Mike, looking more tired than she'd ever seen him, came next. And he wasn't shy about touching her.
"Hey, baby." He kissed her head and something in her crumpled. She blinked back tears.
"I'm sorry." She told him, voice tight. Hands unconsciously clawing on Hector again. "I'm so sorry."
"Nah, baby." He whispered it so she wouldn’t hear the tears in his own throat. Lowering his head he rested his
forehead against her shoulder. Knight to her queen. Supplicant to her priestess. "Not you. It was never you. This
wasn't you."
She gave a shudder that shook her entire body and rested her cheek against his sweat matted hair and Mike exhaled
as if he hadn't the entire time she'd been gone. Her eyes opened and found Hector's. She'd hurt them both so badly,
so deeply inside. Mike pulled back and thumped Hector's shoulder.
"Let's get out of here, man." He stated as he pulled himself into the chopper.
"It's all right." Hector said as he helped her further into the chopper, knowing the SAS were radioing in that the mission
was a success and they were heavy patients and prisoners. And one English doctor. He never lost physical contact
with her as they strapped in and rode in silence due to the ambient noise back to the Red Cross camp.
When they made their approach for the landing, he could see her father standing just off the marked area and he
squeezed her hand. She had a lot of people worried for her, and they were all going to be so relieved that she was
back.
She wasn't sure how she was supposed to handle this. Any of this. She'd fought shamans. Played cat and mouse with
pure evil. Worked under heartbreaking conditions with far too little useful medicine. Seen - horrible, horrible things...
why was she having such a hard time with such simple things now? Her hands never left Hector. Unconsciously aware
that if she did, if her desperate grip slipped - she might end up back where she had been. Or worse.
And she couldn't do that again. Not again.
She didn't know where to look but she kept her eyes open. Shutting them... she wasn't willing to risk that. Passive, she
trusted Hector to know what she should do. Knowing, somewhere in the core of her, that she would be back at the Red
Cross camp soon. That there were more people worried about her there. That she -
She had to put on a show for them. So they wouldn't worry. So they'd be okay. So she wouldn't cause even more
problems than the horrendous ones she already had.
So her eyes were huge by the time the helicopter set down. But her shoulders weren't hunched and she'd somehow
managed to stop most of the shaking. Her eyes were dry again.
But her hands on Hector didn't relax.
The change in her posture and over all composure should have assured him, but it made him worry more. She was
putting up a wall, he could see that. He knew all too well the signs, having done it quite a few times himself.
The helicopter landed and Hector got out, then helped Andi out. He could hear the stifled sob from her mother over
the whir of the propellers. He nodded to the Whites and to Sam and Suzette, who were patiently waiting behind them.
"Come on." He said into her ear. "Let's go face the crowd then get away."
He hand found his. Held tightly. But all she murmured through her upturned lips was.
"I'll be all right." If she had to make it so, she would.
Strangely to anyone watching, her parents held back. Stood there, their eyes fixed on her, arms around each other
but they held back. Suzette was the one that rushed forward with a shaky smile and threw her arms around Andi in a
hug Andi returned one armed but desperately. Managing a watery smile as her friend pulled back enough to cup her
face and exclaim over both the dirt and the fingernail scratches that cut across one far too prominent cheekbone. It
was mostly nonsense sounds and then Suzette's face firmed and she gave Andi's forehead a kiss.
"I will set things up for you." She stated and then turned and, grabbing Mike's shirt front, dragged him off with her. For
the details she'd never ask Andi for. Sam enveloped her in a hug that surprised them both and murmured words and
she assured him she was all right. She was all right. All right. And then her parents were there and the show she was
putting on shivered and threatened to shatter entirely as her father scooped her up in his big arms as if she was still a
child.
"My little girl." He murmured it and she buried her face in his throat with a lost sound. Feeling small and helpless
again. When it used to be alright to be small and helpless. Her free hand clawed against the back of his shirt and he
buried his face in her hair and simply stood there. Silent and holding his baby girl safe in his arms again.
Janette gave them their moment. Well aware of the bond father and daughter shared. And while they had their
moment, she turned to Hector, happy tears running down her cheeks unashamedly, and, gently cupping his face in
her hands, stood on tiptoe to press a soft kiss to his forehead.
"Thank you, bebe." She murmured.
"You're welcome." Hector said softly. "But don't thank me yet." He had a bombshell later, after all.
"You promised you'd bring her back, and you did. I do owe you thanks." Janette said, not understanding, but not
caring in that moment. Her daughter was safe and this man, her newly adopted son if only in her heart, had
accomplished that. "Tres bien."
"You did." It was Sean, looking at Hector over the top of his baby girl's head. She was tiny and thin and torn up inside
and out. But she was back and she was safe in his arms again. He had a merciful God to thank for that. And a young
man who looked as hollowed out and worn as his little girl felt. He wasn't about to put her down. Possibly ever again.
Instead he settled down, right there, holding her in his lap so that Janette could join them as well and wrap her own
arms around their lost little girl. Andi, lacking a second arm, somehow managed to wrap her single one around her
mother's crying form and still keep a hand touching her father. Sean gave Hector a brief, understanding smile. Well
aware of the fact his daughter wasn't letting go of the man's hand and putting him in an awkward position.
"You can sit with us, son." He offered gently. "They're going to want us to all back off once they get her in the clinic so
we're not going just yet."
Hector just squeezed Andi's hand. "Good luck getting me to back off. If the SAS couldn't manage it, I really don't think
a bunch of civilian doctors have much chance."
Janette wiped her eyes. "We're going to take you back to Zaire." She said. "To heal."
