"All right, Stillwater," Cromwell said, taping off the third IV line she'd ran into my body. "That's a full bore saline IV, a full bore plasma IV, and a full bore O Positive whole blood IV. We gotta get your blood pressure back up, try to stabilize you," She told me. "Calhoun, you remember what you need to do?"

"Get out, hold the bags up above him," Carol said.

"All right, Stillwater. Can you get out of the forklift under your own power? You don't have much room to move. EOD only cleared a little way, they were in a hurry to get to you because you're bleeding out," Cromwell said.

"Yeah, I can get out," I told her. "I can walk if I need to."

"No walking. You'll get out and lay on your left side on the stretcher," Cromwell said. "Calhoun, you'll walk behind me, hold those up. Stay in the cleared path," Cromwell looked at me. "All right, Stillwater. I'll help you out."

"Don't fucking touch me," I told her. She grimaced but moved away slightly. I ignored her offered hand and turned in the seat slowly, making sure I didn't bump the Plexiglass sticking out of my leg. I slid down out of the seat, feet onto the concrete floor of the bunker, sucking in my breath as

IT'S GONNA HURT!

rang through my head

my boots touched then took the weight.

Everything compressed down, gravity and my own body weight shifting everything. The chunk in my leg shifted as muscle tightened around the long gash in the tissue, the edges of the Plexiglass grinding against bloody raw bone.

I gritted my teeth, kneeling down on the stretcher and laying down on my left side. I choked back the coughs, ordering the lizard to slap the controls on my breathing. I let my breath out and didn't inhale, counting slowly in my head to ten.

small still quiet

"He's not breathing," Carol said.

"He's fine," Cromwell said. I felt the stretcher shift slightly. "Lift on three. Three, two, one, lift."

I felt myself raise up and slowly inhaled, controlling the urge to take a whooping breath. It was molten iron through my side, razored steel in my thigh, my head singing with fuzzy squeals of over-tensioned steel guitar strings being stroked by a straight razor.

small still quiet

"Get him out on the pad, we gotta do triage," Cromwell said.

"He's heavier than he looks," an unknown voice said.

"That's what his girlfriend says," Cromwell said primly. "Just keep him steady, he's drooling blood again."

I counted the slight swings back and forth, kept track of how far we were moving by the far wall. Finally we moved out into the daylight. BDU's around a pot belly told me that Henley was walking next to me.

"You're barely fucking injured, Stillwater, you bone headed potato digging backwoods Irish mob reject," He snarled. "I've seen you worse than this and you were still raring at the bit to rip a man's heart out with your small still quiet bare hands and feed it to that fucking forest fey that's always lurking around near you like the memory of a bad fart. I should make you go pull fucking stand-to at Graf for some pissant National Guard unit for wasting everyone's time getting you out of that bunker with just some exaggerated scratches. Wounded my fucking ass, wounds are for humans and you're a goddamn meat machine rebuilt for small still quiet killing, you worthless little peat bog crawling Celtic witch worshipping hippy murdering fucking psychopath. You're just fucking damaged. You will not die on me. You will not embarrass me or Special Weapons by dying. God doesn't want you, the Devil's afraid of you, and I still have goddamn use for you as long as there's small still quiet vodka swilling godless communist child fucking morons lurking around thinking they might do Uncle Sam and all those shit sucking civilians any damage."

Henley kept yelling at me for a ways before I was set down carefully. People were crowded around us, some in BDU's, some in OD green fatigues.

"Give them fucking room, you offal gobbling morons," Henley bellowed out. "Get back, you fucking animals, get the fuck back."

small still quiet

I saw everyone move back right before someone knelt down next to me, putting their face in front of mine. He was blonde, with gray eyes, clean shaven, with a scar on his lower lip.

"Hey, Corporal Stillwater," the man said. "I'm Captain Dayton, Special Forces Medical Specialist," he gave me grin. "Despite that, I'm not that bad of a guy."

"How's it hanging, snake?" I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

"I'm good. Thanks for asking. Listen, you've lost a lot of blood and you're in shock," He told me. "I've got to assess you, which means I'm going to have to strip you naked in front of everyone, all right?"

"Gotta do what you gotta do, snake," I wheezed.

"We're gonna start by cutting off your pants. You running commando, soldier?" He asked.

"Yes, sir," I got out. My chest was tightening. "Pressure's building, sir."

"All right, we'll deal with that first," Dayton told me. He looked up. "Who's friends with this man?"

"I am," Carmichael said.

"Come over here and talk to him. He needs a chest tube right now," Dayton said, getting up.

small still quiet

I saw Red lay down on the cobblestone next to me. His eyes were bone white, no hint of pupil or color, and I noticed he needed a shave, his beard coming in red.

"Look like hell, Ant," he told me.

"I'm OK," I told him. The lizard couldn't stop it and I coughed slightly. Blood misted Red's face but he didn't flinch, just smiled at me.

I blinked nice and slow as I felt Cromwell and Dayton's hands on me.

"I'm going to go away for a little bit, Red," I said, my voice raspy with dehydration.

Red just nodded.

I let my eyes unfocus and pulled myself inside of myself.

small still quiet

It would stop hurting if I just held still. If I didn't fight back. If I just laid on the floor. Just laid on the tile floor and let momma keep kicking me, she'd get tired and stop. Just stay limp, don't move, just breathe and stare at the wall. Don't think. Don't move. Just breathe.

small still quiet

Momma would get tired soon. She screamed when she kicked me and she would get tired, breathing heavy, panting and wheezing, and her kicks wouldn't hurt as bad and then she would stop.

