TRIGGER WARNING: self harm & suicidal thoughts

SEVEN

With his latest surgery completed, Patrick removed all his surgical gear and finished cleaning up before grabbing the patient's chart and overseeing the man's transfer to the recovery ward. Glancing down at his watch, he was surprised to see several hours had passed. He truly had not realized the surgery had taken that long—nor had he expected it too. Then again, there had been a few surprises.

The solider in question, a Brit, had been injured in a shell explosion and had arrived at the hospital a few days prior. The field surgeon had removed the shrapnel and repaired all the wounds as best he could, but the man's hand and arm had been burned when his uniform caught fire and such injuries were too fresh to fully address in the field. Patrick's job that morning had been to do what he could to remove some of the dead tissue before it became necrotic and hope the man would soon be stable enough to be transferred to another hospital that could better address his burns.

Patrick did not have too much prior experience with severe burns as they were rarely seen during his training work back in London. He knew that burns were a common injury near the front, but with their delicacy they were rarely treated there. Patients almost always had to be transferred away from the field hospitals for treatment and thus he'd had most of his experience with burned tissue in the prior few months.

While trying his best to save as much as the man's tissue as he felt he could, he had discovered tiny bits of shrapnel that had been missed in the soldier's original surgery. Knowing they needed to be removed for the wound to begin to heal, he'd taken extra time to make sure all foreign objects were removed before continuing with the original purpose of the surgery. All in all, it had been an interesting case, and he found himself actually looking forward to writing up his notes on the procedure.

As Patrick started up the stairs towards his office, he hesitated a moment. Now that he was no longer focused on the surgery, he was becoming more aware of the empty feeling in his stomach. He thought about going down to the kitchen to grab a sandwich or a piece of fruit, but then remembered he had an uneaten apple on his desk from the day before.

As he slowly trudged up the stairs, he mentally reviewed the parts of the procedure he thought went well and the others he could have improved upon. He was so focused on the thoughts inside his mind, he did not realize he was about to stumble upon the crisis that was happening up on a ward on the second floor until he heard an unexpected shout. Confused, he walked down the hall and poked his head through the nearest doorway only to encounter a ghastly scene.

Inside the ten-bed ward, six of the beds were occupied by reclined patients, and the seventh by a man who was standing up on his bed. His back was to Patrick, so he could not immediately see what was going on, but the stance of the other occupants of the room told him something quite alarming was afoot. A soldier, a nurse, and Sister Bernadette stood in a half-circle in front of the man, all of them with their hands out to the side in non-threatening positions.

"Stop! Stop! Make it stop!" the unwell man sobbed.

"We can help you," he heard the kind voice of Sister Bernadette say.

"No one can!" the man spat in her direction. It was the viciousness of his tone that made Patrick realize he needed to get involved in whatever was transpiring.

After tossing his patient files onto the nurse's desk by the doorway, he approached the half-circle of individuals and gasped when he'd made enough progress to see the face of the man standing on his bed. Blood was pouring down his face from several seemingly self-inflicted wounds on his forehead, cheeks, and ear. The blood continued down his hospital gown and onto his left arm. Following the path of blood downward, Patrick saw the man's hand was also smeared and bloodied and he appeared to be holding some sort of tool or implement in his hand. Though he was not initially sure what it was, closer inspection of the area revealed some shards of glass on the floor.

"James, it is James, isn't it? Or would you prefer something else? Jimmy, perhaps?" Sister Bernadette continued. The man continued to snivel but did not respond in any meaningful way. "Perhaps if you just sat down here on the bed, we could help you. I'd be happy to sit beside you. We could have a bit of coffee and talk about what-"

"I don't want to talk!" He growled at her. "I want to make it stop!" He flailed his arms out, splattering bits of blood onto the floor. The nurse and soldier took a step away from the immediate area, but Sister Bernadette took a step closer, so she was almost right beside the bed.

