To a person, the entire team looked down at their hips, looked up at me, and pulled faces that told me to shut the hell up with that.
“So what happened?” asked Xasang. He was the heart of the team, I decided. The one who called to ask how everyone was, no, how are youreally? I knew he’d called Jackson a couple times to check in, as well as to mention issues the others were wrestling with. Jackson was the soul of the team, but Xasan played the role of beating heart with kindness and joviality.
Jackson touched my lower back again, and it felt both supportive and intimate. So I told them. Draining that emotional wound hurt less this time, and felt more like healing than it had at my in-laws’ house. Perhaps because I’d already aired it out once, or perhaps because these people didn’t want to be my parents. They wanted to be my friends, to know who I truly was, and I had precious few people who wanted that from me.
Maybe it’s because you keep so many secrets,I thought.How is anyone going to get to know you if you hide who you are?
Good question, me. I’ll get back to you when I figure that out.
As I finished the tale, Dillon raised his beer bottle toward the unfurling twilight. “Here’s to the doctors who never fucking quit on us. Even when it gets them run over by a Jeep.”
“To the doctors,” the others murmured, and raised their bottles as well.
“Tomydoctor,” Jackson said, pitched so only I could hear, and leaned over to steal a kiss.
“Aww!” Paulie said. “You two are so cute!”
Jackson and I both blushed.
Xasan tipped a swig of beer into his mouth. “You are, boss. I’ve never seen you like this with anyone, not even That Fucker.”
I raised an eyebrow. “That Fucker? Oh, Owen?”
“He Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken,” Jiaying corrected. “Otherwise, Dillon is tempted to do stupid things.”
Dillon shrugged. “I think they’re totally reasonable things. They’re just notfriendlythings, and they’re not the real problem.”
“Which is?” Jiaying asked.
“That if I did them, you’d be jealous, and you’d want to help out. You’re trying to cockblock me so you don’t get into trouble yourself.”
Jiaying sniffed. “Also a perfectly reasonable thing. If I am not allowed to pull his lungs out through his nose, neither are you.”
Chuckles all around. I wondered if I should mention that Owen had called, and did anyone know how he’d found out Jackson had come back to Earth?
Before I could, Xasan said, “You must have had very interesting talks about what happened to Jackson on Mars. What with your ‘I won’t leave a patient’ and his ‘I have to leave a wounded man behind’ experiences.”
The statement brayed out like a belch after the priest says, “Let us pray,” and lingered with a loathsome air no one could fan away. Jackson turned into a ramrod of tension and glowers next to me. I watched the realization dawn across the other four faces one at a time.
“You didn’t tell him what happened,” Paulie said.
“Drop it, Paulie,” Jackson said in a low voice.
“No,” Paulie countered. “I don’t think I will. You need to talk about this. Have you even mentioned it to your shrink?”
Jackson slammed to his feet. “What I say to my shrink is none of your goddamned business.”
Paulie pushed herself up after him. “Butthisis my business. It’sallour business. You keep treating what happened like you did the wrong thing. You didn’t just do therightthing. You did theonlything.”
“I said,drop. It.” Jackson’s voice sounded more like a growl. “Let it go. I don’t want to fucking talk about it.”
As I’ve said, not leaving a soldier behind is a kind of religion with the military. Youneverleave a soldier behind. Not even bodies. Your brothers and sisters in arms should always come home, with their shield or on it, and they should have a decent burial to honor the sacrifice they made.
This credo has lasted as long as the military itself. Except now, it sits at odds with the realities of warfare on hostile, non-Earth worlds. Mars doesn’t care if you have a wounded warrior to take back to the medics, or a fallen sister who needs to go home. It cares only that the toxic sands blow, the radiation burns, and that the air is stolen from your lungs.
One of the first things they tell you in Martian survival training is, “Save yourself first. You can’t help others if you’re dead or dying.” Even when it means leaving a soldier behind.
Paulie couldn’t take a hint. “So, it’s okay to talk about my dying grandfather, but not-”