A/N: I really cannot say thank you enough to the people who reviewed.
After all, anyone who is a writer would know the truth in the statement "never underestimate the power of encouragement!"
Also, I've said it before but in a different story. Yes, boys really do keep growing until they're 23 at least and can even keep on going until about 25.
It's not fair.
I'm not really sure where this story is going… originally it was meant to be a one shot that somehow turned into maybe a short four chapter thing. I reckon there's probably only one more chapter in it but hey, who knows what'll happen!
Chapter 6
Buck Riley had paced the floor of the small room and when that was no longer big enough, he paced up and down the corridor outside the room – hoping for a glimpse of a familiar white coat.
He had drunk an even more exorbitant amount of coffee and subsequently needed to go to the bathroom rather badly. He swore he'd never washed his hands so slowly before in his life in the hope that by the time he got back, the doctor would be there and Shane would be looking at him and actually seeing him.
He followed the whole procedure listed on the small laminated sign hanging in front of the sink.
Soap and under his fingernails and across the knuckles and between his fingers and up to his elbows.
Twice.
And yet still, there was no doctor.
He tried to write.
He nearly threw his pen out the window.
And yet Shane somehow managed to whittle away the entire evening and most of the next morning sound asleep.
Bastard.
In the end, Book decided to wake Schofield up. He was after all, still an injured young man and he needed to keep his strength up if he wanted to get better. Hell, the kid was probably still growing, he reasoned, and no man of his age should miss three meals in a row!
At least then he would have someone else to worry with.
As he should have anticipated, Shane struggled to eat much of the lukewarm breakfast that had been left for him. Book didn't blame him really. Hospital food was poor in the best of circumstances and lukewarm hospital food was even worse but having lived for the past six months on MRE's and the on-board ship's mess, Schofield wasn't given to complaining.
All the same, he still threw up most of what he managed to force down.
He attributed his queasy stomach to the lingering effects of the anaesthetic.
Book put it down to nerves.
Once he'd decided that the rest of his breakfast was going to stay put, Shane abandoned the safety of his little green basin and took up Book's well-worn tread, pacing the floor.
"It won't help," Book said as he settled himself back into his chair under the window. "Besides, you're going to walk into something in a minute."
"Am not," Schofield bit back, "Not unless you push something in front of me."
Even though Shane couldn't see his raised eyebrow, Buck was sure he caught the tongue-in-cheek tone in his voice.
"I'm thinking about it."
And just to make his point clear, Book nudged the portable tray table beside the bed. Its wheels squeaked and Shane jumped.
Book roared with laughter at the look on his face and when Shane turned to face him, his expression was caught somewhere between the intended growl and involuntary laughter.
"If I could see you," he retorted deadpan, "I'd hit you."
"Well, let's see what we can do about that," said another voice from the door and this time, it was both their turn to jump.
The doctor leaning casually against the doorframe with his arms folded over his chest was not the doctor they had seen before. This one wore his lab coat – still while though less obviously starched – open over a pair of jeans and a smile to boost. He was older, his sandy brown hair was streaked liberally with grey, and he exuded the sort of calming friendliness that came from years of working at perfecting bedside manner.
Book was instantly glad it was this man and not the previous one that was here for this moment.
The doctor let himself into the room and walked over to Schofield, who had stopped mid pace. Gently, he placed one hand on Schofield's shoulder to let him know where he was – not that it was really necessary, Shane's keen hearing had followed his every footstep – and guided him back to sit on the side of the bed.
"You probably don't remember me," the doctor said with a smile, "I'm Dr Field, the anaesthetist who put you to sleep yesterday. Now, can you cover your eyes tight with your hands?"
As Shane plastered his hands across the bandages covering his eyes, Field withdrew a small but sharp looking pair of scissors from his belt and began to snip away at the strips holding the bandages on.
