Late for IDF: China Beach - KC/McMurphy
Colleen McMurphy woke in the night with a warm body beside her and a feeling of confusion. She was aware of the theory that being faced with death often caused people to do things in order to feel alive. The ‘don’t put off today what you may not be alive to do tomorrow’ concept was very familiar in Vietnam.
She wasn’t sure this wasn’t her own manifestation of that philosophy. How else could she explain that she was curled up in bed with a woman some politely called a prostitute? Looking down at the redhead in her arms, she recalled that warmth and comfort were not just her own cravings. K.C. was still holding her tightly, even in sleep.
Her day had seemed normal, for Vietnam. K.C. had caught her cleaning up from yet another long day and weaseled her into accompanying her to Da Nang, to be company for some Lt. Col. From there it had gone rapidly downhill.
Throughout the entire event, she’d felt a myriad of emotions, mostly stereotypical to her personality and relationship to K.C. When they had first been captured and the articulate V.C. officer had described their need for medical personnel, she had felt a healthy dose of Irish-Catholic guilt.
While K.C. was the reason they had even been off the base at all, Colleen felt guilty because they’d been taken prisoner to provide medical attention for wounded V.C. Of course, while shouldering this guilt, McMurphy totally ignored the fact that had neither of them been medical personnel, neither of them would have survived their initial interrogation.
Then came the words.
“Your friend tried to escape. Without you.”
Those words, she knew exactly how she’d felt when she’d heard those words. She’d felt the flash of red-hot Irish temper, followed by a deep, aching hurt. The hurt she tried to keep out of her voice when she had asked K.C. why she had tried to escape.
She hadn’t cared about or actually even listened to the redhead’s answer. She had just needed to say the words, to give K.C. an out.
Guilt overrode hurt, and Colleen had done everything she could think of to keep them both alive. Both of them. K.C. fell within McMurphy's loosely-defined scope of family. She was to be watched over and protected, just like any of her ‘guys’.
She’d known, even as the redhead protested that she was fully capable of taking care of herself, that K.C. was a survivor. If there was a way to get through the situation in one piece, K.C. would find it. If Colleen could find a way to keep them both alive long enough to try.
However, her escape attempt indicated that the survival instinct was apparently applicable only to the preservation of self. That concept seemed to dissipate once K.C. had found a likely exit because, while she could have escaped via the river exit alone, she had come back for McMurphy.
The explosion of relief that had hit them both once they were within sight of the compound turned to tremors of shock and cold when they reached K.C.’s quarters. Changing out of the wet black ‘pyjamas’ given to them by their captors had brought another measure of relief and some slight warmth.
“Shivering and slurring of words are indications of shock and possible onset of hypothermia.”
“Are you kidding? Hypothermia out here?” K.C. looked at the nurse incredulously. “Are you sure you didn’t crack your head against something while you were under the water?”
“Actually, hypothermia has to do with the lowering of your core temperature, not the ambient temperature,” spouted McMurphy. “And we’re both shivering.”
“Geez, McMurphy, perform one major surgery and you think you’re a doctor!” ranted the redhead. Taking in the smirk she received from the nurse, she added, “So, doctor, what do you suggest for treatment?”
That had been a few hours ago. But what would happen when the sun came up?