Ron's Worst Nightmares

Saying Goodbye to an Island Paradise

By Pat Squared

Sorry for the long wait,

Had to let my inner demons out

In the Avatar: Last Airbender Universe.

I promise to finish up this one soon!

Thank you for your patience!

Major Park, US Army Medical Corps, scanned the after action reports looking for any sign of Vasilii Boiarskii. Officially, he was compiling data to project how many combat psychologists should be forward deployed to minimize the severity after-action post traumatic stress disorder. Because most of the men in the ad hoc units came from hospital units (having already been wounded in combat) or were units freshly rotated out of the Middle East/Horn of Africa, they would be most prone to combat fatigue. Once solders would be immediately send home. Today, they and their loved one had to be counseled. In the past, some overwrought solders committed murder-suicides, spousal abuse incidents spiked up, and some have turned to chemicals to relieve their pain.

Lieutenant, now Captain Vasilii Boiarskii, USMCR, was a textbook case of just how far one could go off the deep end and still be recycled back into the battlefield. Boiarskii had lost his entire squad in the Sudan, hunted the enemy through a riflescope, and nearly lost his life. The only reason he was not given the medal was the fact that he was in a coma and Sudan was a sideshow in the eyes of the civilian world. Boiarskii had lost everything that a man could lose. His pregnant girlfriend left him and nearly killed herself and the child in a car accident. He had lost his self-respect. It seem that the only thing preventing Boiarskii from eating a bullet was the fact that his men depended upon him.

At the rate things were progressing, the war in France would soon be over and the ad hoc units assembled to fight the war would soon be disbanded. Boiarskii would have nothing left to hold him back and Major Park, MD, PhD Psychology, knew that the young man needed something to return to. He needed a reason to live. Major Park knew that Vasilii needed a family, even if the family including that lying bitch Kim Possible.

Kim Possible was in a German hospital recovering from the accident and on the verge of going into a psych ward for the rest of her life. Part of Major Park wanted the red head slut to go mad assembling crafts with the rest of her fellow inmates. However, Vasilii then will be stuck raising a daughter by himself. In his condition... Major Park knew that he had to get Kim out of the hospital.

Major Park made a phone call.

"Frau Doktor Mueller, bitte. Ist Doktor Park."

"Kim, listen to me. The last time we talked, you were really high on some powerful painkillers. Doctor Mueller told me that you believed that Vasilii was dead and that you were on the verge of going schizoid. I convinced her to log your psych issues down as an adverse reaction to the medication."

Dr. Park stared down at Kim.

"However, you and I know that what you went though was not just some adverse reaction to the medication. No bull shit, but you have issues. We all have issues, but now you don't have the luxury of ignoring those issues.. Now that you are off the drugs, I need you to work with me for the sake of your child. I need you to be honest with me or I can not help you."

Kim wondered at what part of the Twilight Zone she woke up in this morning. The only thing that seemed real was her daughter laying on her sore breasts. However, Dr. Park was offering her a life rope and she had to grab it.

"I got you discharged under two conditions. One, you will stay with the Schlosser's. They are not happy with you because of the incident, but I got them to go alone because of Melody. You will not leave the house alone. You will not be left alone. I am sorry for the restrictions, but it's the only way you will get out of here. If you are left in a hospital too long, you become acclimatized to the hospital and that is a recipe for being committed for the rest of your life. Your daughter needs you to raise her, not to grow up trying to hide the fact that you are locked up in some mental institution. Also you will see Doctor Mueller once a week on an outpatient basis, Freda Schlosser will take you.

"Two, I will shrink your head at least twice a week, often on short notice. There is a war with France and the combat psych cases are pouring in so I can not schedule set sessions as a civilian doc does, so I have to cram in your sessions in the time normally allotted for sleep. With a newborn, I doubt that you will get much sleep anyways for the next couple months."

Kim shook her head. She could not return back to the place where she poisoned and killed Ron. She could not return and face the Schlosser's. However, there was no place left to go.

"I can't...I killed Ron."

