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Steinbeck had arranged a room for Kylen in the Clinic guest house. A four
bedroom cottage attached to the property. It went along with the philosophy
of family and friends being involved in the rehab process. Being the middle
of the week, she was the sole inhabitant. It was past one am and Kylen was
staring at the ceiling. She felt the need for sleep in every fiber of her
being. She hadn't awakened. There hadn't been any nightmares. She just
hadn't slept. Not at all. She was near to tears of exhaustion and
frustration. There was just no sleep. She had tried for an hour to figure
out the cause when she finally hit on something that made sense. She dressed
quickly, grabbed her coat and left her room.
McQueen only barely heard the sound. It had only just barely be enough to
wake him. Someone had opened the door to his room. It wasn't the usual
nurse. The Night Nurse was much louder. When she came it during her rounds
he woke and immediately went back to sleep. No, this was different. This
person didn't want to be heard and this person was good. His body had reacted
before his mind.
McQueen fingered his knife under the pillow. He always slept with it. It
had freaked Amy out. She tried to understand but she had never really been
able to comes to terms with it. Just one of many things with which she had
never been able to come to terms. He felt the knife in his grip and tried to
picture the type and direction of attack. Slowly he cracked one eyelid - just
enough to look through the lashes. In the moonlight, the intruder couldn't
be sure if he was watching. By practice and force of will his breathing
remained unchanged.
What in God's name is she doing in here? And how the hell did she get in?
Security in this place is a joke. OK, Kid, play your hand. McQueen
couldn't think of any real reason she would be there. She sure as hell
isn't here to share my bed and I can't believe she would be an assassin,
though she would be a good one. Who would ever suspect? I wouldn't have and
I would let her close. No, ridiculous. Something isn't right. She shouldn't
be here. It's not right.
Kylen determined her Colonel to be asleep. McQueen's room, like all in the
clinic, was set up as a "real" bedroom - cozy, like a home. The hospital bed
was the only giveaway - that and the wheelchair. She slipped off her jacket,
curled up in the large overstuffed chair, and covered herself with the
jacket. Kylen listened for his breathing. Heard the rhythmic rise and fall,
like the waves of the ocean. She began counting his breaths to herself and
was asleep in moments. The deep sleep of the just.
McQueen watched her for a few more minutes. Whatever it is, she thinks it
can wait until I wake up. I wish I could let the kid sleep. Too bad. All
right, Teller of Bedtime Stories. Time to wake up and tell me this one.
He whispered her name but she didn't move. He could yell of course but that
would probably scare the shit out of her. Enough is enough. "Kylen, wake
up !" he repeated with considerably more strength.
She jolted upright. Ready to move. Ready to run. It took her a second to
reoriented herself. "I thought I could get out of here before you woke up,"
she said sheepishly. " I'm sorry."
"Forget getting out for the moment. We'll get to that in a minute. First,
why are you here? Why would you put both of us in such a compromising
position?" Oh, God the nurses are going to have a field day with this.
Even if conjugal visits are permitted, confidentiality or not, this is just
too good. Oh, Damn, Amy will be hell to live with when she gets word - Which
she will as soon as she comes through the door. WHAT in the HELL were you up
to Kylen?
"Compromising? Compromising?" Kylen sputtered. " Why would anyone..."
She caught his train of thought and was filled with righteous indignation.
"How dare anyone. How dare they think ..." She then realized that her
defense of his honor and her own could be misinterpreted. That he was not
attractive or worthy. That she was a Natural and he was an InVitro. She
began to fumble "Not that... Well,... Not that...."
McQueen had pity on her and came to her aid. " Stand down, Celina. I knew
what you meant." He shook his head as she blushed.
Kylen had her own thoughts. They have all seen Amy. If they know that
they were married... Well, they would see why the idea of the two of us
together is ridiculous. She is a goddess; the type of woman he should be
with. The staff all have to be making book on how long before they get
together again. I've really blown the odds, I bet. Oh, shit, they are all
going to be pissed at me. Another failure.
McQueen caught the change in her expression. "What is it?"
"Nothing. Everything. I feel like a failure. Like nothing is coming out
right. Good Lord, I embarrass you. I put your reputation at risk and just
because I can't even sleep by myself anymore. It's crazy."
"Was that it? Was that why you snuck in here? You couldn't sleep? Couldn't
sleep alone?" he asked and relaxed his hold on the knife.
