Andi gave his shoulder a swat on the way past. But she brought the food and drinks with her. Funny, but it helped. She
felt a bit better. Even if her mind wouldn't shut up.
She ducked into her tent and waited while her eyes adjusted to the dark and semi-cool. Loud enough that he'd hear
her before she reached him. She didn't think for a moment she could sneak up on someone like him even if he was
dead asleep. She thought managing to do so and then waking him up was probably even less wise an idea. So she
made sure he was awake before she sat down on the edge of the bed and gave him a soft smile.
"Good morning."
Mr Snuffles had lost. Hector had gotten the bed and the hideous elephant was on the floor by the foot of it. And even
Mr Snuffles would have heard her banging around as she entered the tent, had he had ears that were actually
functional and not some weird color.
So Hector was for the most part awake, he hadn't realized he was that tired as he rolled from his stomach to his back
and pushed the light on his watch to check the time as she sat on the side of the bed. "Afternoon." He corrected her
with a chuckle and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes with the back of his hands, giving his face a good rub while he was
at it. He needed to shave, he realized as an after thought.
"Someday," he said, pulling himself into a sitting position. "I am going to keep normal hours. Awake in daylight,
unconscious in darkness." Course that would most likely require taking a day job, and if so he felt sorry for the desk,
because he wouldn't take that well.
"That doesn't sound like any fun at all." Andi told him with a quiet smile. Absently watching his shoulder to see if he
moved with any stiffness. "You miss all the interesting things during the day." She leaned down to rescue Mr. Snuffles
and cradle him absently close in her arms. "Feel better?" she asked Hector.
"Surprisingly yes." He said with a chuckle as he drank out of his ever handy water bottle. "So what kind of interesting
things did I miss during the day today?" He asked, just knowing somehow he had missed something. And didn't know
yet if it was something he really wanted to miss.
Just Suzette forcing me into a corner. About you, Andi thought. What am I really doing? She ran fingers absently
across the side of her face and over the bridge of her nose.
"Nothing interesting." She told him, offering a soft smile. "All quiet on the western front. Mike wanted me to let you know
that he's going to be starting in half an hour. I thought you could sit with Mark if you wanted to and promised not to
pace. I don't need him hopping about after you." Another quick smile to show she was teasing. What was she doing?
And why did she have to bloody think about it? "Unless you'd rather pace around outside the operation tent. Hungry?"
"Not if you're going to give me a ration bar." He said with a chuckle as he reached for his shirt, gave him an excuse to
stretch without her watching his shoulder. "I think I'd rather eat sand at this point." He said with a shake of his head. "I
know, ungrateful response, but at least its an honest one."
"Honesty counts." She agreed with a twist of her lips. She practically lived off ration bars, fast and thoughtless went a
long way when she was burning the night off. "I do know where we can get some sand, if you'd rather." She gestured to
the bedside table where she'd set down the food and drinks while he'd been checking his watch. Noticing scars on him
and pretending she didn't. They made her heart hurt though. "Mike sent lunch along however and might be offended if
you didn't take the offer. You really shouldn't break his heart that way if you can help it."
"Yeah, he'll probably mend his broken heart by beating the crap out of me." Hector said with a chuckle as he pulled his
shirt on, suddenly slightly self conscious of his scars as he checked out the food. "Ooh, sweet tea. Be still my southern
heart." He joked to break the tension that had resulted. Or maybe he just imagined it.
"So I should sit with Mark, then pace outside the med tent. Loiter outside the OR tent. Generally make a nuisance of
myself. I seem to be quite good at that here."
"I like you being a nuisance." She admitted and then realized that her tone of voice hadn't been as light and joking as it
should have. She shifted the stuffed elephant to the foot of the bed to distract. Echos of the conversation she'd had
with Suz and Andi's gut need to - to what? Protect him? People lobbed bombs at him regularly, what did angry looks
and cold shoulders and harsh words do compared to that? Quite a bit really if it went on long enough. "You're very
good at it after all." She flashed him a grin and the tone of voice was much more appropriate. "Lots of practice, I'm
sure." She tucked her legs up under her. "And Mike likes you. He wouldn't talk to you if he didn't. And he certainly
wouldn't treat you to his desert dry humor. That's reserved for special occasions only. If he does beat the 'crap' out of
you, I'm sure it will be with the best intentions." She gave him a soft smile. "How can you Ya - American's drink your tea
cold like that?"