Hector didn't say anything for the moment. But he knew Zaire, as much as she loved it, held shadows in the night.
Much as this place. And Wekesa's camp. She wouldn't be able to heal in a place of shadows. "We'll decide all that
later."
Sean's eyebrows rose. A familiar gesture usually delivered with thinner, more arched brows. His light colored eyes
shifted and met Hector's. He'd caught that. And his eyes said it wasn't going to go by without explanation. But he also
didn't bring it up now. Not when the two women in his lap, wound tightly around each other, didn't need to hear
whatever was attached to the other end of that phrase. Instead he stated:
"I may be thinking of you as a son, lad. But I'm still a father. And you're not holding my baby girl's hand while she's in
the shower."
It had the desired effect as Andi sputtered what was close enough to a laugh to make his heart ache.
"Da." She managed weakly and he shifted the arm he had around his wife to touch the tip of her nose.
"No, Dromie. I'm standing firm on this one. He wants to keep an ear on you that's fine."
The same sputtering, almost there, stuttering laugh from her. Knowing he was both teasing both of the young people
and gently serious at the same time. She was still his little girl after all. And, nice as the boy was, he wasn't her
husband.
Yet.
Another thought for another time. Sean gave his wife's waist a squeeze and she moved as he stood up, Andi still in his
arms.
"I'm going to carry her for a little while longer." He informed the young man next to him as his daughter buried her face
against his wide shoulder again. "You're next in line. Yeah?"
Janette, beautiful and glowing with her face wet with tears and her bright watery smile, slipped a slim arm around
Hector's waist.
"We'll all stay together a little longer." She stated.
"I hope he doesn't mean my turn to be carried by him." Hector said with a shake of his head as Janette held onto him
in her own way as he held onto her daughter's hand who was being held by her father. Quite a little circle, that at least
no one had had the lack of common sense to try and interrupt. "But I know her ankle's hurt." At least. "Eventually that
needs to be looked at."
Then he had to grin at Sean. "So...holding her up in the shower is out too then I take it?"
"You're lucky my arms are full. American heathen." He mock growled in return.
"Methodist, thank you very much."
Andi hadn't thought she'd be laughing again. Not for a very long time at least. But it was coughing out of her all the
same as Hector and her family melted together.
This was what she wanted. All that she wanted. Just this. Now. Not - not everything that was going to come after it...
Sean took his time but he did eventually reach the tiny tent they'd cleared for his daughter to have some privacy as
well as giving the nurses here a chance to look over her. The tiny French doctor was the only one in the tent though
and she offered a watery smile of her own.
And made no move to throw everyone out. Yet.
Sean sat down on the bed with his daughter cradled in his lap again. Gently rubbing her back the same way he'd
soothed away her fears and worries and nightmares hundreds of times before.
"There's no rush, Dromie. We're just going to sit here for a while. Me and your mum and that boy of yours and the
Frog." The sputtering laughter came again even if she didn't lift her face from where it was pressed to his shoulder. He
smiled and pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head. "We'll stay as long as you like and go if you want us to. It won't
hurt our feelings either way." He knew how his daughter's mind worked well enough to know where her thoughts would
be. "You tell us what you want to tell us and let Suzette tell us the rest if you think we need to know it, yeah?" She
nodded, a sharp jerk against him.
"Didn't." The voice was small and choked. "Said I wouldn't work if he did." Her body jerked. Remembering the laughter.
The indulgence. The absolutely certainty that it had been going to happen anyway and he enjoyed letting her live in
constant fear of when he'd choose. The way he would watch her when she was pretending to sleep at night. The
things he'd said... "Said he could get another doctor. Da?"
Her hand had clawed on Hector's, holding painfully tight. As if she was trying to keep him from leaving. But she
couldn't say it to him. Sean continued the steady movement of his hand on her back without missing a beat.
"You did good, baby girl. You were smart. Used what he needed against what he wanted. Da would have called you
his 'clever bird', yeah? You remember the way his voice sounded when he called you that?" The jerked nod against
his shoulder. "You did your part and God did his, didn't He? Kept you safe. He's still keeping you safe, yeah?" Her
shaky voice answered 'yeah' and he knew she believed it. "Good girl." He kissed the top of her head. "Safe am I in the
- " he whispered.
"Hollow of His hand." She whispered the words to the song back. The one her Da had always sung to her as a child to
chase away the ghosts of nightmares. The one she'd sung herself to the women at the camp. But she lifted her eyes
over her father's shoulder to look at Hector after she spoke them. Needing to see his face while she was still feeling
brave enough.
Hector raised an eyebrow at Andi over being referred to as 'that boy of yours.' Had been quite some time since he had
last been referred to as that! He listened to her tale of her time in Wekesa's camp, he'd also heard some of the words,
they'd been directed at both of them, after all.
He nodded at her, swallowing past the lump in his throat at the affirmation that she hadn't been....he couldn't even
think it. But he knew it could destroy someone. And if Wekesa had....and something in Andi had been destroyed...
Hector knew full well he would have been destroyed right along with her, in his refusal to let her go through anything
alone.
"You did good." He said and bent to kiss the top of her head. "Real good. And the nightmare is over now." At least the
waking nightmare. He knew too well himself how things that had happened in the day could haunt the dreams at night.
Her smile was weak but the one she only gave to him as Hector's lips touched the top of her head. It would be all right.
She didn't know how. But it would. She believed that. Gentle she pressed a kiss to the hand Hector had sacrificed to
her. Then looked at her da.
"Can you carry Hector for a while now, Da?" She asked, smile weak but there. "I would very much like a shower now."