Kylen groaned. She had blurted out the truth and now she waited for him to
blow up. I've torn it now - alienated the one person I felt connected to.
He undoubtedly thinks I'm a fool. She was wrong.
McQueen had a very clear memory of the first time he had been forced to sleep
alone. All his life he had slept in barracks. Always at least five other
people in the room. When the numbers of the miners had dwindled due to
death, accident, and disease, the surviving men had changed bunks; always
staying close together. In time, the final six men were all sleeping at one
end of a barracks built to house thirty-six. McQueen used to think that the
weight of the six survivors - all at one end would some night tilt the
building onto it's side. That the whole thing would just flip over. It was
unsettling. McQueen had then been sent directly to the barracks for the
InVitro platoons. Then the brig with the other prisoners. Then, finally,
his first night in solitary confinement.
The absolute silence had been terrifying. It created a vacuum inside the
small cell. He felt that his brain would keep growing bigger to try and fill
the vacuum. That it would rupture through his ears and eyes. It was like
having the Bends. He waited for his blood to boil. He had clamped his hands
over his ears to try and keep out that dreadful silence - to try and keep
his brain inside. He had hyperventilated to keep the oxygen from boiling out
of his blood. He wasn't able to sleep for days. He was never sure how many
days it had been but when he finally had been able to fall asleep, he had
done so with his face almost pressed against the wall. Close enough so he
could feel his own breath reflected back on his face.
"It's the breathing isn't it?" he asked softly.
"Oh, yes!" she answered, the tension leaving her voice. "That's it - the
breathing. I could lay down in any of the cells on Kazbek. I could tell who
was in that cell by their breathing. I could tell them apart. I could tell
if someone woke up by the way their breathing changed. I could tell if they
were having a nightmare even if they didn't moan or cry out. But the
breathing... It's like the ocean. In any cell, in the darkness, black, like
being buried alive, so totally black but that soft sound..."
McQueen winced. He had always feared being buried alive. It happened in the
mines. A false step, poor shoring, a pissed off foreman. It happened. He
understood the total blackness in Kylen's story. He had known it in the
mines and he had known it in his cell. He understood it as well as he
understood the oppressive silence. Sensory deprivation. An effective form
of torture. You had to use your mind to survive.
"I was almost seven years out of the tank before I ever slept by myself. I
lived in barracks all my life. It was a difficult thing to sleep alone in a
room for the first time. Even a very small room. It is the breathing.
Without the breathing, it's just too empty."
Kylen spoke. "When I thought of escape - of coming home I never thought that
it would be difficult. I never thought that I'd have to work at it. I had
hoped that I would relax and, you know, be myself again. I wasn't prepared.
I had wanted to rest, to stop fighting. But this is hard stuff to do and I
feel so tired. I keep going just because it's the only choice that I have. It
might not be the only option but it is the only choice - for me anyway."
In the real dark night of the soul it is always 3 o'clock in the morning,
he thought. "How have you been making it through the night?" he asked her
with genuine concern.
"Nobody knows that I can't sleep alone. I didn't know. We set things up like
we did when we were all children." McQueen raised an eyebrow in question.
"When we were kids my parents used to set up these sort of parties I guess
you'd call them. We called them camp outs. It started after a tree branch
came down and we lost power. Mom and Dad brought down mattresses from the
bedrooms and we all slept in front of the fireplace together. We made popcorn
and told stories. Every now and then after that we would pull down the
mattresses on a Friday or Saturday night. Sometimes we would watch a movie
or Daddy would read a story. Even cook hot-dogs over the fire."
McQueen thought it sounded like a fiction - like an overly sentimental
television movie. But watching Kylen tell the tale of the Celina family camp
outs he knew it to be the truth. She really had grown up it that kind of
family. Kylen's stories made him see such vivid pictures.
"Scheherazade," he whispered.
"I thought you said that you didn't know any fairy tales?" Kylen prompted
softly, hoping to get more personal information out of him - to deflect the
conversation away from herself. She hadn't realized that he had been
referring to her and not to a story.
"No, but I know Rimsky-Korsakov." he answered. No more information was
forthcoming.
"Oh, we used to listen to him, too," she said warmly. "Him and Tchaikovski.
Mom really loved Russian composers."
McQueen pictured her family curled like puppies on mattresses around the
fire. Dad reading stories. Mom tucking in the kids. Classical music. She
was not born on the same world I was. She comes from an unknown place.
