On the Eve of the War
I mostly packed before we went off to the Mess tonight. They do not tend to be early nights. And we did come back late, and mildly wrecked the place before stumbling to bed. He is asleep now, looking disconcertingly young, as he tends to even when you are aware he sleeps with that cleaver he calls a dagger under his pillow.
But I cannot sleep. Not tonight.
So I sit, on Flip's floor because his desk is full of paperwork. Polishing my instruments, checking my supplies, my drugs, my bandages and tourniquets. Making sure everything is as close to prepared as it can be.
Did I sleep before Nova Fidelia? I am not sure; everything but the blood-bright hour or so that was the battle itself is little more than a blur in my mind for around a week on either side of the battle, from which small, disconcertingly clear moments and vague feelings occasionally surface, like the shapes of rocks under tides. For all I know, I did; I certainly did not sleep afterwards. But I was different then.
Was I afraid at Nova Fidelia? No, not for a moment. Quite the opposite; it was the first time I ever caught the battle-fever and led people against an enemy screaming in rage and exultation. Even in all I saw of the aftermath, I cannot forget that. That shining moment. The drumming in my ears.
And yet I sit here now, on this cold floor, the single candle burning above me too dim to disturb Flip, and I am afraid. Cold afraid.
Afraid of what I have now to lose.
The problem with being a doctor is that lives lie in my hands, day by day. Lives I save, lives I fight for. The hardest fight, the quiet fight. No glory, no shining fury, only pain that I must cause and thus some part of me must always feel. It is not a responsibility I can simply lay down, even when my duties or even my wishes lead me elsewhere.
Flip and I spoke once of a life we could barely grasp the shape of; a life in peace, in building Havocstan. He spoke wistfully of it. “Part of me wishes you'd never known Flip the soldier. Flip the farmer, or Flip the Plantation Owner; that's who I want you to know one day.” I tried to tell him, though I do not think I was terribly successful; no matter what else I do, no matter what else my life takes me to, I will be a doctor until I die.
He seems constantly to wonder, perhaps even to fear, that I will recoil when he shows me what he truly is, what he has done. I am not sure how to tell him that I never shall; quite apart from what I have seen and what I have done, in service to Clan Hanagenshu, he and I are the two sides of the same coin. We have both caused pain; have both been down into another's pain with them and brought what we could out the other side. We have both been compelled to feel that pain, and to walk around with the scars ourselves, forever.
Every life here, all of the Brotherhood. Their lives belong to the Imperator, yes, but in their own way, their lives belong also to me. And when they die, it will always in some way be my responsibility. Wherever duty leads me, whatever it dictates, that too will always be the truth. I stood aside while Gunter bled and died because of duty, and that was the right thing to do. The only thing to do. But, nonetheless... my fault. My fault.
Tomorrow, we will march. We will fight, and some of us will die. And my heart goes cold in me that it will be some of those I care about most. That it will be Daisuke, somehow, impossible it as may seem. That it might be Helena. That it might be Sebastian. That it might be Flip. That it might be this precious other life. The ghost in my arms. But whoever it is, the responsibility will in some way be mine. And there is nothing in all the world, and beyond, that can make it any other way.
The candle is beginning to gutter. I reach up and take it from the sconce, hold it over my kit. The instruments bright, harbouring no spots of rust or staining where corruption could take hold in a wound. Bandages rolled clean and tight, wrapped in sheathes of clean rags. Drugs in pouches; simples in muslin. All as it should be. The best it can be.
The sky is beginning to turn the faintest shade of grey. Not long until dawn, now. I extinguish the candle with a single soft exhalation and watch the smoke drift from the wick for a long moment, ghostly in the still air. And then I turn, for the short time that remains, to the warmth of the bed. He stirs, faintly, and slides an arm around me without waking. And as I curl up into sleep, I feel it, once again; the faint, never-sure flutter of movement from deep with me.
I may always go into battle as a doctor, responsible for each of mine that falls, and this time as one with more vulnerabilities than I could ever have imagined. And yet, at this moment, I cannot find anything in me that is the smallest bit sorry for these things that I have now to lose.
A mindset piece, set in the middle of this downtime. Both the mindset and the small factual details I haven't managed to leave vague enough that are scattered throughout are FOIP.