Fic: 16 Proofs of Love, #Strong handshake: I love you
Title: Forget The Dead You’ve Left (They Will Not Follow You)
Fandom: Stargate
Rating: T
Genres: het
Summary: It's Vietnam 1966 and Captain Maureen Reece gets to haul her pilot's ass out of a bar, yet again.
A/N: Right. I didn't even remember that I never actually posted this. It's the first Military Madness piece I wrote for Maureen and Tom and it still holds a special place in my heart and really, why didn't I just post it? Well, anyway, here you go. According to my timeline spread sheet, this should be taking place in early December 1966, so only shortly after No Reason to Get Excited and uh... have fun reading it?
PS.: You can see the other finished stories here.
( Kennedy Made Him Believe (We Could Do Much More) )
( We'll Dance Until Morning ('Til There's Just You And Me) )
( With No Direction Home (Like a Complete Unknown) )
( So I Came in Here (And Your Long-Time Curse Hurts) )
( No Reason To Get Excited (The Thief He Kindly Spoke) )
Forget The Dead You’ve Left (They Will Not Follow You)
“Leave your stepping stones behind there, something calls for you
Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you
The vagabond who's rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore
Strike another match, go start anew
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.”
Joan Baez, “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”
Oh-dark-hundred and what is she doing instead of sleeping?
Exactly.
Standing in the doorway of Le Van Loc and trying to convince herself that what she’s seeing isn’t what it’s looking like. Because that has rapidly become her favorite pastime in the last couple weeks, hasn’t it?
Goddammit, Moore.
“Are you sure you don’t need help, Captain?” Damn, did she just say that out loud? Or did Major Lorne just read her thoughts? He’s scary like that sometimes, Laura told her a few weeks ago.
Well. No use in standing around here like a pair of turnips. She is, after all, a trained nurse, an officer in the US Air Force and damn well the only one who can handle a shit-faced Major Thomas Moore, possibly with the exception of Simon DeLisle. But then again Dee has probably been doing this for years now and she’s glad that Lorne went to her instead of Dee to take care of this. At least one of the guys in their Bou’s cockpit should really be well-rested and sober.
She huffs. “Yes, sir. I’m pretty sure I can handle it myself.”
He just nods and she wants to tell him to get back to his room and Laura and do whatever makes the two of them happy because he really looks like he could use it. It’s been three months since his brother-in-law died and he still looks like shit most of the time. Except, you know, when Laura is around. Sometimes she thinks her best friend in-country - and maybe at all - is actually some kind of witch. Sometimes she wishes she’d possess whatever makes people look ten years younger in her company, too.
Her company… well. She shrugs. “Anyway… good night, sir.” Go forth and be happy as long as you can, she wants to tell him but she’s sure she doesn’t have to. They’re both in the MedEvac trade, after all.
“Night, Captain. Just… you know.” She nods, trying not to look too irritated. This really isn’t the first time that this happened in the last couple weeks, ever since Williamson died, and she’s starting to get really fed up with it.
With that, Lorne gives her one last nod before walking off into the direction of the BOQ, hopefully not to return before tomorrow evening, at the earliest. It’s enough that her night just went FUBAR. No point in ruining another person’s, as well.
Squaring her shoulders, glad that she decided to take the time and get into jungle greens after Lorne nearly scared her to death with knocking on her window instead of grabbing civvies, she walks over to the bar. The club is empty, safe for her pilot with his head on the counter, the barkeep polishing glasses and a blonde… floozy next to her fucking pilot.
Dammit, Tom. Dammit.
Okay, well, trained nurse, officer, practically certified in dragging her pilot’s ass out of this bar. She can do this.
Walking closer, she realizes that the floozy is one of the other Air Force nurses stationed here and for a moment she feels really pissed that he’d really go there but then she reminds herself that it’s none of her business who he fucks and that Lieutenant Casarella is a nice girl, when she’s sober and not done up enough to make a peacock jealous.
Right now, though, she tries to ignore Casarella’s possessive stare - what’s she doing here, anyway, having to be on shift in three hours and everything? - and plants herself right next to Moore. She’s determined to be bossy, determined not to let him fool her or fall back to the insecurity of her first two or three months in country, just this once.
And then her voice sounds gentle and soft when she says, “Tom? I really think it’s time for your beauty sleep now.” Dammit. Sarcastic would have been okay. Pissed off would have been okay. Bossy would have been wonderful. But no, it had to be gentle.