"Good girl." He said with a chuckle at her not calling him a Yankee. "It’s a whole other drink in the South. The tea is so
sweet it makes your teeth hurt." He said almost nostalgically. "But on a hot humid day, it just hits the spot. Not that
anyone has to worry about humidity here. Got my appendix out when I was ten," he said, identifying at least one of the
scars as relatively benign, "and had my aunt sneak me in some after the surgery. Thought my doctor was going to flip.
So what about you? Still have your appendix? Adenoids? Tonsils?"
"I like to keep my insides inside." She commented, reaching across him to collect both the sandwiches and the
suspicious cold liquid in the bottles. She handed him one of each and set the other pair down next to her. So it would
look like she intended to eat them even though she didn't. "I break bones regularly but that's about the worst." She
touched her earlobe and smiled. "Never even got around to piercing." Considering she hadn't even realized you could
pierce *small* holes in your ear until she was almost a teen, that was hardly surprising. She slanted him a look.
Suspecting he'd been one of 'those' boys as a child. The kind that had the women in the family's hearts wrapped
around him. With a smile like his and eyes that dark, it wasn't hard to imagine. "Your family seems to have a tendency
to smuggle food into sick relatives and friends." She commented, referring to the amounts of it he'd brought Mark and
the others his first night here.
"Well, in the US, hospital food is worse than dog food." He said with a chuckle. "Especially when well meaning doctors
put you on a special diet for your own good. So we became experts at it." He unwrapped the sandwich and ate a bit of it
and looked at her. "Oh come on, you're not going to make me eat alone, are you? Because then I might get self
conscious of you watching me chew, or guilty that I’m eating and you're not and stop."
She exhaled a silent laugh and bowed her head. Her stomach was still knotted over earlier in the day. Stress did that to
her. Shut her down and tended to make food taste like sawdust. She'd eat. After she figured out exactly what was
wrong inside her and found a solution. She rubbed absently at the side of her nose and then picked up the second
sandwich.
"Your family spent a lot of time in hospitals?" She asked, long fingers making enough motion to look like there was an
intention there to unwrap the plastic around the sandwich. After all, you didn't become an 'expert' at food smuggling in
one or two visits.
"Big family." He said. "I have great grandparents that are still alive and kicking, so there's always someone. And it’s a
small town, so if not a family member, then someone we knew was always there." He said and took the sandwich from
her and unwrapped it, handing it back to her with an amused look. "I have a cousin who's anorectic. So I know the tricks
of picking at food so it looks like you ate it. Not that I'm saying you're anorectic..." He chuckled. "I don't function well
when I first wake up." He apologized. "So why don't you want to eat? You've got the time, I would think you'd take it."
She held the sandwich loosely in her hands. Trying to think of some way to distract him from keeping track of her
eating patterns without actually having to eat anything. He was almost as bad as her.
"I'm not really hungry." She answered with a casual shrug. Which was the absolute truth. Somehow she had the oddest
feeling that if she told him she'd already eaten he'd know she was lying and call her on it. "I'll eat something later." She
looked back at him. "So tell me about your great grandparents. Is that on the Irish side?"
"Yup." He said, drinking the tea. "O'Neill. She's a Shaughnessy. Don't worry." He said, laughter in his dark eyes.
"They're over the whole English thing, they both came over as children, GiGi, great grandma, was actually born on the
boat ride over here, so I’m not actually sure if that makes her American, Irish, or Atlantic Ocean. And you think I'm a
story teller, you should hear them. They’d sit you down and tell you their entire family history, and you'd actually enjoy
it."
Which was good, because it gave him a connection to the family members that were no longer with him, like his mother.
"So what about your broken bones? Any interesting story there? Gotta beat how I broke my arm when I was nine."
Relaxing now that they weren't talking about her eating, Andi gave a smile.
