Chapter 5

The first thing Christopher notices when he next becomes fully aware is that everything is gray: the steadily beeping machines, the walls, the chair next to his bed, the bed…just everything. He has no way of knowing how long he has been out and for a few moments is blissfully ignorant of the how and the why. The one thing he does notice, besides how drab his surroundings appear, is that the room is almost unbearably hot and he would know, because he has been in the desert for months.

The memory hits him full force and he struggles to fight it. It's too much, though; soon he finds himself gulping for air amidst a storm of tears. His chest heaves, causing one of the various monitors attached to him to begin crying out for attention. Breathing is becoming painful, taxing and there are too many wires and the noise is overwhelming; shooting over the ridge there, they are shooting at us…

Christopher's hands flap about as he struggles to push himself up and away from the wailing machines and the cacophonous memories. An unfamiliar ice cold lightning bolt of fear threatens to split his body is half, forces a scream from his throat when the horrors of what happened out there settle on his shoulders.

"Sergeant Tietjens, sir, are you conscious?" A tall male doctor opens the grey door. His lab coat is as grey as the walls. His voice cuts through Christopher's panic and returns him to the moment.

Christopher does not bother with answering the question; he is weak enough in this prone position. "Where am I?" He is forced to turn his head slightly to one side as the doctor sounds like he is coming to Christopher through water.

Two nurses come in behind the doctor and fuss with the machines then check his blood pressure and other functions. Christopher hates it. He wants to push them away so that he can be alone with his anguish and pain. One of them raises his bed so that he is now sitting up. He feels a slight pull on his abdomen and back, but the painkillers are keeping him numb enough that he pays no immediate attention the discomfort. Right now, it means nothing. The nurses are as generically smoke colored as everything else. Now he knows what a goldfish in a bowl feels like, trapped behind a thick wall of glass and peering at a distorted view of the world.

The doctor watches the nurses for a few moments and gives one of them a nod when she leaves two minutes before the second one. Neither of them says a word to Christopher. He keeps his eyes on the doctor.

"Tell me."

"Sergeant, your body has been through a terrible ordeal. What do you remember?" The doctor asks in a voice meant to be soothing.

Christopher detests the patronizing, "I remember enough." That is really all he wants to say on the matter; he expects some type of argument.

The grey doctor simply nods, however. "You know that you were shot not long after you stumbled into the camp?"

Guilt rises up in the back of his throat and tastes of bile; he grinds his teeth against it. "I believe I remember that, as well."

"That is good. I do have some more good news for you: none of your vital organs were too terribly injured. Your left kidney took a beating, but the bullet missed the arteries."

"Fine." Christopher grits out; he knows there is more or the doctor would not still be standing here. Both men turn their heads towards the door as it opens. Christopher does a double-take so fast the room spins.

Valentine steps through and looks around cautiously. She is dressed in a light blue blouse and dark blue jeans; her earrings are small flowers that match her shirt and for a second, the only decent thing still remaining in Christopher's tiny world are her eyes. His school ring dangles from a silver chain on her neck, the emerald stone almost dazzling him as it swings dangerously close to her cleavage. Valentine spots him sitting up and rushes to his side, pushing the chair next to his bed out of the way.

"Chrissie?" Valentine asks timidly, pulling back to look into his face. She holds him gently, like something that will break. He reaches out and catches a lock of her golden hair between his fingers; her bright blue eyes are rimmed with red and there is a scarlet patch on her cheek, probably from resting her face on her hand while she sat in the chair. He is filled with both joy and trepidation at her presence here, so far away from home.

"Doctor, where am I?" He asks, not taking his eyes from her face. She is crying now and not even attempting to hide the tears. Christopher thinks it must be relief.

"You are at Philip's Stronghold Hospital." The doctor answers, still not making any move to leave.

"In London?" Christopher asks Valentine. She nods, petting his cheek softly, her fingertips rasping against stubble. He recognizes the name of the military hospital, which makes perfect sense. "How did I get here?"

Again, the doctor answers while Valentine continues to stare at his face as if it has been years instead of months since they were last together. For his part, he tries to hold her but finds that his arms are too weak. They flop down on the bed. He sighs and Valentine returns the chair to its spot near the bed then takes both of his hands in hers. "A team of fresh soldiers were only a few minutes behind you." She tells him, "When they found you, you were unconscious and in danger of bleeding out. The insurgents were already gone and the…"she hesitates then barrels through, "…damage had been done."

Christopher fights the feeling of tears threatening to fall again. "I was the only survivor," he gasps between his teeth as his chest heaves as the realization crashes over him the way the bombs destroyed the campsite. Once again, guilt threatens to shove him down in a pit of despair and horrid memories.

Valentine nods and the doctor says, "Yes." The man's expression does not change.

Christopher gets a tight grasp on his emotions after a few moments and looks from the doctor to Valentine: she is the only thing in the room that has any color. He shakes his head. "What else?" Because there has to be something else, otherwise the doctor would not still be standing here.

"Sergeant Tietjens, I need to tell you about the bullet that entered the lower left part of your back. Actually, it is a good thing that you were moving quickly when you were shot at, because, as I said earlier, none of your vital organs were grievously injured. Your kidney was nicked and you lost quite a bit of blood; however, the wound was a clean one, the bullet actually passed right through." The doctor stands still, easily at parade rest and delivers his words as if they are memorized lines. Christopher thinks that if he wasn't all grey his hair might be brown.

