It was after ten when he made it home. Linda was on the couch, and he sat down next to her, kissed her. "How was your day?"
"Same old, same old." She kissed him back. "How's Doc Dawson?"
"Same old hard-ass." He put his arm around her, and she nestled into his shoulder. "Gave me a homework assignment. I told him I didn't do well in school, but he said it was extra credit."
He couldn't keep from tensing up at the thought; and Linda must have felt it, for she wriggled out of his grasp, turned to face him, and took his hands in hers. "What is it, Danny?"
He closed his eyes, unable to look her in the eye as he told her this. "He wants me…next time I have a nightmare…he wants me to talk to you about it, not to shut you out like I've been doing." He pulled away from her, turned so he wasn't facing her anymore. "I just don't know…"
"Danny, you know I'll listen to whatever it is, I won't judge you."
"There's some stuff I can't tell you, babe. Some, because it's classified; other stuff…there are some things no one who hasn't been in combat needs to know about. I'm not saying you can't handle it; I'm saying…hell, I don't know what I'm saying." He swallowed hard, swiped at his eyes. "I never wanted to burden you with…all the crap I brought home from Fallujah with me."
"You wouldn't be burdening me, Danny; you'd be letting me help you bear that burden." She paused, and Danny flinched at the tears in her voice. "Please, Danny…let me help you."
He bit his lip. "I'll...I'll try, babe. It's late, let's go to bed."
His throat was sore, as if he'd been screaming. A firm hand rubbed his back. "Easy, Danny, it's okay, you're okay."
What was going on? He had just been on the rooftop with John Russell, yet at the same time trying to avoid a firefight in Fallujah—now he was at home, in bed, with his wife. "L…Linda?" he croaked.
"Right here, babe. It's all right, Danny. It was just a nightmare."
He shuddered, ran a hand over his face. His eyes were wet. "Dammit."
"Shhhh…it's okay, Danny." She reached across him, pressed a tissue into his hand. "Shhh, Danny …you're okay. I've got you, babe."
He scrubbed at his face with the tissue, then threw it in the general direction of the trashcan. "Sorry I woke you. What time is it?"
"A little after 2." She rubbed at his arm soothingly. "Do you wanna talk about it?"
He tensed. "Not really. But Doc did tell me I should, dammit."
He threw the covers off and sat up, taking a shaky breath as Linda padded around from her side of the bed to sit next to him. She had brought the blanket with her, and she wrapped it around his shoulders tenderly. "It's okay, Danny. Take your time."
He leaned his head in his hands. He was shaking and he couldn't make it stop. "I've been having the same nightmare ever since John Russell…killed himself: I'm on the roof, pleading with him not to jump; he salutes me and then jumps, over and over again; and at the same time, somehow, I'm surrounded by the sights and sounds and smells of Fallujah: the bullets, the missiles…." The lump in his throat was choking him.
"I'm sorry, Danny. It wasn't your fault." She slipped her arm around his waist, held him gently.
"You've never talked about your second tour, Danny, but…you came back different: haunted, angry. What happened over there?"
He let out a shaky breath. He'd held this all in for so long…was it really okay to let her help him bear it now?
"They captured my squad, and held us prisoner for three days. Eight men, including our C.O., were killed in those three days; four more died in the hospital. I'm the only one who made it home alive."
"Three days, Danny…why didn't you…?"
"They interrogated us, Linda!" he interrupted roughly. "I didn't want to talk about it! I was trying to forget it happened, dammit!"
"'Interrogated' meaning they tortured…"
He's in a hospital in some nameless town in Iraq, in a room with his best friend, Michael Jones. Last thing he'd heard, he and Michael were the only ones left.
"Danny, what am I gonna tell my wife? They…they interrogated us—they, dammit, they tortured—"
He couldn't finish that sentence, for Danny had clamped his hand over his mouth. "Shut your trap, PFC Jones! We do not use that word here, do you understand me, PFC Jones?"
"Sir, yes, sir, Corporal Reagan!"
"Don't ever say that word to me again, do you understand me?"
Hot tears were dripping on his hand, and he blinked. He was staring, not at the grizzled face of a fellow soldier, but at the beautiful, tear-stained face of his patient wife. His hand was clamped over her mouth like a vise.