"Keep your hands there," he directed as he slid the bandages out from underneath them. Underneath the bandages, Book could see white patches of soft cotton covering both Schofield's eyes.
The tips of the scars protruded from underneath them.
The doctor lifted the edges of the patches, revealing a small black cross in the corner of each of his eyes.
"Keep very still," he said as he worked. "The human body truly is amazing. The best defence we could give you against infection was already in place – your eyelids. Once the cuts to the skin had healed, we carefully sewed them shut to allow the eyes to heal better. I'm just removing the stiches now and then we'll have a go at opening your eyes. I've got to warn you though, there's a chance that the laser fusion didn't work. In that case there's nothing else we can do and you'll probably be blind the rest of your life. If your vision has only been partially restored then there may be opportunities later down the track to improve it with further surgery but best case scenario is that you're eyes are completely healed. If that's the case, then when you open them, other than a little photophobia which is normal after an extended period of time in the dark, you should be able to see exactly as you did before. Whatever happens, we'll know immediately."
He pulled the cotton patches off from under Shane's hands.
"Spread your fingers but keep your eyes shut," the doctor directed, "allow them to adjust to the light slowly."
Shane spread his fingers and the insides of his eyelids glowed red.
"Does it hurt?" The doctor asked.
"Yeah," Schofield replied but the pain had never felt so good.
"That's good," said the doctor reassuringly, "Now open your eyes slowly and remove your hands."
Schofield did and it was agony. Despite the fact that they'd pulled the curtains and turned the light off, the shadows of the room felt like staring at the blazing sun but he didn't mind.
He could see.
Slowly, the room came into focus. A person sat beside the window. His mostly untouched breakfast looked just as unappetising as it had tasted. The light glinted off the thin wire frames of the doctor's glasses. He was smiling.
And in front of his face, ten fuzzy flesh-coloured blobs took the shape of fingers.
He could see his own fingerprints.
"Ten, right?" Shane said with a crooked smile.
"Right," Dr. Field replied.
Book could have jumped and danced for joy but given the narrow confines of the room, he managed to restrain himself. After a few more tests to determine that Schofield's peripheral vision and ability to track objects hadn't been damaged, the doctor pronounced his eyes absolutely perfect and Book thought that was the last of it.
But no.
Instead, the doctor pulled the other chair over and under him to sit, facing Schofield.
He suddenly looked serious again.
"Shall we talk about getting you in to see a plastic surgeon?"
Book watched as the expression on Schofield's face changed from inexpressible joy to confusion.
"What?"
In response, the doctor offered him a hand held mirror.
Schofield took it and for the first time, saw the scars that marred his features.
For a second – and only a very brief one at that – he thought he might have preferred it blind.
Nothing, nothing, could have prepared him for the shock of seeing his own face so shockingly transformed. The skin around his eyes was still red and swollen. The scars themselves were thick and ropey, slicing down each of his eyes in dark red-purple chains like the marks of the devil himself.
True to the doctor's word, his eyes were perfect. There wasn't even a blemish on the whites and the irises were as deep a dark blue as they had ever been, but he hardly recognise the face that they looked back at him from.
"Can you fix them?" He asked as he thrust the mirror back at the doctor.
"No," the doctor said with simple honesty, "But with laser treatment, you might be able to lighten them."
Shane shook his head, staring at his lap. The doctor went to grip his shoulder in a consoling way but he shook it off.
Schofield forced himself to look up, to meet the doctor's eyes. Neither one flinched.
"Thank you," he said.
He really did mean it. He had a lot to be thankful for and he'd be damned if he was going to let a pair of scars get him down.
But he still needed some time to adjust.
The doctor turned to leave, recognising the dismissal, and Shane went back to staring at his hands. He intertwined his fingers and watched the way the muscles moved. Clenching them into fists, he saw his knuckles stick out. He could even see the veins beneath the skin.
His hands were scarred too.
Abruptly, he looked up at the man who had been sitting quietly in the corner. Waiting for him to speak, knowing he would when he needed to.