"What are you doing?" Patrick muttered underneath his breath. He was perturbed that she was getting a bit too close to someone who was clearly on the brink of a mental breakdown, but he also knew he had to try and control the situation for the safety of everyone involved. Not wanting to disturb the scene too much, he stepped up behind the soldier and ask the man quietly, "When did this start? Did you see?"

"No," the soldier replied out of the corner of his mouth. "Came in when I heard shouting. It's been…maybe ten minutes. He keeps cutting at his face with the broken glass. What do you think we should do?"

Patrick thought for a moment as he assessed the scene. Fortunately, the bed on the man's left side was unoccupied. The one on his right was, and the wide-eyed gentleman laying in it had two broken feet and thus could not easily be moved. With the unwell man's arms flailing about, Patrick was hesitant to have anyone approach for fear they could accidentally be slashed, yet they could not allow the standoff to go on for too long. Sister Bernadette's attempt to reason with him was the best one—at least, for the present moment.

Before the doctor could make any further assessment of the scene, the man let out a piercing scream, flopped down onto his knees on the bed and pitched forward so his forehead leaned against the mattress. He brought his left hand up to beat against his head, seemingly having the glass dig further into his hand in the process.

"Oh, James, we can help you. If you could just put the glass down." Sister Bernadette reached out to place her hand in the middle of the man's back, but before she could touch him, he bolted upright and she jumped back, startled. "The screams won't stop. They never stop!"

As the man's pitiful words processed in his mind, Patrick felt his stomach twist in his gut. He knew exactly what the man meant, as he had faced similar demons on his own. The relentless sounds of screams and gunfire had echoed inside his mind even after he'd left the front. Many men were affected in such a way. Though he had never witnessed it, Patrick was aware of a few instances when men saw ending their life with a bullet as the only means of escape.

The nurse, who stood a meter from the end of the bed, stepped forward while James's attention was on Sister Bernadette. She held a towel in her hand and reached out towards him, presumably to attempt to address his wounds, but when she was less than a meter away, the man swiped his left hand towards her, and she jumped back with a yelp. As she hurried away from the scene with tears on her face Patrick decided they needed to act.

To the soldier, he spoke quietly. "We need to get him sedated so he doesn't harm himself further or hurt anyone else. I'm going to go draw up a syringe and then I'm going to go around to the other side. As soon as the sister moves a safe distance away, can you get him down on the bed so I can inject him?"

The solder nodded and their plan was set in place.

Patrick backed away from the scene slowly until he was confident the ill man had not taken notice of him, then he dashed to the medical supply cabinet. After prepping a syringe, he walked hurriedly out into the hall and into the other entrance of the ward so he could come up behind Sister Bernadette. After securing the capped syringe in his pocket for the time being, he approached and said as quietly as he could, "Sister, you need to step away now."

She either ignored him or didn't hear him, because her focus remained on the sobbing soldier, whose facial injuries looked even more gruesome from that angle. "I can't get the sounds to stop."

"I know, James, but they will in time. You're here now where it's safe and quiet. We can help you—we will help you."

"It's not enough!" James screamed.

As Patrick inched closer to the sister, a new beam of light shone through the window over his shoulder. The day had been cloudy, but it appeared the clouds had parted to deliver a few hints of sunlight. One of those beams hit James's closed right fist—the hand that was just centimeters from Sister Bernadette's face—and Patrick saw for the first time there was another shard of glass inside it. Patrick's face flushed with fear, and he knew he needed to act before anyone else became injured.

Looking up, he locked gazes with the soldier now positioning himself on James's left side. The solider nodded indicating his readiness; Patrick returned the nod to confirm their plan was about to be put into action.

"Sister," he began, his voice as urgent as he felt he could make it without alarming James, "I need you to step back. Now."

She didn't move an inch.