"No wonder you have confidence in life." He murmured without realizing.
Kylen let his comment pass and spoke again. "So, when we were at The
Greenbrier, in the cottage they had set up for us, we did the same thing. My
brothers would drag down the mattresses every night and we would all sleep
together in front of the fire. Everyone would tell the stories of their
lives. Nothing big necessarily - just what had been going on since I've been
gone. They would tell me about their lives and we would talk about the war.
Did you know - well, of course you know, that Nathan's brother was killed?"
To McQueen, Kylen's family was a wonder almost beyond his understanding. An
abstraction. A dream. "Yes, I know all about Neil" he said. And I didn't
know how to help Nathan through that. Didn't know how to fix the screw up
that the Corps had made. I know how to fail just as well as you, Kylen.
Payback is a bitch, McQueen. You say it all the time. Well, You can payback
Nathan by leading Kylen through this mess. Suck it up.
Kylen interrupted his thoughts. " No, the nights in front of the fire were
pretty good and I got good at catching catnaps during the day. But I managed
to screw that up too."
"How in the world can you screw up a catnap, Kylen?" McQueen was becoming a
bit annoyed with this thread of self-pity he was beginning to see. He was a
marine and any good marine caught catnaps wherever and whenever they could.
McQueen could sleep standing at attention. The only way to screw up a catnap
was getting caught.
"Well, I was asleep on the couch and Allston didn't see me. He is younger
than I am and full of energy. He came vaulting over the back of the couch
and landed on me."
"Oh shit," McQueen said, not without sympathy. Her family couldn't have
been ready for her reaction. "So, how much damage did you do?"
"Got my foot in his solar plexus. A good one. He hit the wall, man. Smack!
And I ran out of the room pulling over lamps and chairs behind me to block
his path. Oh, God, you should have seen the looks on all their faces. Like
I was nuts. Like I came from another planet."
McQueen smiled sardonically. He usually thought that she was from someplace
else altogether, too. "They will get over it Kylen. But we have things to
take care of here and now." He switched gears. Being caught in a bedroom
with the wife or fiancee of a subordinate - Not only was his reputation, his
career, potentially at risk; but Kylen's reputation was at risk as well. He
had to make a preemptive strike.
"All right, Kylen, you can stay - just tonight, but we have to work the
nurses. They will find out and you don't understand the potential fallout.
You really don't."
Kylen's relief was visible but she was ready for his orders. Door number
two. "What do you want me to do?" she asked.
"How did you get in here? No, strike that. No time. Can you get out, come
back and knock on the door?"
"No problem."
"Make a fuss at the door. You need to see me immediately. Think of
something. Can you pull it off? Get in here and I'll take it from there."
"No problem. I can do it." In my sleep with one hand tied behind my back.
Bad joke. Kylen put on her jacket and made a move to go.
McQueen gave her a final word. " OK, Celina. Do it." She left.
Within minutes, McQueen could hear muffled sounds of conversation down the
hall then footsteps moving toward his room. Good girl. Lets go His
night nurse opened the door with Kylen in tow.
The nurse spoke softly: "Colonel, McQueen, excuse me for waking you, but this
young woman says she needs to see you, Sir. She said that you saved her
life. That she is one of the survivors, sir." It was obvious that the nurse
didn't know quite what to believe.
"She is a Tellus survivor." McQueen asserted, rather surprised that Kylen
would share that information with a stranger. Poor Kylen, she still has a
lot to learn.
Kylen looked the picture of the fragile, tear stained little girl. McQueen
marveled at her skill. Not too much, not too little.
"Colonel McQueen, Can I speak with you? Please sir. It's the nightmares."
Kylen said in a small voice. Oh she is good thought McQueen.
"Nurse, please bring a blanket for Miss Celina and leave the door open."
McQueen ordered and the nurse left. "It has to stay open, Kylen"
"I know, But I'm here." Kylen smiled at him. It had been fun. Hide and seek
in the hay barn. Cops and robbers - cowboys and Indians. Fun for both of
them. McQueen couldn't get over how participating in the simple prank had
gotten his juices flowing.
"Well, am I going to have to wonder how often you're lying?" McQueen asked.
"You did that pretty well."
"I never used to lie but I have gotten pretty good at it," she laughed a bit
uneasily. She turned to him suddenly serious. " I don't think that I could
lie to you, at least not so that you wouldn't know. You would know," she
answered.
