Chapter Thirty-Eight: Mirror Image

Once we were satisfied and spent, we both fell into a deep sleep. For Willis, that was a good thing; it helped finish healing his wounds and rest his overtaxed body. For me, it should've done the same - but without my pills for the nightmares, I was subject to getting my subconscious ripped to shreds in my dreams.

And tonight, just like every other night since I'd stopped taking them, it did.

Because I'd gone over two weeks without my pills now, the nightmares were starting to get more elaborate. Tonight, instead of only reliving my memories, the past was contorted, getting twisted in the most awful of ways. Even though the reality had already been hellish enough.

When I was thrust into the dream world, I found myself back on the Tsavo Highway five years ago. The shrapnel from the Scorpion tank that had exploded right next to me and my best friend, First Lieutenant Dean Lewis, was embedded in my right arm, just like it had been in real life that day. I could feel the blood running down my wrist and off my fingertips, and my dislocated shoulder burned in acute pain, but for some reason I didn't think to do anything about it yet. I just kept walking in the fog, passing by more blown-out pieces of the convoy on the way. And bodies.

Eventually I stopped paying attention to my surroundings since it all looked the same - like it was on an endless loop. Instead I glanced down at my body armor, dented and blackened from the blast, and then down to my combat boots, covered in dirt and blood. The signs of battle were all there, but in the distance, I could hear nothing. It was eerily quiet, and that put me on edge. With my left hand, I slowly raised my pistol up, ready for whatever might pop out.

Not being able to see more than a few feet in front of me was disconcerting. I wished fervently for another living soul, anyone...and then, stumbling through what was left of the roadway, I saw a figure. He was distant, almost part of the fog himself, but I could just make out his features enough to tell who it was.

Lewis.

"Dean!" I cried out to him. "Hey, buddy, over here!"

For a brief moment I felt elated, as if I'd been left on a deserted island and had finally found my salvation. But as my best friend's form started to crystallize and grew more detailed, I nearly dropped my gun in shock.

My redheaded friend was dripping blood everywhere - all down his face, down his battledress jacket and pants, even his own boots. As he kept walking closer towards me, I could see he bore all the wounds that had killed him that day on the highway. And seeing him like that again, I just couldn't take.

I dropped quietly to my knees in the dream, my mouth open in horror yet no sound came out. I felt my eyes well up and tears spilled down my cheeks, and suddenly I was sobbing harder than I ever had before. In the meantime Dean's ghost finally came to a halt right in front of me and grinned down at my grief - not a creepy smile that someone in my nightmares should've had, but one of the genuine ones he used to give me when we were joking around with each other during lulls in the battle. Just like old times.

Except that he was bleeding and very clearly dead.

"Natalie," he said in his British accent. "What on earth are you doing sitting there on the ground? We've a war to fight, you know. And you've a husband and son I know you want nothing more than to return home to as quickly as possible. Get on with it."

"Dean," I choked out through the tears. "Jesus Christ, you're..."

Lewis just cocked his head to the side and raised a red eyebrow, still smiling. "I'm what, Captain?"

"You're dead."

He gave me a perplexed look, obviously confused. He glanced down at his hands and waved them around a little. "Hmm. No, I don't believe that's true. You're pulling my leg, aren't you?"

"No, I'm not. Can't you see the blood?"

A hearty rumble of laughter came from behind us then, and I whipped my head around, my pulse going wild in my ears. When I turned I saw it was my other best friend, Major Oliver Hayden. He had his fatal wounds on display as well, but strangely, there was no blood. He just smelled overwhelmingly like burnt flesh, making my nose wrinkle. I almost gagged.

"Cooper, seriously, stop messing around," Hayden said to me, stopping at my feet behind me just like Dean had on the other side. "The waterworks aren't going to help us finish this thing. Get up. We need your help."

"My help for what?"

Oliver looked at me like I was stupid. "Killing Covies? And the Flood? And the rebels and the Storm? They aren't just going to wake up one morning and decide this was all a mistake and take off, you know. We do have to actually go after them." He smirked at me. "Did you forget that, or did you just have a really good time at the bar last night?"

"I didn't drink anything," I responded flatly. I tried to wipe at my cheeks but they stayed wet. "And I want to help you guys, I do. You're just gone, and there's nothing I can do about it."

Suddenly I was wracked by sobs again. Lewis and Hayden just hovered over me now, not saying a word, but still smiling.

"I miss you both so much," I said to them. "So fucking much, but no matter what I do, I can't go back. I can't save you."

Finally I felt utterly depleted of energy; it felt like the sobs had sucked all of it out. I collapsed on the road, not even able to raise my head off the ground, and the pain of my own wounds on my right arm and shoulder intensified to a blinding sting. "I'm sorry," I whispered to my friends.

I shut my eyes in the dream and expected it to end there. But it didn't. A moment later I was opening them again, and this time, there were three figures standing above me instead of two - crowding me now as I lay prone in the street.

The third one was Travis.