"You don't look like I thought you would," he said.
Book just quirked an eyebrow.
"And what did you think I'd look like?"
Even though Shane already knew who the man was, he could have placed the voice anywhere.
"Dunno," he replied. "Older maybe, more like my grandpa, less like a boxer."
He almost laughed.
For that matter, so did Shane.
"Well I am a marine," Book replied, "It tends to have unfortunate consequences for your appearance."
"I learnt that one the hard way," Schofield said, gesturing with two fingers at his eyes. "I guess you saw them before, right, when the bandages were off?"
Book just nodded.
Shane appreciated that he could see it.
"They're a lot better than they were before," Book said slowly, after a long moment. "Before they were bright red, at least they're sort of purple now and they'll probably fade more."
"Always look on the bright side, eh?" Schofield replied.
Book whistled the rest of the song off key and Shane laughed properly for the first time since the bandages had come off.
That very same afternoon, in another first, Shane Schofield's small sparse hospital room was inundated with visitors.
There was a photographer – who quickly realised his services wouldn't be needed – and a reporter – who struggled to get more than a few words out of Shane at any given question. The end transcript recorded only sixteen words, of which seven were 'no,' three were 'yes' and five were 'sir.' The final word adjoined a previous 'no' to complete the expression 'no shit.' All in all, they decided, an interview that would never be printed. There was a handful of general's aides buzzing around, a pair of sullen looking sergeant MP's and in the centre of it all was Brigadier General Norman B. Mclean.
And Book of course.
The entourage had appeared without warning. They swarmed into the room, disturbing Book's afternoon coffee and cake. The Brigadier General was loud and overweight with a cherry red nose that suggested a hearty enjoyment of scotch but Schofield took an instant liking to him. Whereas the aides were jittery around him, not quite knowing where to look and the bloody photographer took one look at his face and pronounced him "unpresentable," Mclean strode in brashly, right beside Schofield's bed and looked him in the eye when he spoke.
"Christ almighty," Mclean said with a guffaw, peering in close to examine the fresh scars, "I'm'a put you in my cornfield's back home to scare away them damn crows. You got a callsign, boy?"
"No sir," Schofield replied.
He supposed it was technically true. He had one once for sure. It had been stamped across the side of his plane – an honour for such a young pilot – but that plane was beyond salvageable now and he wasn't a pilot anymore.
His old identity had died in that isolated Bosnian farmhouse.
"Well you do now," the general replied, "Scarecrow."
Scarecrow.
He tried the name on for size and found that it fit.
Shane Schofield sat up a little straighter.
"Thank you sir," he nodded.
There were the usual platitudes about bravery and the gratitude of the nation as Mclean presented him with a handful of medals – including the renowned Purple Heart that matched the colour of the scars for which he had earned it perfectly – for his courageous conduct at the risk of his own life.
Schofield didn't know about that. The way he saw it, all he had managed to do was get himself shot out of the sky, destroying his multimillion dollar bird in the process, and get captured.
His only real achievement was surviving and that, he reasoned, had an awful lot more to do with Jack Walsh and the marines who had gone in for him than any particular prowess on his part.
If it was up to him, he'd probably still be rotting in that cupboard.
Then they were gone as quickly as they'd arrived.
Afterwards, Shane looked different in a way Book couldn't quite place.
Thoughtful.
When he spoke up, his voice was strong.
"Thanks for everything Buck," he said, "But would you mind giving me a couple of hours alone, I need some time to think."
Book was surprised but he knew he shouldn't be. After all, like a child learning to walk, there comes a time when they no longer need to hold your hand.
And though that moment was greatly anticipated and joyous, it always came with a little hint of pain and regret for what was lost.
"No problem," he said as he got to his feet.
He paused at the doorframe.
"I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Course," Shane replied with that crooked grin that Book saw for the first time, truly reach his eyes.