"Never broke an arm because I'd tripped." She shot him a sideways look. "But this arm. Twice in a row. Different trees."
She tapped the spots absently as she went through the record. "Both ankles in an auto accident a few years ago. A
couple ribs once. Still got a bit of a knot from that." And a great deal more respect for rivers during rainy season. She
gave the tea a try and made a face. "Finger. Couple of toes. And my collarbone once due to over enthusiasm. People
really drink this?" she asked, gesturing with the bottle.
"Absolutely." He said. "By the gallons. Back home, we have sun tea, where we set out the water and the tea bags in the
sun and let the sun brew it. Then we add sugar and honey and lemon. The fact that we've all still got our teeth is
amazing to outsiders." He said with a chuckle. "If you don't like the taste of it, I'm sure it will disappear with at least a bite
of the sandwich." He said.
"Let's see...my arm with that tripping thing. Five ribs, my collar bone and my hand in high school football. Didn't play
after that season, only so much pain a man should take to make Daddy proud after all. My left femur in a car accident...
I was five, six months in traction for that one. They said I'm lucky to have both my legs the same length. Which they
are." Or he never would have passed his army physical. "All the toes in my right foot, stupid stunt right after basic...
don't ask." He'd been lucky they had 'healed' enough for him to report to duty. "Good ole boys having fun. Damn, we're
just accident prone. And they trust you with a scalpel and me with a gun. What are these people thinking?"
She laughed at that question.
"Apparently they don't pay attention." She agreed. Handing him the bottle of tea. Though she did like the 'sun tea' idea.
It sounded - it sounded a bit like homemade magic. "My grandda used to say what didn't kill you just taught you to duck
faster the next time. He was a medic during the Second War. Lost my grandmum during the war." Her eyes went warm
with memories. "That's how he used to say it too. 'Lost'. He'd always tell me that one day he was going to find her
again. I used to stay with him on holiday sometimes when I couldn't make it home. He told wicked stories about my da
when he was a boy." She gave the man next to her a smile. "I think that's what grandparents do. Revenge by telling
their grandchildren how horrible their parents were and planting all kinds of ideas."
"Ah, see, well my mom's deceased, so I got barraged with the stories of what a saint and absolute angel she was."
Hector said with a chuckle. "Had to go to my aunts and uncles to get the real low down on her. My grandparents on my
dad's side like to tell the awful embarrassing stories though. Course, one of them has dementia, so she tells them to
everyone, as if its happening right now, but what can you do, right? So is Sam stuck in some bureaucratic meeting? Is it
safe for me to show my face outside?" He asked with a grin, part of him just loved to antagonize the director, in a fairly
harmless way.
She'd been taking absent bites of the sandwich without thinking about it as he talked about his family. Relaxing enough
in his presence that she forgot to worry. She shot him a look from the corners of her eyes at his last question. And tried
not to smile. It would really only encourage him and she didn't get the impression he needed much encouragement.
"I believe I last saw Sam headed into the supply tent to do inventory on the new supplies you brought in. No doubt
making sure you haven't slipped any more soldiers into the boxes." She shot him a crooked smile. "And you really
shouldn't torment him so. He takes his job very seriously." She softened a bit. Considering the reception the soldiers
had received, and Hector in particular... "All right, a bit too seriously. He's just been fighting a battle that can't be won
for so long that he divides his friends and foes into very strict categories. His friends list is very small." She looked at
the man next to her. Thought he might understand. "I think that happens a great deal here. After a while you can't
afford to see people as individuals anymore. It makes things too complicated. But you miss a great deal when you do
that as well." She didn't want to stay here that long. So long that she stopped looking at faces and the souls hiding
behind their eyes and only saw bodies.
"What do you want to do? When you leave Delta?" she asked, shifting so that one of her knees rested companionable
against the side of his own long legs. "Or were you going to plan on staying until you'd become a general and never
leaving?"
Hector cocked his head at her at her last question. "Never really thought about it. Not really looking forward to being a
general, have to be an officer first and all they do is push papers and give orders." He said with a chuckle. He was a
sergeant, a non-commissioned officer, or NCO. He pretty much thought like the rest of Delta did, that he'd be in until he
retired either through age, injury or death. But he didn't want to think about any of those options.
