“I’m beginning to like you, Ell-Tee,” Hamilton chortled.
“I bet you say that to all the girls,” Kristen replied as the medicine started to take effect on Choi and his eyes began to drift.
Hamilton looked at her, and as he did, his expression became serious for a moment, and he shook his head. “No,” he said simply and in all seriousness, “I don’t.” He then grimaced slightly despite a local anesthetic Hoover had given him.
“It looks like the bullet bouncer ate most of it,” Hoover said easily as he took a pair of tweezers and prepared to remove the bullet. “It didn’t even reach the bone.”
With Choi drifting off into a drug-induced sleep, Kristen took a seat along the wall. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Images of the firefight were still fresh in her mind. But with the images of the traumatic escape came the emotions she’d experienced during the SDV’s run for safety. The visceral feeling of terror she’d felt as the grenades had exploded all around them was just as real now as it had been when they were under attack.
She opened her eyes and saw that not only was her left hand trembling, but her leg was, too. She clenched her fist, trying to suppress the gut-wrenching fear.
“How’s your arm, Lieutenant?” Reed asked, watching her with concern.
Kristen looked down at the battle dressing, having forgotten about it. “It’s…” she shook her head in exhaustion, “it’s nothing.”
“Are you sure I can’t get you something, Miss Whitaker?” Reed asked, still watching her with worry on his face.
“I’m okay.” But even as she spoke, she gripped the arm of her chair with her right hand when she noticed it shaking, too.
The door opened and Fitzgerald appeared, holding a hand towel to a laceration on his scalp. Outside the hatch, there were five other men who’d been injured when they’d been knocked about during the torpedo attack. “Corpsman!” Fitzgerald’s voice was panicky. “I’m wounded.”
“Take a number,” Hoover offered unsympathetically as he pulled the bullet out of Hamilton’s shoulder and calmly handed it to the SEAL. “Here you go, Trip, add this to your collection.”
Hamilton took it, studied it briefly and then tossed it up in the air and caught it as it came back down. “This one almost had my name on it.”
Fitzgerald, not seeing the corpsman rushing to his aid as he expected, pointed out angrily, “I’m bleeding, dammit!”
“I’ll be with you in a few minutes, sir,” Reed told him. “Until then, just keep applying direct pressure.”
Fitzgerald didn’t look satisfied with the answer, but Reed didn’t look to care as he continued working on Hamilton. Then Fitzgerald saw Kristen seated against the bulkhead. “Jesus,” he exclaimed, “you look like hell, Kristen.”
“Not now, okay?” She didn’t have the energy left to deal with Fitzgerald, but he walked over anyway.
“What happened?” he asked. “I heard you went in with the SEALs.” Unlike everyone else onboard, Fitzgerald was too insensitive to recognize none of the SEALs — and certainly not Kristen — were ready to talk about it yet. “Was it bad?”
“Why don’t you leave her alone, jack-off,” Hamilton warned.
“Cool it, Trip,” Hoover warned and placed his own strong hands on his friend’s arms, “Remember what happened at Oceania.”
Fitzgerald looked at Hamilton, who was now glaring back at him with venom in his eyes. “You better listen to your partner,” Fitzgerald warned. “Or haven’t you noticed I’m a Lieutenant Commander?”
Kristen tried closing her eyes again, but a never-ending reel of horrible images and the accompanying emotions with each image seemed to be playing on an endless loop in her head. She opened her eyes and saw Fitzgerald staring at her. She looked away, not wanting to deal with him.
“Hey, Kristen,” he offered, moving a bit closer, “if you want to talk…”
Kristen massaged her throbbing temple, shaking her head slightly. With the operation over, she felt the carefully crafted and meticulously maintained veneer of self-control all but gone. She didn’t cry; she never cried. But she felt like the emotional dam within her was on the verge of a catastrophic failure, unleashing a flood that might overwhelm her.
“Hey,” Hamilton snapped angrily in her defense as he came out of his chair, a blood-stained, filthy finger pointing at Fitzgerald dangerously. “I said leave the lady alone. Can’t you see she doesn’t want to talk about it?” He was holding a bloody bandage on his shoulder with one hand as he glared dangerously at Fitzgerald. Not only was the fiery Hamilton on his feet ready to square off with the Fitzgerald, but so was Hoover, who looked just as irate as Hamilton.
“It’s okay, guys,” she told them even as she fought to hold it together.
“What’s it to you anyway, Sailor?” Fitzgerald asked, not smart enough to sit down and shut up.
“She’s with us,” Hoover warned heatedly.
“Guys—” she began but was interrupted by the door opening abruptly.
Brodie came in, his face twisted in a scowl. “What’s all the racket about?” the captain demanded, a hard edge in his voice.
Kristen hung her head, not wanting to see Brodie. Or more accurately, not ready for him to see her. Fitzgerald however, with Brodie now in the small sickbay to back him up, felt a bit more confident. “I want your name and serial number. I’m pressing charges.”
Hamilton answered immediately, “Hamilton, fuck wad!”
He took a step toward Fitzgerald, but Hoover restrained him. “Cool it, Trip. He ain’t worth it.”
But apparently Brodie had endured all the drama he was willing to take for one day and turned on the enraged Hamilton, jabbing a finger toward him. “You,” he said forcefully, looking Hamilton right in the eye. “Sit down and keep your trap shut!”
Hoover was trying to get Hamilton to do just that, but Brodie’s words seemed to penetrate the angry SEAL’s psyche, and Hamilton, surprisingly, shut his mouth. But he didn’t sit down immediately. Instead, he stared at Brodie. The captain turned, squaring his body with Hamilton’s as Hoover stepped between the two of them. “Trip,” his friend warned as he spoke softly to his teammate. “Trust me, you don’t want to do this.”
Hamilton’s eyes had the look of someone who wasn’t necessarily completely sane. But the commando paused then nodded his head briefly before sitting back down as ordered. However, he continued to watch Brodie, whose gaze had yet to waver. For a few more seconds the two men stared one another down, and then Hamilton’s eyes lost some of their edge. He nodded his head again and looked toward Hoover. “I’m cool.”
“Captain, that man threatened me,” Fitzgerald whined as he stood behind Brodie looking far more comfortable now that Hamilton had sat down.
Brodie turned and jabbed an angry finger into Fitzgerald’s chest. “And you,” he said, the anger he was feeling clear in his voice. “Get out. Now!”
Fitzgerald looked at Brodie in disbelief. “But, Captain, I’m bleeding.”
“Go bleed in the passageway,” Brodie ordered and then turned on Doc Reed who was standing stone still, his eyes open wide in shock at what was happening around him. It wasn’t every day you saw a submarine captain verbally slapping lieutenant commanders and SEALs around. Brodie motioned toward Choi. “Can he talk?”
“I have him sedated, Captain,” Reed replied nervously.
“That isn’t what I asked, is it?” Brodie’s voice was edgy and Kristen heard a combination of anger and urgency in it. “Can this man talk and answer questions?”
“He’s been through a lot, Captain. I would like him to rest,” Reed replied as he studied an EKG strip with a scowl. “I think we’d better wait until we get him to a real hospital, sir.”