Frustration and fear bubbling up inside of him, Patrick decided he had no choice but to remove her himself. If he grabbed her around the waist, he could spin her out of the line of danger as the soldier tackled James to the bed. Then, he could spin back around with the syringe and deliver the sedative to James. It would not be as smooth a process as he would have liked, but it would work.

"Sister," he tried one final time, "I need you to step back. We are going to help James, but you need to stand aside." He purposely chose the word "help" instead of revealing their true intent just in case James retained enough presence of mind to understand and revolt.

Again, she did not move, so Patrick crept up behind her until he inched his left foot just behind but in between hers. He slowly reached his hands forward and hovered them just beside her waist. Before he grabbed her, he glanced over to the solider to confirm he was also in position, but this several second delay ended up being a catastrophic miscalculation.

In the same moment Patrick turned his head, a patient across the ward sneezed. This seemingly innocuous event was enough to trigger James, for he screamed. Patrick grabbed the sister around the waist and pulled her towards him at the same moment when James's right arm slashed through the air. He felt as though the world suddenly began to move in slow motion as she stumbled back into him causing him to lose his footing. He already had enough twisting momentum that it ended up taking them both to the ground with him half on top of her. It was only when he tried to push himself up that he saw her hand was at her throat and crimson was seeping through her fingers.

"No! Why didn't you listen!" he cried out as he clamped his hand down on top of hers.

As he hovered over her, seeing the terror reflecting back in her eyes, Patrick's mind began to spin, thinking about the location of the wound and how close it may have been to the carotid artery. They were laying almost directly above an operating theatre, but such close proximity still wouldn't save her if the cut was deep enough and in the right location. She would die beneath his hands like so many others and he would be helpless to stop it, only able to watch with sickening horror as the life faded away from one of the people he cared for most in the world.

Though it felt like an hour, barely ten seconds passed before he steeled himself enough to examine the wound. The blood seeping out from between their fingers was slight at best and as soon as he let himself focus on it, he knew the wound was not life threatening, but he still needed to do a thorough check. He lifted up his hand and peeled up her fingers with his to see the slice across the front of her throat. The injury was not insignificant, but far from dangerous, so he said, "Keep pressure on it," before pushing himself up from the ground.

Slipping his left hand into his pocket to retrieve the syringe, he turned around to see the soldier struggling to pin James down onto the bed. Using his teeth, Patrick removed the syringe cap then stepped forward, yanked the man's hospital gown aside, and plunged the needle into his buttocks. James continued to struggle for another few seconds before he slowly went limp.

Patrick capped the syringe before placing it back in his pocket and surveying the carnage around him. Then, after taking a deep breath, he began to assess all the injuries so he could address them in order, staring with the most severe.

"Well, Lieutenant, it seems like you handled this difficult situation as best you could."

"Thank you, Sir," Patrick responded to the major after providing his post-incident report. The patient had injured two employees in addition to himself during his mental breakdown, so an official report needed filing. Patrick had written it up after tending to James's wounds and those of the soldier who had subdued him. Sister Bernadette had insisted on dressing her own injury and he did not argue as he had still felt rather annoyed with her refusal to heed his directions leading up to the injury.

"We will do what we can to transfer that unfortunate gentleman to a more appropriate hospital as soon as is feasible, but until then he will need to be kept isolated and in restraints."

"Understood."

"Then, I think that is all we need to discuss. Oh—just one more thing." The major folded his hands on his desk and gazed at Patrick pointedly. "Do I need to remind you about the policies we have regarding fraternization between nurses and doctors?"

Patrick's brow furrowed, as he didn't have the slightest idea to what the major referred. "Sir?"

"Er, perhaps I should say doctors, nurses, and nuns."

"Oh—oh." Patrick nodded with understand but felt immediately compelled to clarify the situation. "With all due respect, sir, you have misunderstood our relationship."

"Have I?"