"What about you?" He asked instead. "Plan on traveling the world and living out of tents for the rest of your life?"
"Living out of tents isn't such a bad thing. The maintenance is minimal." She answered with a smile. "And if you get tired
of the view you simply roll everything up and move on." She did like travel. And the chance to see new things, meet
new people. Help where she could. But her heart was anchored in one place and it had never really left. She hadn't
thought staying away from it so long would cost her so much of herself.
"There's a story my mum used to tell me. About a wicked sorcerer in Russia and the young prince that defeated him.
No one had ever been able to kill the evil man before because he had hidden his heart somewhere far away in a
golden cask and as long as it beat he could not die." She paused, fingers around the half eaten sandwich and looked
at Hector. "I buried my heart years ago and left it behind. And I can go anywhere I like. But my heart is still in Zaire,
buried near the tribe and my parents. I want to be there. When I'm done with what I need to do, I want to go home." The
word 'home' was said wistful and warm and soft and longing and content. "I want to set up a clinic and take care of my
people." She gave him a soft smile. "Its been a long time since I went home."
"I don't know if I ever want to go home." He said. "Sometimes I don't think I quite belong there anymore. Outside of my
family." And even then sometimes with them. It was difficult to explain, but being here at the Red Cross just amplified
the feeling he had of separateness from the 'normal people,' the civilians who just couldn't' understand that no, he
didn't like all the aspects of his chosen field, but that it had to be done.
She understood not belonging and having to hide what you were to pretend you did well enough. And her heart hurt for
him. For the look of loss and resignation and acceptance in his dark eyes. Reaching out, she slipped the back of her
long fingers down his cheek softly. Feeling the bristles and the skin and the warmth as her touch lingered.
He sacrificed so much. His own wants and needs maybe most of all. Because he knew that what he did was important
and needed to be done. And she didn't think he told his family about what he did. Not the harsh, heartbreaking parts.
He didn't seem the kind that would want to 'burden' others with what hurt him. But if you didn't tell your family, who,
short of God, did you let into the hurt parts of you? God hadn't put others on the face of the earth so that a man had to
go through life without anyone.
"Maybe home has just changed a bit for you. Maybe its somewhere else. Waiting for the day you'll stumble across it
and know you belong there. Maybe its someone that's waiting to carry your heart and not somewhere." She gave him a
soft smile, meeting his eyes with her own dark ones. "You'll know. It will feel as if you're finally home again after being
gone too long. Except you never will have been there before."
He met her eyes and held them as she stroked his cheek, the only sounds beside her voice were the generators light
hum. She smiled slightly, his cheeks moving a bit under her fingers at her words as he scanned her face.
He knew exactly what she meant. But it seemed this would be another home he'd have to leave behind to go save the
world. Okay maybe that was a little melodramatic, but he meant it. "Course, there's always the chance that the person
will walk away." He said. "I have a rather heavy heart." He admitted, perhaps the first person he had admitted anything
like this to.
Her dark eyes held with his. Back to Suzette's questions. What do she want from him? What did she want for him? Did
she have any idea what she was doing or where this was going? She still hadn't the slightest clue to any of those
answers. Except - no matter what else - he was her friend. And when he moved, she felt it right to the center of her
heart. He trusted her enough to let the uncertainty in him out in her presence. She shifted on the bed, leaning forward
to rest her forehead lightly against his. Fingers still soft as she rested them against his cheek.
"Then don't give it someone weak." She whispered.
"I'll try not to." He said, and really wanted to ask if she thought herself weak. He could see an inner strength in her, but
he knew that sometimes what was obvious to others was hidden to the self.
He'd never really had quiet moments with someone else, usually just by himself, in between the loud moments, the time
to recenter and deal before moving on. He smiled a bit, as his forehead leaned against hers.
"Never asked. But are you married?" He asked, in a slightly joking tone, so she could take it anyway she wanted, if she
didn't want the serious undertone.
