CONTENT WARNING – Blood/gore
Silver And Gold
Jamie works feverishly for ten minutes that feel like ten years. He shouted off three different men who tried to offer help, so it is only after he sits back, and his red-stained hands go still, resting on his snow-soaked knees that I approach, kneeling down on Willie's other side.
I take Willie's hand in both of mine, warming his fingers in between my palms. His eyes and mouth are closed now, his breath rapid but even – probably as a result of the three injections Jamie has given him. But there is nothing to be done about the giant gashes torn into his abdomen and thighs, nothing to be done about the pieces of him spread across the snow, nothing to be done about the filth, and blood, and ooze, and bodily fluids I'm horrified to even learn the name of. . .
Nothing to be done - not with a first-aid kit and four years of pre-med, in the dead of winter, long minutes away from a hospital, and hours away from a surgeon of any description.
Jamie has to know that.
He has to know it better than anyone else here.
I don't dare look at him. I know what I would see on his face, and I am not ready to see it there.
Instead, I gently brush Willie's cheek, trying to give him what little distraction I can provide. Or perhaps a kindly voice, at least. . .
"Willie?" I say, quietly. Then a little louder, "William?"
Jamie's head turns toward me at the sound of the name, but I ignore him, focusing on the dark brown of Willie's suddenly open eyes.
"Aye?"
"It's Claire, William."
He smiles, very faintly, "Oh, aye. Bonnie Miss Claire."
"Will you. . . talk to me?"
"Aye. Wha' about?"
I swallow heavily, pulling bright cheerfulness from somewhere, "Well. . . I've. . . never seen Scotland in the springtime. Why don't you. . . describe it to me?"
I reach down with my other hand, and gently untie the tourniquet Jamie put around his thigh, as a ridiculous sop to first aid.
I don't know anything about medicine. But I know Death when I meet Him. We've met too many times before for there to be any mistake. . .
"Aye. They doo say, ye ken, tha'. . . tha' the fields, in the springtime. . . they grow silver and gold."
"Do they?"
"They doo," He looks up dreamily at the pale blue sky, the few high, wispy clouds reflecting from his eyes, "When the frost breaks, it throws up a mist - a mist as fine as powder, an' as pure as snow. It keeps away fairies. . . an' all who would doo us harm. In the light b'tween starshine an' the dawn, it's clean, bright silver, shieldin' the land wi' its power."
Jamie notices the great stain of blood growing around me again. I muster all my courage, and look over at him. For a moment our eyes meet with fierce, Earth-rending disbelief, that changes quickly into an expression of black, smouldering loss - the fiery look of those who find they must stare into the eyes of the One who comes for us all, and meet Him face-to-face.
It is all I feared. And worse.
Much, much worse.
I turn back to Willie, "And then?"
He swallows a few times, "An' then, when th'sun comes up, the mist turns tae gold. It burns away, from t'heat of its own beauty. It leaves the scent. . . of dragon's breath behind. . . tha' c'n heal. . . even God's oon wounds. . ."
He trails off, as his own wounds reassert themselves. The pool of blood around my knees is huge, dark, and horrible. The snow hisses, and steams with the heat of a life, burned fast and strong and pure. . . Before he loses consciousness, I lean forward, and press my lips to his. For a moment, his cheeks warm with a smile, for the last time.
"Bonnie Miss Claire. Bonniest lass in th'Highlands. . . bu' I've nae chance. . . no' wi' Ja. . ."
His eyes close again, and his rapid, shallow breath slows. All the tension and pain flow out of him, and a look comes over his features that only decades of living could have put there otherwise. Gone is the skinny, awkward boy, the loud, grinning, over-eager innocent. In his place is a patriarch, beardless but venerable, unlined but wise, uplifted and kind, gentle, generous and good.
They say only the perfect die young. I've never believed that until now.
I lay his hand across his breast, my vision blurring with tears.
One of the men comes up then, and lays a blanket reverently over him. It's Dougal, with tears streaming down his own face. He doesn't look at me.
Someone takes my hand, and leads me back to the runabout. We're back at Hotel California cottage before I realize it's Jamie. He's gesturing me out of the runabout, and into the cottage to get cleaned up.
It takes fifty lifetimes to wash my hands.
It takes Jamie even longer.
Then he sits down next to me on the couch, and the people we were half an hour ago are not the ones sitting here now. . .
He whispers at the lamp across the room.
"Why did ye do it."
He isn't asking. I answer anyway.
"Because it was the right thing to do."
"An' how d'ye ken that?"
All my anger at the universe rolls out of me in one great sob, "How do I know it? You saw his injuries, Jamie! How can you object to a clean end, on land he loved, under a clear blue sky? To a release from suffering? From intense, overwhelming pain? From lifelong mutilation, even if he had survived? To free a young, sweet boy from that? It was the right thing to do, Jamie. In your heart you know that, just as well as I do."
His voice is utterly flat, still speaking at something across the room, "The ambulance was comin'. It's still comin'. He might'a lived."
"Maybe. But do you really believe it?"
His silence is answer enough.
"You couldn't do it, Jamie. I know that. But I could."
"It wasnae your decision tae make."
"Oh, but it was."
His hands ball into fists, and finally he looks at me, "An' how d'ye ken that?"
I have never seen such consuming fire in anyone's eyes before. Such fury, such agony, passion and loss. . .
"Be-because I'm the only one here, Jamie. The only one who knows."
"Who kens what?"
My past rises in me, a staggering wave of nausea and gall. . .
I'm the only one here who knows what it sounds like when a man freezes to death.
I'm the only one here who knows exactly what the last week of a starving child looks like.
I'm the only one who knows what the air tastes like after ten hours of sustained nuclear blasts.
The only one who could describe the smell of people half-cooked by radiation, and the bone-deep chill of their screams.
Who could convey the feeling of the Blueblast bombs, as one-by-one, for eight, long, interminable years, they slowly destroy every thing and every one you ever cared about. . .
Jamie may know about loss, about oppression, about torture, about grief, about pain. . .
I am the one who knows about war.
About death.
About hell. . .
Hell isn't death. Hell is dying slowly.
I draw a hand across my face, hot tears spreading across my cheeks like burning lava, "I'm the only one who. . . who knows what. . . what a blessing it is, Jamie. To die fast."
And then, there is nothing left for me to do but run, and so, I run.