He pulled away as quickly as if her mouth were on fire. "O God, Linda, I'm so sorry, babe, I'm so sorry. Forgive me, please. I didn't mean to do that to you. I'm so sorry. Are you okay, babe?"
She was shaking, and he reached for her shoulder, cursing under his breath when she flinched away. "I..I'm fine, Danny. But you have to talk to Dr. Dawson about that, and whatever the hell else happened in Fallujah."
He nodded. "I…I will. Where…where's my phone?"
"Not now, Danny; it's 2:30 a.m. You need to sleep." To his surprise, she put her arms around him, and he buried his face in her shoulder as his own tears mixed with hers.
Neither one of them got much sleep; and at 5 a.m., Danny dialed his C.O. "Hey, Sarge, I'm not going to make it in today."
"Reagan, if you've been hitting the bottle that hard…"
"No, Sarge, it's nothing like that." He sighed. This was hard to say without making himself sound like a total head case. "I'm running on maybe three hours of sleep. The Russell case last week…stirred up some crap, and I need to deal with it before I do something stupid."
"Do I need to take your gun, Reagan?"
"No, sir."
"Good. I'll see you Wednesday. Take care of yourself, Reagan."
"Thanks, Sarge."
At 6 a.m. he typed a terse text to Dr. Dawson: "Sorry to bother you this early, Doc, but I need to talk asap."
The reply was almost instantaneous—Doc must be an early riser. "I don't have any patients until 1 p.m. Can you come at 8?"
"Sure. Linda's coming with."
"I look forward to meeting her, and I'll see you both at 8."
He took a long, scalding hot shower, trying to wash the memories off; saw the boys off to school; choked down half of the breakfast Linda made him; and then headed out the door with his wife.
"What's going on, Danny?" Doc asked after introductions had been made.
"I need help, Doc. I hurt my wife last night. I had a nightmare, I opened up to her about it like you'd said. Then she asked me about Iraq. I told her…that they… interrogated us. She asked if that meant…" He took a shaky breath, tried to swallow around the lump in his throat, and flinched when a water bottle was pressed into his hand.
"Take your time, Danny. You're safe here," Doc said gently.
He loosened the cap, managed two swallows. "She asked if interrogation meant…torture. I had a flashback to…I was in the hospital after our men rescued us. I had to keep my buddy from saying that word out loud because I wasn't sure who the hell was listening, and I put my hand over his mouth—real rough, because it was life or death. I didn't know I was hurting Linda; I thought I was back there, and I was trying to keep PFC Jones from running his mouth!"
"What brought you back from the flashback?"
"Feeling her tears on my hand."
"Linda, how did you feel during this?"
"Scared. That this case had pushed Danny over the edge, that my husband wasn't going to be the same. Not that he's been the same since he came back from his second tour; but he's never been violent with me or the boys, even in the middle of a bad flashback." She put her hand on his arm, and he flinched. "You scared the crap out of yourself, too, Danny."
He nodded.
"Refresh my memory, Danny: what year did you return from your second tour in Fallujah?"
He tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but he couldn't. Linda answered for him: "Early 2005."
"So, 9 years ago. And since then, have you talked about that tour apart from your mandatory debriefings and psych evals?"
He shook his head.
"I am trained in trauma therapy, Danny. If you want to work through this, I will help you—but you have to be willing."
Finally he could swallow. He took a sip of water. "I have to work though this, Doc; I can't risk hurting my family anymore."
"Danny, you need to do this for yourself first and foremost—otherwise your PTSD is going to eat you alive, and that will hurt your family."
Images of the bruised and battered face of MaryAnn Russell, the terrified face of Tommy on the ledge, and the haunted face of John Russell in the seconds before he took that irrevocable step, flashed before his eyes.
If he did that to Linda, to the boys… He didn't even want to think about that, and he shuddered. He looked up to meet Doc's eyes. "I need help, Doc."
"Good job, Danny." Dr. Dawson turned to Linda. "If you wouldn't mind, Linda, I'd like to have a one-on-one session with Danny."
She nodded, stood, and kissed him. "Are you okay with that, babe?" He nodded, and she stroked his hair. "I'm proud of you, Danny. Call me when you're ready for me to pick you up. I love you."
"Love you more," he whispered.
"Love you most," she replied with another kiss.
When she was gone, Doc took his time getting a cup of coffee, then sat down again. "Tell me what you didn't tell Linda about your second tour."