Dr. Park shook his head, "You almost killed him. He nearly died of an overdose of painkillers. We did not know where you were. You broke his spirit and he almost committed suicide because he had nothing left. I had to get his CO, commanding officer, to keep him busy training his platoon so that he had no time to reflect on all the shit that life piled on top of him. Now he is in France commanding a company in the middle of a war. He has something inside of him that prevents him from abandoning those who depend on him. It is that something that prevented him from abandoning you when you were risking both your necks to save the world. He can not abandon the 100 men that depend on him.

"However, there is an after the war. The military will break up his ad hoc company. He can not ignore the issues haunting him forever. He won't have that something preventing him from eating a bullet. He needs you. He needs Melody. He needs someone that will be by his side for the rest of his life, not to judge him or fly off the handle at the smallest provocation. He does not need someone to head shrink him – That is a job best left to detach professionals such as myself. He needs someone to accept and more importantly love him. Otherwise, should he lose you and Melody...Best case then, he rapidly descends into madness and is committed for the rest of his life. Worse case, he eats a bullet after lashing out against the world. You are going to hold his life in your hand. He is on the edge just as you are on the edge.

"Normally this goes against all my training and experience...putting two unstable people together, but fate already did that. Kim, you came this close to being locked away in a psych ward for the rest of your life. Your daughter needs you. Vasilii needs you. You are the linchpin that is holding three lives together. You spent your youth saving the world. Now you have to save your family."

There was too much for Kim to think things through rationally. However, if she didn't...She would do it. She had messed things up so badly. She had to do it or she could not face her daughter.

Mommy, why did daddy kill himself?

Kim did not want to answer that question.

"Dr. Park, tell me what do I need to do."

Ron Stoppable grunted as the corpsman finished stitching the cut on his arm.

"Sir, that was bullet fragment. You should go to the rear."

Ron shook his head, "I can't go back. We got a war to win."

I have nothing to go back to.

It was 1842 and the operation to clear the island in the middle of Chateau Thierry was accomplished exactly one hour and five minutes ago. All that Ron's company was waiting for were the combat engineers to finish building the pontoon bridge and to be relieved by a platoon of army reservists. It took twelve lives and eight more men would never fight again.

I failed.

Ron watched as the army engineers finished placing the last of the pontoon sections of the bridge. His men had the few prisoners they captured ready to move out. He knew that they did not have any valuable information, yet a part of him wanted to make them pay for the deaths of his men with pain. However, to do so would mean cheapening the memory of those that died.

"Sir, Second Lieutenant Gideon, US Army Corps of Engineers. I am here to relieve your company, sir."

Ron felt his anger erupt at the lieutenant. His men were wearing clean BDU's, wore spit shined boots, and looked like they came off a parade ground. Ron slapped down the lieutenant's hands.

"You don't ever salute in the field, boy. Before they gave me a bar, I lived to put a bullet in an officer's head at three hundred meters and in his chest at a thousand. Here, you don't salute. You don't wear any rank insignia. You don't even wear a clean uniform, because those are the things someone such as I look for when picking a target to pick off. Thank you lieutenant and keep an eye out for snipers. Nasty vermin. I picked off a couple myself, but we lost a total of eighteen men."

Ron's men had cleared the island, but Ron saw no point in letting the lieutenant have an easy time on garrison duty. There was no way he would let some snot-nosed replacement have a vacation on an island paradise that his men died to grab. No effing way. The lieutenant's eyes opened and he immediately called over his platoon sergeant to start relieving Ron's troops.

Ron walked away.

"Sir, thank you," muttered Lieutenant Reyes, his executive officer.

"I shouldn't have, but I could not stand the thought of those reservists living it up enjoying the good life on our island."

"Where to next."

"Paris, Reyes. We all are heading to the City of Lights so we can all go back home to our loved ones. Tell everyone that we are going to hold a quick goodbye to our dead and then we go back to the war."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Ron knew that the fight was going to be getting nastier as they pushed towards Paris. He wonders how many more goodbyes would he have to witness.