Red reached out and put one hand on my cheek, staring at me.

just make yourself small

"Move that stuff to the blast ditch, we don't want to move him any further," Cromwell snapped.

don't move stay still

"The Colonel wants an update Chief Henley," Foster's voice.

don't cry

"You tell that spawn of escaped Nazi war-criminals and Jewish fuck slaves that I'll tell him what's going on when I've got the goddamn time to tell him what's going on. You handle stroking the Colonel's cock, you semi-mute Kansas sawmill cretin. Tell him whatever you have to in order to keep his Maryland slave owning ass quiet and out of my way till I have some fucking niggers to sell him to perform medical experiments on," Henley snarled.

don't scream

"Thump until you hear a hollow sound, Cromwell," Dayton said.

small still quiet

People were talking around me and I let the words pass through me, let the words be nothing more than noises made around me that didn't affect me. The cold round pad of a stethoscope pressed on my lower rib cage and fingers thumped my skin slowly.

"There's no way he can survive a helicopter ride, sir," Dayton was saying. "The vibration would shred his internal organs, tear up his lung even more. He'd bleed out before the slick got a mile out."

The blankets were piled up, from the floor to the bottom of my bed. It was warm in there, safe in there. Nobody could reach me in there.

"Then what are you suggesting?" An unfamiliar voice said.

There wasn't room to curl up, but I could still lay here.

The thumping stopped in once spot, trying again.

"Here, Dayton," Cromwell said.

nobody can reach me nobody can find me nobody can touch me safe and warm and if I stay small and still and quiet for long enough the pain will go away

"What's he's saying, you fucking brain dead burr headed jumped up mooley in a white man's uniform, is that if you put this man on a helicopter he will fucking die," Henley snarled. "Quit bothering him so he can get this rabid fucking animal back on his feet before the Russians see he's on his back and try to roll on us, because they sure as shit aren't afraid your shucking and jiving West Point ass."

I felt a pinch on my side.

"If we give him Fentanyl with his breathing problems he'll be in more trouble, Dilaudid has too big of a chance of making him vomit which will make him tear up his inside even more. His spleen and the edge of his liver at risk too," Dayton was saying.

Red was staring at me from a gap in the blankets, his arm through the gap, his hand on my cheek.

"But he has a head wound," Cromwell said. "Morphine and head wounds don't mix."

small still quiet

"It's that or nothing. Wound shock will kill him. This is it, Cromwell, this is what it all comes down to," Dayton was saying.

The lizard adjusted the chemical mix even further, filling my bloodstream with some neurochems and lowering the level to almost trace amounts with others.

"Morphine," Cromwell said.

"I don't know what makes you think you can talk to me like that, Chief Warrant Officer, but perhaps you would do well to respect my rank," the unknown voice said.

I could feel something push through my flesh. The way the skin and first fat lair popped, the tearing feeling of it going through meat. The way it grazed the rib.

small still quiet

Red was staring at me, his hand on my cheek, his face serious.

Then a sudden release, the steel band around my chest loosening in a feeling so deeply pleasurable I knew I'd never feel it again no matter how great the sex was.

"Move him to the blast ditch," Henley growled. "We can't take him anywhere else. A fucking truck ride might main or kill the little bastard. Carry him over there, I'll have the light set moved and the EOD faggots can just wait for a new one."

nothing could reach me under the bed where i was hidden behind the blankets and in a safe area where i could lay on the floor and be small and quiet and still until all my injuries healed up and then i could just wait for the world to go away and not bother me anymore

"All right, let's get ready," Dayton said.

"On three," Cromwell said. "Three, two, one, lift."

Red vanished and I could see the uniforms around. They were busy but my eyes were unfocused. The jostling of the stretcher didn't hurt, didn't reach me. I was hidden where nobody could find me, beyond their kicks and punches and slaps and curses and screams and words.

small still silent

We crossed the street, moving slowly. I could tell they were trying to keep it steady, keep it from jostling me too much.

I coughed and tasted blood again.

"Easy, here, easy," Cromwell said as the stretcher tilted.

"We'll have to intubate him before we put him under," Dayton was saying.

"No. Don't put him under," Henley snapped. "I want the little asshole to feel every bit. I want his brain and body to know he's been carved up, it'll heal faster and stronger."

"Sir, that's torture," Dayton said.

"No, it's surgery. Torture is if I have you held down and dry-drowned till you admit to me to sniffing your grandma's panties while you whacked off," Henley snarled. "Torture is if I have some little yellow gooks wire up your pinkie finger and toe to a field phone and run the crank while I scream at you. Do what I saw and fix that little cocksucker back up."

"Yes, sir," Dayton said, and I could hear a faint flutter of fear in his voice.

aww, that's just Henley, he don't mean nothing by it, he's always got bloody foam around his mouth...

"Set him down," Cromwell ordered. "Gently."

small still quiet

"What first, Cromwell?" Dayton asked.

Aine held out her hand, wiggling under the bed with me, kissing my nose. She was tiny, petite, smelled of apples, and looked sad.

"I don't know, they didn't cover this in Combat Medic school," Cromwell said.

Aine mimic'd Cromwell silently.

"His chest is stable, you have to fix that femoral artery before anything else," Dayton said gently. "That means we need to get him stripped."

"So, scissors," Cromwell said.

Dayton leaned down into my sight, although it was difficult to see him past Aine's soft smiling face that only existed in my mind.

"We're going to have to use local only," He said.

"It's OK. I'll be fine," I said, only gagging a little bit. "I'm going to go away for a bit."

"All right. We've got you, Stillwater, you'll be OK," Dayton smiled. "It'll only hurt for a little bit."

Dayton vanished and Red reappeared. Aine winked and vanished.

Dayton had said it would only hurt for a little bit.

He lied.

They always lie when they're going to hurt you.

Always.