The major replied with suspicion and Patrick could not say he was shocked. He was far from the first man to question the relationship he had with Sister Bernadette. In fact, the other doctors and officers working in the hospital seemed to enjoy teasing him about it over mealtimes very much. They alternated between implying a relationship of a sexual nature between them and teasing him for spending time with someone who they saw akin to a school principal, dampening any sort of fun with a strict adherence to rules. Knowing it was better to ignore than react, Patrick largely let these comments roll off his back. The only time he had reacted was the first time someone implied they were sexually intimate using very crude language; Patrick had shut down the suggestion in no uncertain terms.

Patrick was more than happy to keep the details of his friendship with Sister Bernadette between the two of them; however, he did not want her to get into trouble with the major or the sister in charge of her order based on rumors or assumptions, so he decided to be completely truthful.

"Yes, you have. Sister Bernadette and I did not meet here at the hospital. We first came across one another about a year ago when we were both trapped behind Italian lines. We helped each other escape. She… I owe her my life, sir, and in that sense, we have a unique bond."

The major nodded slowly. "Brothers in arms."

"Something like that, yes."

The major hummed, skimmed his fingertips over his jaw for a moment and then concluded, "Well, perhaps now your debt has been repaid. You are dismissed."

Patrick nodded respectfully and then exited the major's office to continue with his day. He knew that later he and the sister would need to talk through what had happened, but for the time being he had other patients that needed him.

Sister Bernadette stepped out onto the balcony and immediately scrunched her nose in displeasure. She had expected the outside air to be cooler than the stifling temperature of the ward, but the humidity in the air remained thick and unpleasant. She brought her right hand up to tug at the collar of her habit in hopes of loosening it and in doing so her fingers brushed against the bandage now taped against the front of her throat.

That day had certainly not gone as she expected. The troubled man, James, was a new arrival to the hospital. She'd known from the first time she greeted him that he suffered from battle exhaustion like so many others before him. She prayed for him and felt guided to help him. She had helped others with their struggles, the man standing just a few feet away from her on the balcony included. She felt confident in her skill and the guidance of God, but James truly had been a unique case.

Earlier that day as she tried to help him, she had not been entirely foolish. She had kept a watchful eye on the shard of glass he held in his left hand, which was why she'd approached him from the right. She hadn't seen the second shard. Presumably, Patrick had, which was why he had been so insistent on her stepping back. In the moment, she had merely thought him to be overprotective. She had been annoyed with him, because she hadn't been worried at all; she had God's protection! In the end, God had protected her by way of Patrick's valiant act. If he hadn't grabbed onto her when he did, her injury could have been far more severe.

She took a few more steps towards where he stood looking out over the edge of the balcony, one hand braced against the concrete wall, the other holding a cigarette to his lips. Once she was sure he knew it was her approaching, she asked, "Are you angry with me?"

They had not had the opportunity to speak since the incident. When he had confirmed her injury was minor, she was further able to process what had happened, and felt rather embarrassed by fear she felt just after they'd fallen to the floor, and she hadn't known how severe her injury truly was. The terror she'd seen in his eyes had unsettled her, and she'd wanted time to herself to reflect and pray.

He glanced over his shoulder but did not turn his body away from the balcony wall. "A bit." Then, after another drag of his cigarette, he turned to face her. "You should have listened to me when I told you to back away."

"I understand that now, but at the time I was just trying to help him."

"You could have helped just the same if you were out of arm's reach."

She took a few steps closer and clarified, "I felt that I had God's protection. He wouldn't-"

"God's protection," Patrick spat. He shook his head, frustration evident in his expression. "Yes, I've bloody well seen how God protects men in trenches. I've seen how they beg for their lives only to have shrapnel buried so deep in their chest we can hardly remove it in order to give them a proper burial."

She could not help but wince at his words, which were so atypically vicious. She understood that after all he had seen at the front his perspective different from hers. That was completely reasonable, but that didn't change how she felt called to help.

"God's plan for each of us is different. He has shown me that I am here to help these men."

