I do not own Ratched.

I do not own my angel boy Huck. But I love him.

Huck Finnigan Lives Again: A Ratched Fairytale

Flashbacks in the Dark


He awakes in the dark.

Flat on his back and alone.

Not quite sure where he is.

He starts to stretch out his limbs.

And stabbed by an instant burn of pain . . .

Oh god-

. . . on his right side.

And his mind reels sickeningly back to the . . .

Oh Jesus-

. . . medic tent in a lost German field hospital . . .

Oh no-

. . . somewhere on the Western Front.

Awaking, groggy, drowsy.

Confused and lost.

Feeling the burning in his right side.

Distant and murmuring, not quite real.

Until he moves or shifts.

Or breathes.

Feeling the bandages, the wrappings on his arm, his hand.

His face-

I can't see-

-the pain.

Not from the destroyed flesh that used to be the left side of his face.

From hairline to jaw.

From nose to back beyond the ear.

And down the neck all the way to the collarbone.

Not the burned, ruined flesh itself, no.

Nothing is left of that for him.

It is gone, the nerve endings dead, gone forever.

But the skin attached to it, connected to it.

The screaming, burning flesh attached to the dead meat he will never be rid of.

And his mouth, his mouth will not open properly, will not allow him to cry out, scream, plead, beg, like all the others.

Jaw clenched and locked in a grimace of terror, of pain.

And so he must suffer alone, helpless.

And mute, only guttural groans emitting from his scratched, raw throat.

And one comes near.

"There, there, soldier. You're not dead yet."

A woman, a nurse, he supposes.

He can't see her, feel her, can't even smell beyond the stench of the burned pork bbq of his own cooked flesh that he will never get out of his nostrils now.

His hand, the right one, unburned, unfettered, unbandaged.

Reaching down, tapping against his thigh.

Careful, precise.

Not shaking, not too much.

Tapping out lines and dashes and dots of desperate Morse code.

Will . . . I . . . be? Dead soon?

And the nurse . . .

"I'm sorry. I don't understand."

. . . something

Tapping again.

Another-

"I'm sorry. I don't understand."

-failed attempt.

And she had left him alone.

Him, screaming and fighting and dying inside, terrified of the pain, terrified of living.

Not knowing how to make himself die.

Flat on his back, in the darkness.

And . . .

No-

. . . alone.


He jerks up, rolling to his left to avoid compressing the right.

Succeeding only in pulling away from the right, renewing the fresh agony there.

And he grits his teeth against the panic and the pain.

Fumbles for the lamp chain, nearly overturning the entire lamp in the process.

And the forty watt filament catches.

Illuminating the room.

The mostly bare white walls.

The table, the chair, the radio, the coffee pot, the cup.

All the other meagar trippings and trappings of a room where a single man with not much interesting in his life has to call his own.

And Harold James Finnigan is relieved to see them.

The room is not a field hospital full of screaming mangled shreds of men.

It is simply a room above a garage on the western coast of North America, very long way away from that field hospital, Germany.

Hell.

And yet it is still here with him.

This is not the first time he's fought his way out of this dream.

It is why he sleeps so often now with a low light on.

The streetlight coming in through the window isn't enough to keep them at bay.

The ghosts of the war.

The screams of the men begging for help, begging for death.

Begging for their mothers.

And if he can only awake, claw his way to consciousness, he will be okay.

Eventually.

Huck Finnigan, clothes hardly crumpled, hair hardly mussed, so deep and complete and still his sleeping body has been, sits on the edge of his creaky single bed, head hanging, left hand cradling . . .

Calm down, just calm down . . .

. . . the right screaming appendage.

Just get a hold of yourself, . . .

Gasping for breath, trying to control it, slow it.

Pouring sweat, slick and oily upon his skin.

Willing his racing heart to either stop pounding so hard in his chest.

Or simply . . .

. . . mister.

. . . explode and finally end his suffering.

I don't know how much longer I can do this.

It's not the first time he's had that thought.

His life has had so very little purpose for the longest time now.

So very little to fill up the gaping, yawning void.

Once, he had been a soldier.

Had-

Ruth-

-somebody waiting back home.

Now he had-

-I'm sorry I came home with the face of a monster.

-nothing.

Well, not nothing.

He had-

". . . head nurse . . ."

-a job.

Oh. Me?

Uh. Okay.

So . . . how do I do that then?

Which he had absolutely no idea how to do.

I just change the beds.

Take the patients to meals.

Occasionally get shot by a paranoid schizophrenic.

But as for any real purpose, any set path . . .

I don't have anything.

Not even a sweetheart.

Not anymore.

He had reached out to Mildred, Nurse Ratched.

And she, as kindly as she could, had informed him that she preferred her own kind.

Okay. Didn't see that coming.

. . . there appeared to be very little . . .

But to each their own, I guess.

. . . on the horizon for him anymore.

And then, before he could go down any darker road, . . .

I wish I could miss Ruth.

. . . Huck Finnigan got himself up . . .

Instead of just the idea of her.

. . . and stopped complaining.


He's feeling a little better now.

Sequestered in the tiny bathroom, he's attended to his tolietries, washed his working hand.

Has managed to pull off the bandage, inspected the wound on his shoulder.

It isn't as bad as he had thought it would be, based on the pain.

Small round circle, no bigger than a quarter.

No redness, little seeping.

The exit wound is a little uglier, so far as he can tell in the hazy mirror.

But certainly not as bad as a . . .

I suppose I have different standards than the typical man.

. . . flash fried half-face.

It would get better.

He cleans it with rubbing alcohol, refusing to allow himself to react beyond a clenched jaw, pressed-thin lips.

And patches it back up as best as he can with his clumsy left hand.

Leaves the bathroom.

That's enough nightmares for now.

Sets the coffee on to percolate.

Sunrise is only a few hours away anyway.

And grabs . . .

". . . looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it's very difficult to find anyone."

Well, at least you still have your face.

. . . The Hobbit.

That should help some.


Thanks to DinahRay for reviewing this story!

Thank you to a few silent readers as well.

The sun will come up for Huck in the next chapter. As well as a little Grace. ;)