hell of a life

[literaryimmortality]

The heat should be overwhelming but I can't feel anything. Jim's gone, shot out into space and I've just pulled the trigger. I shouldn't feel guilt, I know, given that he'd all but sealed my fate when he woke me up. I should hold onto the anger that's been inside me for months, let it stop the sadness that's sure to come.

But I can't.

Maybe that makes me weak. Maybe that's all I've ever been and I'll ever be. But the one person I held dear for over a year has disappeared into the darkness of the sky, and I don't know how to get to him.

I say his name over and over, and he doesn't respond. I don't even know if he's alive. All I know is that I was the one that did this, that I should have searched for another solution. I close my eyes, grit my teeth. I shouldn't have opened the vent. I shouldn't have—

"Aurora?"

My eyes open and widen, and I search for the source of the voice. He's out there, somewhere, he's still alive. I can fix this, I—

I have no idea where I am. There's no metal beneath my feet. It's ground. Earth. Grass. I gasp. I haven't felt grass in over a year. Longer, maybe. I think of the rose Jim brought me and that's what makes me try to stand up, start looking for him.

But I forget for a moment about the wound in my arm and when I try to push myself up with it, I scream. The pain's so intense that for a moment my vision goes dark again and I can feel hot tears filling my eyes under their lids.

I inhale sharply and realize it's cold, here. I think for the second time in my life I'm waking up where I can't possibly be.

Comments

[literaryimmortality]

"I'll be sure to add it to my list," I say, my breath quickening a little as my hands hit more of the open air and start to sting. I know I'm shock but I also know that soon, it will start to wear off, and then it's really going to hurt.

Of course, I'm never going to Korea. I'm never going to anywhere back on Earth. For a while, I thought I was going to. I was going to have an experience no one else ever had. 120 years in the future. Literary immortality.

Look at me now. "North or South?"

[cpthawk]

"I don't recommend it," he says, shaking his head. "Two stars at best." She hisses in a breath and Hawkeye glances down at her hands. The shock is starting to wear off and that means the feeling is going to come back, and he hasn't got anything on him that could help her. The quicker he gets her to the hospital, the better.

He gives her an odd look when she asks the next question, confused. It seems a funny question to ask, all things considered. His accent is clear enough, but maybe he's right and she's from somewhere - or somewhen, he reminds himself - where she doesn't know about the war.

"South," he answers. He doesn't know why she's interested at all, really, there are more pressing concerns here right now, but then it occurs to him that maybe that's exactly why. If he talks more maybe it'll give her something else to concentrate on, rather than the pain she's in. It's not the craziest thing he's ever heard. "Based, at least. The border tends to move quicker than I can keep track."

[literaryimmortality]

"I can't imagine," I say, although really right now it's hard to imagine anything outside of this pain. Whatever idle chatter we make doesn't take away from how desperate and dire this all feels.

But I can still try, and he doesn't seem to mind, so maybe I'll just treat this like another interview and not like I've just fallen out of the sky and into a stranger's care. "You weren't born in Korea, were you, though?"

He sounds like an American but people live all kinds of lives and I know better than to assume.

[cpthawk]

He'd laugh at the question if he weren't concentrating on getting her off the street. He's considered himself unlucky for getting the draft, for ending up in godforsaken Korea in the first place, but he knows that's nothing compared to the people who were born there. He's never seen poverty like it, never knew exactly how privileged he was until he was surrounded by the opposite all day every day.

"No," he agrees, nodding his head. "Drafted."

Gently, he reties the bandage around her hands a little looser, trying to keep the fabric from rubbing too much against her skin. The shirt material isn't ideal, but it'll have to do for now. Better than than letting dirt get into the wounds. That done, he tugs his dog tags out from under his shirt so she can see, letting them drop against his chest.

[literaryimmortality]

The movement of the fabric against her skin is excruciating but then it's looser and Aurora moans softly, grateful for it. Whatever has happened to bring her here, at least she's with someone who seems to know what he's doing – even without an autodoc.

"War," is the only word I can think to say, at first. There have been so many, in ancient and in modern times. A select few have involved drafting, a special kind of cruelty if you ask me. "Did you fight or did you fix people?"

[cpthawk]

He's immediately glad he made the decision to loosen the bandages when she sighs in relief. The last thing he wants to do is hurt her more, but he knows there's not a lot else he can do to ease the pain until he can get her to the hospital. At least it might make a small amount of difference, for now.

"I'm a surgeon," he says, and he doesn't say was. Maybe he's not practising in Darrow yet, but a surgeon is who Hawkeye is and being here doesn't change that. It's in his blood, in the lines of his hands, and he can't ever imagine doing anything else. "MASH unit," he explains, glancing up from her hands to look at her. "That's where I was before I turned up here."

[literaryimmortality]

MASH sounds vaguely familiar and like maybe something I've read in a book or heard my father talk about, but I still can't place it. I also can't place wherever here is, so that's hardly surprising. I nod, though, my head all but pressed against his shoulder. "My father was a war reporter, for a while," I tell him, hoping whatever transport he has in mind is nearby.