Patrick shook his head and turned away, taking another drag of his cigarette. "Some of them are beyond help."

Frustration bubbled through her in the reflection of what she felt was an unkind comment from him. "They are not."

"They are and I know they are because I nearly was!" he spat, pounding his fist against his sternum for emphasis. Then, he shook his head as he gazed off into the distance. "A few more days, a week maybe two at most and I would have been just like him. I would have tumbled over the precipice of despair, and I could not have been brought back."

"But you were!" She insisted, taking another step towards him and almost reaching out to grasp onto his hand, but stopping herself just in time. "You came back, Patrick."

She watched as his eyes glazed over with the ghosts of memories. "I heard them too…the screams, the constant gunfire. Like him, I just wanted them to stop, and I would have done just about anything to stop them. Every night was torture. Every night, I'd…I…" He took one final drag from the cigarette then tossed the last of it to the ground. After a few moments of silence, he addressed her with intensity.

"I fought back against them, thinking it was the only way to maintain my fragile grip on sanity, but that only drove me further into madness. The only way past them was to walk through and come out the other side and I was able to do that only by the guidance of your hand." He closed the distance between them and stood so close she had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze.

"You have saved my life twice now, Sister. Perhaps that is why I feel…" His voice drifted off as he held her gaze. She felt the heat rising in her cheeks and a tightness in her throat build the longer he stared without speaking. She swallowed hard to rid herself on the feeling just as he said softly, "…responsible."

Responsible had not been the descriptor she was expecting, which caused her to immediately feel embarrassed. Of course, he wasn't going to say—no, that was ridiculous, and she was ridiculous for even thinking that he might say…something else.

Turning away from him to hide her embarrassment, she muttered, "You should not feel that way."

"Why not?"

"As a doctor, you should-"

"I am not your doctor." He grabbed her arm and tugged on it so she would turn to face him. "I am your friend. And if there is ever a choice between your life and another's, I will protect you first. Always."

Sister Bernadette found herself at a complete loss for words as he gazed down at her, speaking with a nearly heartbreaking level of sincerity. She had never before heard someone say such a thing to her. The declaration was so close to one of love, it made her head start to spin. How was it that she and Patrick had ended up in such a position where their care for one another was elevated so much higher than their care for those around them? They had many shared experiences that were not short on dramatics or intensity and they had formed a friendship, but somehow over the last few months together it seemed that friendship may have begun to blossom into…well, more.

She supposed that if forced into a similar situation—and she would pray to God that she never did end up in such a situation—but if she were to be in a situation where she was forced to choose between protecting Patrick and protecting another, like one of those soldiers in the hospital, she would not be able to stop herself from protecting him first. That, she thought, was what happened when you cared for someone, when they cared for you, and when you had, quite literally, saved each other's lives.

Sister Bernadette did not feel capable of verbalizing any of those thoughts in that moment, but she knew she had to do something to make sure Patrick knew she felt the same. After staring at him for several more seconds, she stepped forward, ducked her head so it could slot beneath his chin, and slid her arms around his waist. They had never hugged before, but it seemed the most appropriate thing to do in that moment.

His arms closed around her shoulders, and he pulled her tight against his chest. She let her body sink into his even though she knew she shouldn't have. She simply…couldn't resist. After all that had happened that day, being in his arms suddenly seemed like the only place she should be. The heat of his body combined with the stifling humidity in the air should have made her feel uncomfortable, but she was unbothered by it; it actual felt rather comforting.

After a few moments of holding him, she took a step back and said, "I'm sorry I didn't listen to you; I will next time."

He eyed her cautiously. "I surely hope there isn't a next time."

She rounded her shoulders and nodded. "Well, yes. Of course."

"I'm sorry I was so harsh with you."

They exchanged soft smiles before he walked over to stand with his hands pressed against the wall of the balcony. She stepped up beside him and knew they did not need to speak any more about the incident. Instead, they would simply enjoy the sounds of the night—together.