the cop lovingly called, 'the soldier's sociable personality.' Vaughan often wondered if he was suddenly arrested for war crimes would Michael even feigned surprised.
It was Pearse who had ever seemed remotely inclined to understand Vaughan. It had surprised Vaughan at first. Pearse was a priest, and by default, a pacifist, and Vaughan wondered how on earth could such a man be inclined to learn about a soldier. Those were before the rumors of Pearse's cold-heartedness with a gun became evident and before his callousness became his vestments. This had been when all that was known about Father Harman was that he was a priest with limitless connections and quiet, lying eyes.
Back then, the priest would go down to the shooting range and watch Vaughan practice. He never spoke, and rarely moved from the seat behind Vaughan and just admired the gun-work. Vaughan lived in the building at that time because the outside world had become unfamiliar and dark since he returned from the war and his clearest memory of that time seemed to be Pearse, always there in the back. Waiting.
It was back when the nightmares were still terrible. When he woke up screaming from the memory or the pain in his neck, or the rain of burning oil…
And still, the dreams faded into the memory of Pearse keeping vigil. The priest, quiet and unaffected, walking into the room and taking his place beside the bed as if his presence would scare away whatever nightmare's haunted his charge…
Funny, too, how it seemed to work. Maybe it was the myth behind the priest's collar and not the man that had banished his nightmares. Vaughan doubted one man was that powerful. Even Pearse.
O Captain, my captain…
Vaughan readjusted the grip on his gun and refocused the scope on his gun. Angela had shut down the alarms, and water system but the building was still left in murky gray light and the occasional blast of white light. The emergency lockdowns had shut down most of the building from both the Code V's and Vaughan. The upside was of course that the more sensitive parts of the operations were safe. The down side was they were being bottlenecked into the main part of the building. He would have killed for a rifle right about now.
He stepped on something and jumped. More on instinct then plan, Vaughan fell to a knee and pressed his shoulder against the wall. Old training that always made more sense in the desert then in a city seemed to prove its validity now. Keeping his eyes forward, scanning the horizon, Vaughan reached down and groped for whatever he had stepped on.
He picked up Pearse's gun and for a moment, Vaughan's heart stopped. Then, with the precision of a soldier use to mourning in allotted times, he checked the ammo. The priest had got off two shots before being disarmed. He hesitated for a moment before folding the weapon and tucking it away.
"Leave it where it fell…"
Vaughan cursed his carelessness. He rose slowly, and turned around. Olivia stood there, watching him with one arm pushed into the darkness, bracing herself against the wall. Her lips were stained crimson, and her eyes could have glowed. For a moment, Vaughan believed all the horror stories. The demur creature of Pearse's description disappeared. Her eyes were cold, and there was an energy that pulsed through her small little body that caused Vaughan to recoil. He knew the look from the war. It was a kind of quiet hatred that fed on desperation and revenge. If she could have killed him, she would have in that moment.
Which made Vaughan wonder why she hadn't killed him as he knelt. She had the chance. He hadn't even noticed her when he passed, and there hadn't been time for her to get behind him. It meant she had been watching him from the moment he entered the hall.
What was she waiting for?
His hands lifted the gun.
"Don't." She warned again. With a sudden movement Vaughan missed, she jerked her arm free from the wall and spun what she had been holding towards her. She stepped back a little as the object hit her chest. But her eyes never left his.
If Vaughan were any other man, he would have dropped his gun. But he was Sgt. Rice of the Light Infantry, with three commendations for valor and the highest rank possible for marksmanship. There was a rumor that hounded him his entire life that said he was made of marble and that kind of cruelty that came from rectitude. They said about him that he possessed everything terrible that came in virtue. It could have been proven in that moment when Olivia pulled Pearse free from the darkness, and Vaughan reacted without so much as blinking.
Olivia held the priest with one arm looped under his armpit. The old man's head was bowed, eyes drooping shut, and lips were purpled but open. Without light, and in his dark garb, Vaughan couldn't tell if he was breathing. There was blood smeared over his neck and chin. If there was any life, it was hidden somewhere deep down.
Olivia asked softly. "You wouldn't want to risk shooting your leader would you?"
Vaughan hesitated.
"I didn't think so."
Then he lifted the gun. She laughed again. "Do not bluff, Mr. Rice…you wouldn't kill the man who supported you in this gallant little crusade just to get to me…"
"He was the leader," Vaughan said simply and cocked the gun. "Not the cause. I can kill a man."
Olivia
blinked.
"I have killed…"
"Not this man."
"He's dying anyways. If he could make it for something, do you think he would?"
The Code V flinched and looked down at the figure in her embrace. "Is the love you seek?" She seemed to ask the body. "My love brings life…look what they offer." She lifted her head and met Vaughan's gaze again. "I didn't come here to fight a war. You and Colm can play those little games. I am here to get what is mine. You don't have to do this…" The hatred retreated from her eyes for a moment. She had the look of an eternal mother, sad and pleading. Amazing how much they looked like real people. "You can let it go. I'll disappear and take him with me…you've already said your goodbyes. It doesn't have to end like this…you can walk away. You don't have to fight this battle."
"Yeah, I do." Vaughan said softly. "Pearse would never forgive me if I lost this one."
Lowering his gun to Pearse's calf, Vaughan fired. He ignored the priest's cry of pain and Olivia's enraged scream. Keeping his gun steady, he jerked the gun up to the man's chest. "Next one is aimed for his heart. What are you willing to risk?"
Olivia glared at him. For a moment, Vaughan did not breath, and his head remained still in his chest. Then the Code V reacted, throwing Pearse hard at Vaughan and darting into the darkness.
She hadn't noticed that the moment she released Pearse, Vaughan had dropped his gun and took off towards Pearse. He braced the man and eased him onto the floor, adding pressure on the gunshot wound.
Vaughan realized then he hadn't been breathing since he saw Pearse. It had been muscle memory that guided him, a soldier's mind: see a problem; remove the problem. He would wait to weather the consequences when the time was appropriate. He could grieve when it was safe.
And now Pearse lay in his arms, and his life was seeping slowly around him making circles in the carpet. Vaughan felt the emotions surge forward threatening to break the wall he had thrown up. Groping in the dark Vaughan found Pearse's leg, felt the wound, and pushed against and with his free hand, he rubbed the blood from Pearse's neck. His fingers felt no wound, even though he knew he wouldn't have.
Vaughan's hand went down to the man's chest, stumbling over himself to feel a heartbeat however faint. He knew the body could continue to bleed after the heart had stopped, knew the mind could play tricks on the person and he half-feared that small cadence he felt under his palm was his own imaginings. But he really didn't care at this point.
He just
wanted Pearse to be okay.
O Captain, My Captain…