The smile flickered across her lips and the laugh was a silent exhale. But the question itself caused a strange jump in
her chest. As if, for a moment, the earth had fallen out under her feet. Not quite sure whether he was joking or not, not
quiet sure whether she wanted him to be or not, she knew what she should say. To do. But it was impossible for her to
put walls up when they were this way. So she softly answered honestly instead:
"No." The smile came and went again. "I've grown a bit old in the meantime." A brief moment's pause and then: "Are
you?"
"Good." He said. "No, and if you're too old, what does that make me. I bet I'm older than you." He said with a chuckle,
though maybe not by a whole lot, enough to say that yes, indeed, he WAS older.
And in this moment, both their walls, walls carefully put up by their separate lives and experiences, reinforced through
time and challenges, were down. There was a strange connection that was quite new to him, at least, and it was far
more and deeper than just the proximity of their heads.
She gave a soft exhaled laugh at his assessment of their age categories.
When she'd been younger, being married had always been a given factor in her plans for the future. True, the
husband had always been a vague, faceless idea but the idea of him had never wavered. It had always just seemed
the thing to do. Fall desperately in love, get married, have children. But she'd never managed to quite manage the very
first step and as the years had gone on, she'd put that dream on the shelf and gotten on with the rest of her life. Which
wasn't to say that, deep down, she didn't still wish someone would feel about her the way Grandda had always felt
about his wife, even years after she'd died. Wish that she had someone she could feel that way for.
It was odd and possibly dangerous to be talking about things like that now with a man she'd only known a few days.
Except - she hadn't lied to Suz. He drew out the parts of herself that no one else ever knew about. Made a safe place in
his presence for her to simply remember all the things she'd packed away as improbable dreams.
"Have you noticed," she asked softly, edges of her lips twitching upward, "that we often talk of the strangest things?"
"Define strange." He said grinning, that grin echoed in his teasing comment. But maybe she was right, not that it was
wrong, so far they'd debated the rights and wrongs of killing, Mr. Snuffles, family backgrounds, grand parents and
great grandparents, the South of the US versus Africa, sweet tea, and scars. But only hinting at the emotional scars
both carried.
"I like strange. Normal is boring." He decided. He could smell the soft floral of her shampoo, the same scent that had
haunted his dreams as he had slept on her pillow. Dangerous territory definitely. especially given their completely
different lifestyles and backgrounds, but maybe they weren't so different when you peeled the layers back. Something
to think about, at a later date.
Maybe now was the good later date, he decided as he started to straighten himself up and return his head to his own
personal space. At least that's what he intended to do when he moved. Of course, the best laid plans often fell in ruins,
didn't they?
Not that these were ruins he especially minded....as he found himself kissing her quite unexpectedly.
The kiss was both a surprise and yet felt as if she'd been waiting for it for a very long time. It set something in her
unspooling with an almost relieved sigh and her hand slipped down from his cheek to rest against the side of his throat.
For that moment, as she responded, softening against him, the built up worries and cautions had no place to find a
voice of protest.
When she drew away it was slowly. She had the feeling that either everything had changed or nothing had. Maybe
both. And she knew it should worry her. But nothing seemed to be able to get past the content sighing in her soul at
the moment.
"I should go." She said it softly as she stood up. Her eyes found his dark ones and she reached out again. Slipped
fingers gently along his cheek. Eyes soft. Did he really...
"I think I prefer strange too." She gave him a smile. And then she turned and quickly went back outside. Suddenly
keeping herself insanely busy at the clinic seemed like a capital idea.
"You know, you're always walking away from me." He called after her, with soft, non mocking humor in his voice, as she
slipped out, the day light briefly spilling into the tent until she was completely outside. He sat there for a moment and
exhaled.
What the hell was he doing? He knew he was doing something, he didn't know what though. He usually knew what he
was doing, and what he would be doing. He liked to plan ahead. But this...but her...completely unexpected and not
anything or anyone he was out searching for.
He couldn't search for that. He really shouldn't. His whole life revolved around packing up and moving on. But god....
He looked at Mr Snuffles. "Yeah, yeah I know." He said, not sure if the stuffed doll was smirking at him or glaring at him
as he exited the tent for a shower and a shave.