"Alright." Christopher states. Valentine offers him a soft smile and he tightens his hand the best he is able around hers.

This time the doctor looks down at the floor then back to his patient. "It was very close, Sergeant. The projectile could have done more damage, as it is on its way out, it glanced off of your spine."

Christopher can feel Valentine tense up as the atmosphere in the room gets heavy. No. Don't tell me I'll never walk again.

"As it stands right now, when you are strong enough to be released, you are going to need a wheelchair until your body fully heals. From what we have been able to ascertain with several tests run while you were unconscious, at the current time you have very little motor control over your legs. All of your other body parts, however, are in working order."

Except for my mind and my eyesight, Christopher thinks as he tightens his hands. Valentine takes a deep breath of air and he is instantly sorry that he hurt her. "I'm sorry."

"Chrissie, no. You have nothing to be sorry for! You are alive." Christopher screws his eyes shut tight. He cannot bear to look at her lovely face with the light dusting of freckles over her nose and her eyes full of innocence and love.

She is looking at me like that, with that love that will now be wasted on this useless, broken body. How long will she put up with this?

"Is there anything else you require at the moment, Sergeant?" Asks the doctor, whose name he has not bothered to ask.

"No."

The other man leaves the room and Christopher falls apart in Valentine's arms. She crawls up beside him on the bed and gently guides his head to her shoulder where he weeps for the senseless deaths of forty-nine people and for the future he and Valentine had planned that is probably now lost.

Valentine murmurs quiet words into his ear and keeps one hand locked on the back of his neck, holding him steady, sharing her strength, and anchoring him to reality when it would be so easy to simply fall into hopelessness.

After a time, he takes several deep, gulping breaths then angles his head in order to press his lips against her neck, noting that the chain she wears is warm from her body heat. Suddenly overcome with the desire to prove to himself that she is real and that she is still his, at least for the moment, he opens his mouth a little more and begins sucking on the soft skin against his lips. Valentine stills for a moment then tilts her head and sighs. His suckling becomes a bite, then a lick and then one of them moves and she opens her mouth to him as he finds his second wind and pulls her tighter against his chest with one hand on her back and the other resting lightly on her neck, his thumb gently rubbing against the lovebite he made.

Valentine sneaks a hand beneath his hospital gown and rests the palm over his heart. She spreads her fingers and presses and for a moment Christopher is struck with the idea of yanking the organ from his body and simply handing it over to her, because she owns it. Even when she finally grows weary of him, she will always own his heart. There is and never will be anyone else for him.

Their heated kissing begins to slow as Christopher finds himself growing weary even from that. Only now does he worry about his hygiene. "I'm sorry. I couldn't stop. I should have thought about it…." He puts his hand over his mouth.

Valentine shakes her head. "No, Chrissie. It doesn't matter to me; you have no idea how happy I am that you are alive. A bit of morning breath is nothing compared to the idea that I was being rushed her to claim your body." Her expression tightens; her blue eyes become ice shards.

It occurs to him, then, that he never answered the last email before he was sent on his R and R. "Valentine, I'm sorry. Mugsy sent me to the village for three days to unwind, I had every intention of emailing you back, and I even tried to call a couple of times from this little café."

"Oh!" Valentine smiles now and draws her mobile out of her pocket. Christopher does not particularly like the girly pink thing that fits in the palm of her hand, but she fell in love with it on first sight and he has never been able to deny her anything. She thumbs the screen to show him the call log. In between what he recognizes as her mother's number and several of her girlfriends, he sees the long distance code from the café.

"The first time you tried me, I was proofreading Mother's latest manuscript and my phone was in the bedroom. The second time you called, I assumed it was a wrong number. Now it's my turn to say I'm sorry. I had no idea or I would have picked up!" She bites her bottom lip.

"No, it was a miscommunication. I need to replace my old netbook anyway." Christopher's mind is suddenly a blank slate. His netbook is surely gone, as are the clothing and Valentine's gift that he had stowed in his duffel bag. The clothes and the computer he could care less about, but her gift! He tries to look around the room a little more closely and from what he can see, none of his things are in evidence.

"Where are my things?" He asks, preferring to look at Valentine rather than the grey room.

Valentine thinks for a moment and Christopher thinks that he still hasn't asked her how long she has been here with him. "Hold on," she says and stands up. "Let me go find Doctor Mayer or one of the nurses. They mentioned something a day or so ago about your belongings, but I was sort of distracted." She smiles wanly.

"Valentine, how long have you been here?" Christopher asks, grasping at her wrist to stop her from taking all the color out of the world for a moment.

She lays her other hand over his. "Three days. It took them almost two days to get you here, so you were about twelve hours ahead of me."

"My god."

"Chrissie, don't you apologize again. Please, let me go find the whereabouts of your stuff. I'll be right back, I promise. I'll also see if they will send up whatever you are allowed to eat, okay?"

He thinks that he must be making a strange expression if the worried look in her eyes is anything to go by. Christopher lets his eyes slip closed and he leans back against the pillow then releases her wrist; he allows his fingers to skate over her hand, wanting to hold onto that feeling. "Alright."

"There you are, love. Rest. I'll be right back." Valentine leans over and kisses him once on the mouth and once on the forehead. He offers her the best smile that he is able, though he is now overcome with exhaustion again; she runs her fingers through his hair and he thinks that now would be a good time to rest for a little while so they will be able to talk more when she returns.

A/N: I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV. I tried to be realistic with what I know, however, I did not want to loose myself in the medical details at the cost of the story.