Chapter 24
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I settled into life in St Louis fairly well. By this point I had lived in three different countries in barely 4 years, it was becoming easier to adapt to new surroundings. David and I lived together. With so many people having to share apartments the authorities didn't complain about two people requesting to live together. He and I became lovers, we worked at the hospital together, and went to a local bar. The legal drinking age was still 21, but nobody really asked for ID. I think perhaps my life experience aged me a little prematurely. We also went to the movies, the occasional basketball games. I was also friends with Leah, I enjoyed babysitting her little Noah. Leah attended the local synagogue more than me, said that her experiences made her get more in touch with her jewish heritage. I told her about Israel, she was considering moving there after the war. Leah feared there would be more anti-semitism if the americans regained this city, wanted to make sure her son was safe. And during this time I was also moonlighting, bringing in medicine to the hospital, and bringing intel back to Coulson. Nobody asked too many questions, Abe and the other doctors were too desperate for the medicine. This wasn't as hard as seeing this hospital, people who'd lost limbs, others in comas from which they would never wake up. I wasn't sure I could blame either side, each side was trying to ensure their own survival. But why the war was still going on, we couldn't tell. The negotiations between president Walker and the alien leaders dragged on, it was frustrating. The number of suicides increased during this period. Some seemed to fear that this war would never end and couldn't take it anymore. Others feared that they couldn't live in peace, not after knowing war for so long. I'd be lying if I said these thoughts never occured to me. If I hadn't had David and Leah I probably would have blown my brains out. Coulson said he didn't judge me for doing what I had to do to gain their trust. But it was clear he looked down on me for being friends with an alien and an "Earth traitor." Yet I was more comfortable around Leah and David then with my old unit. Alien Andy often interviewed people who had defected, those who claimed they were doing better under alien occupation than they had with humans. By January 2068 he was presenting a new theory. He said that the reason so many countries hadn't yet made peace, was because they wanted to send their jewish soldiers off to die in the war. That these governments were using this war to let the jews be wiped out. That seemed like a bit of a fringe theory to me, but there might have been some truth to it. In my experience many officers did send jewish soldiers into more dangerous situations than gentile soldiers. And the refugees I'd spoken with in Israel told similar experiences from many countries. In January general Gardner announced his candidacy for president. He promised that, if Walker couldn't come to a peaceful resolution with the aliens, he would. I still remembered, in the early days of the war, when the alien tanks came rolling into Los Angelas, and the people were resisting with little more than rocks. Then Gardner took control of the local forces, and Los Angelas was never under alien occupation. Gardner was brutal, actually bragged about how many aliens he'd killed. Some even considered him a war criminal, yet here he was promising peace. Gardner said in interviews "We did what we had to do, to ensure that our species would survive. But if neither side has any reason to fight, I see no reason to keep it going." It was a real Nixon goes to China moment. Just as a hardliner like Richard Nixon was needed to start relations with communist China, so we needed someone like Gardner to promote a just peace with the aliens. Whether or not we would be able to vote in St Louis was unknown. But Gardner was promising amnesty, for soldiers on both sides. Some said that he was promising this so that he could avoid prosecution for his own actions. But the fact was that so many of us had done things we weren't proud of, if we didn't get amnesty we had no reason to surrender, nothing to lose by keeping the war going. Some said this was the reason that the war was still going on, too many of us with nothing to lose. I was planning to vote for Gardner if given the choice. I had another reason to want peace. In February I began feeling ill, vomiting in the morning. I had a suspicion what this might mean. I was both scared and hopeful. Me and David asked Abe to examine me to be certain. He confirmed what we already suspected, I was pregnant.