"But you told me that I don't intimidate you," he countered.
"I said that you don't but not that you couldn't," Kylen responded.
McQueen wanted to take time to consider that statement. The nurse returned
with a blanket for Kylen and actually tucked it around her as she curled into
the chair. When the nurse exited the room she left the door open as he had
requested. McQueen changed the subject. "So, how did you get in here? The
first time?"
Kylen looked at him with a rather shocked expression. "Come on, you were a
POW. Don't tell me the first day they let you out of this room you didn't
scope the place out. You probably can tell me two ways to get out of almost
every room, space and hallway; then give me a choice of escape routes after
that. You know which routes you can manage today and you have other ones on
the list in your head - ones that you can manage when you are stronger.
It's something that we POWs do without even thinking about it. Like
scratching an itch, we look for the way out. So, tell me, just how many ways
out of this building have you identified?"
"As of today? Eight. When my balance is better - probably another five or
six."
"My point, exactly," she said giving him a dazzling smile. "Good night." The
two were almost immediately asleep - secure and dreamless - wrapped in the
sounds of the waves of breathing - like the ocean.
McQueen awakened at what had been his customary time of 0500. He was well
pleased that his internal clock was finally starting to kick in again but
truth be told he had actually slept in a bit. He was usually up and dressed
before reveille. The day didn't start at the Clinic for another two hours
and he was finding these empty hours frustrating and boring.
Kylen was soundly asleep, curled up in the piece of furniture he would
forever unconsciously think of as Kylen's chair. She is going to have one
hell of a stiff neck, he thought. He noted that she had drooled onto the
blanket. For McQueen such things did not register on any sort of aesthetic
level. He had seen men in battle wet themselves in their sleep; not from
fear or injury but rather from sheer exhaustion. Drool was nothing. He was
not even aware that Kylen would have felt embarrassed. To him it was just a
gauge of how deeply she had slept - a good sign, actually.
He hauled himself out of the bed, reached for his cane, then paused to
calculate his next move. He hated the fact that he still had to plan out his
moves - that walking to the bathroom unaided required some planning and
concentration. He was subject to muscle spasms and while his brain was
getting some sensory input from the "Volkswagen" attached to his thigh the
impulses where not yet being fully or correctly interpreted. It was like his
leg was always"asleep." It had given out on him a couple of times and now
was not the time to go crashing to the floor.
He made it to the bathroom without incident, shaved and dressed. When he
emerged Kylen still hadn't moved a muscle. He very slowly and carefully made
his way down the hall to the Clinic's library. The night nurse shortly
tracked him down. It was how he thought of her; "Night Nurse." He had never
bothered to read her nametag.
With one practiced look 'Night Nurse' gauged her patients condition. She was
experienced, knew her job, her boss, her patient, and understood the
rehabilitation process. He looks no worse for the wear. But whatever it
might have been - the girl was not a romantic interlude. Something had to
bring him out here. Too bad. Ain't nuthin' happnin' with the whole Amy
thing. Would have been nice for the man...a young woman like that. From
the look on his face she could tell that he was not in the mood for
discussions or negotiations. There was no getting him back to bed without a
fight. 'Night Nurse' knew how to pick her battles, so she would let him stay
but only on her terms. She gave him one word:
"Wheelchair."
"Bring one," was the Colonel's curt response.
The nurse saw McQueen settled in the solarium - in the wheelchair - with a
cup of black coffee, the personal stereo he had picked up in the library, and
he had asked her to pull up the morning Washington Post on the terminal.
McQueen did not know it but he and Kylen had the luck of the draw that night.
"Night Nurse" had the employee number 002 . The first staff member hired.
She loved her job and patient confidentiality was a religion to her. Her note
in the medical record was terse and covered none of the real events of the
evening:
She typed out a quick, secure e-mail to Dr. Steinbeck, whom she had followed
from John Hopkins when he came to Maine to start the Clinic. The two worked
together like fire horses in their traces and could finish each others
sentences.
In the meantime McQueen had briefly skimmed the paper then put on the headset
to listen to a remastered century old recording of Scheherazade. A bit
florid for his taste but it somehow suited the moment. He rested, waiting
for the day to begin. He wanted to see Dale. This whole thing had been
Steinbeck's great idea. Let him solve this problem.
Next : Chapter Sixteen
Previous : Chapter Fourteen
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