I felt my leg twitch hard the instant I woke up, and the intense thudding of my heart in my chest made it difficult to breathe. I sucked in a deep breath urgently, taking in the oxygen like I'd been starved. It was only when I opened my eyes a bit and looked to my left that the panic started to subside.

Lying beside me in the bunk was Willis. He had an arm wrapped around me and I'd been leaning against him as I slept. Slowly I relaxed, remembering where we were and how we'd gotten here. That seemed to make things better for a little while, but the cold feeling of pain and fear and sadness from the nightmare didn't go away.

Willis cracked open a hazel eye at me. "Coop? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I mumbled in reply. "Go back to sleep."

I heard him snort. "Like hell. You just kicked me in the leg right now, and it was pretty damn close to the spot you seemed to like so much a few hours ago. I'm thinking you probably want me to stay injury-free in that area."

Even in light of the dream and despite the fact that I still wasn't completely conscious yet, I couldn't help but grin. "There's plenty of other things I love about you, too. But you're right, that does fall into the top three category."

My husband chuckled. "I kind of figured."

He shifted in bed then and I felt his lips touch my own. I promptly kissed him back, but remembered he needed to take it slow so I pulled back a bit.

"How are you feeling?"

"Good," he answered. "You?"

"Really good. I missed this. It's nice to be able to wake up next to you again."

Willis touched my arms and scooted closer. "I missed this, too."

His kiss felt different this time. It wasn't just the automatic response to waking up together, or a soft peck as a display of affection. It was hard and deep, an invitation. And before I knew it, I found myself getting lost in it again.

"Will? You're sure you're okay?" I asked him between kisses.

He smirked at me in response. "I'm good to go if you are."

And that was all the answer I needed.

We didn't say anything for a while afterward, content with spending the moment recovering in silence, lying side by side. Eventually Willis moved closer and I snuggled into his side, resting my head on his chest. It felt like a lifetime since we'd been able to have a quiet moment alone together like this.

"How are you feeling now?" I asked him softly.

"Like things are finally starting to get back to normal, at least for us," my husband replied. Then he sighed. "Of course I can't pilot my bird, and you're back to waking me up bright and early again. What were you dreaming about?"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

He pulled back a little to give me a look. "You know what I mean, Coop. In nearly eleven years of marriage, you've never kicked me in your sleep - except for a few times right after we came home from Africa, just before you got pregnant with the twins. Guess what you weren't taking yet."

I stared back at him. "I wasn't taking pills for the nightmares while I was pregnant, either. I was only cleared to start taking them after I gave birth."

"Right. I think your memory's a little fuzzy."

"Oh, really? Are we going to fight about this now? Because I'm telling you the truth. I never - "

Willis surprised me by leaning in to kiss me and grinned. "Relax, honey. That's not what I was trying to say."

"Then what - "

He sighed. "Let me start over, okay? What I meant was, your symptoms seemed to kind of naturally stabilize there for a while, and if you think about it, I'm sure you can probably remember. Something about all those hormones I guess...I don't know."

I finally calmed down and sighed myself. "Your point?"

"My point is that you kicked me awake this morning, and it's something you haven't done for five years. So I know you're not taking the meds anymore."

I frowned. There wasn't much I could do to try to hide it now, and I didn't want to. Not from him. I took a deep breath and spilled.

"That's because I ran out a couple weeks ago, Will. I tried to get more from the Ex, but the doctor aboard ship said they didn't even have any on the manifest. So until we get rotated out, or this mission ends, I don't have any options."

"Shit, Natalie. That's not good."

"Yeah. Tell me about it. I remembered the nightmares being bad, but not like this."

"Why didn't you ever say anything?"

"You were just starting to get better. I didn't want to worry you."

He took a minute to digest that, then ran his hand over my bare shoulder soothingly. "Okay. What was it about? The dream you had."

"Hayden and Lewis this time, on the Highway. It wasn't really that unusual from when I used to get them, but...something was off."

"How?"

"My brother was in it."

There was a pause. "Mark or Travis?"

"Trav. And I don't even want to think about why he might've been in there."

Willis squeezed me tighter. "Don't, Cooper. Don't go there. Just remember your little brother is alive and well on Qamar, just like mine is here. If you try to decipher things like that, you'll just end up driving yourself crazy. Reality is reality and the dream is just...something else."

"I know, but it was...pretty disturbing."

He kissed the top of my head. "Of course it was. That's why it's a nightmare. I'm sorry you have to go through this again, honey, but hopefully, we're getting close to ending things here on Khan now. Maybe we'll get to go home soon, like you said, and you won't have to go long at all without your meds."

"Yeah. I hope so, too."

My husband had always been good at reassuring me about things, and this time was no different. I finally had him back fully - alive and well and even mobile now - so there wasn't much to complain about on that front. It was everything I could have hoped for, besides him getting his wings back.

But for some reason, now that my body had settled, I couldn't get what I'd seen in the nightmare out of my head. Especially that last image of my brother, standing over me on the highway along with my two dead best friends.

Like Willis, I hoped to hell it didn't mean anything.