And it should have been Major Moore. It should have been sir. It should not have been Tom. Why she let him make her call him by his first name three months ago is still beyond her.
Of course he doesn’t even stir. Casarella, on the other hand… “Aw, don’ be such a stick in’e mud, ‘rina.” Maureen. Her goddamn name is Maureen. Not Marina. She wonders how often she’ll have to tell everyone that before they actually manage to remember it.
“He’s gotta be in the air in less than twenty-four hours.” And only God knows how much to drink he had this time and how the hell she’s going to get him sober enough to at least be able to fly in a straight line. At least before he’d only done this when he’d been on forty-eight hours of downtime for whatever reason. “And you are going to have to be sober in three hours, if I’m not mistaken.” And, just for good measure, “Lieutenant.”
Casarella pouts. “Don’ be mad, Cap’n. Gonna be totally sober in an hour. Keller’s Magical Hangover Cure ‘n all.”
Oh good God, not that again. When she’d met Jennifer Keller for the first time six months ago, the Army nurse had been a regular small town girl from Wisconsin, in awe of the carnage that was happening in ‘Nam, at the sheer masses of casualties they were pushing into her triage ward on really bad days. And now, six months later… well. Suffice to say, Jennifer Keller ain’t no small town girl no more.
“Just get out, Casarella.” She knows she doesn’t have any real weight to throw around and pull rank on Casarella, seeing as the Lieutenant serves on one of the jet MedEvac planes that fly casualties out of country and so is absolutely out of her range of authority.
Then again, she is the senior rank and even a drunk Casarella doesn’t necessarily equal a dumb Casarella so the Lieutenant manages to take the hint and vacates the place by Moore’s other side to sway past her, another pout clearly visible on her face but at least she doesn’t get into talking again.
So… one down, one to go. She resists the temptation to heave a melodramatic sigh and looks at the barkeep. He’s a local and she’s a regular, and all she needs to do is point to Moore and make an inquisitive face for him to hold up eight fingers and she hopes to God that means eight bottles of beer, not eight Tequila shots - Moore is disgustingly fond of Tequila, says it always reminds him of his childhood best friend who one day left town to join the Army, just like her mother, only to be never seen again - or whatever was his choice of hard alcohol today. He’s the only one in their little round of regulars who’s absolutely not picky about his choice of drink.
Well. No use in crying over spilt milk. She has slightly under twenty-four hours for him to get completely sober again so he can go on nightshift with her and Dee and every second counts. And all of that without his commanding officer getting wind of it. Landry’s really not the most forgiving guy in the case of inebriation among his pilots. She does heave that melodramatic sigh, after all. “Tom?” Aw, not that again. Major Moore. He’s Major Moore now and forever, because if she ever allows herself to become comfortable with Tom…
“Mh?” Oh thank Heavens, at least he’s not in a coma, yet. “Oh… Oh, hey, Kid.” Oh. Oh no. He’s not going to get drunk off his ass and then be all “Oh hey, Kid.” and smiling at her in the most adorable - if that is even a word to be used in connection with him of all people - way. He. Is. Just. Not.
“I think you had enough… sir.” That turns the smile into something like a frown, only he seems really not sure how to do that anymore. Just great.
“I don’… hey, didn’ I tell you to s-stop with the sir?” The confusion plastered all over his face and hair that looks messy enough to rival the near hippie hair of Lorne’s CO aren’t a good combination.
Actually, they’re a terrible combination. “I’m not gonna argue about that with you now.”
Confusion is replaced by a snort and a slightly lewd raising of his eyebrow. Good God. “Why not? ‘S as good a time as any.”
Whoa, for a guy as shit-faced as he is right now, Moore is actually amazingly eloquent, even if his speech is generally noticeably slurred. That won’t change the fact that she sure as hell isn’t going to debate the why and wherefores of not wanting to call him by his first name, occasional slip-ups when he’s being exceptionally idiotic notwithstanding. “It’s not open for discussion, Major.”
“Whoa,” he says and tries to get up from his slouching position to hold his hands up, palm towards her, “anyone ever told you can be real bossy if you try?”
Well, at least she finally met that objective. “Seriously, sir, we really need to stop…”
“Okay,” he slurs, holding up his index finger and looking like he’s trying to be absolutely serious, “’m gonna make you a deal.” Oh. Oooh, a deal. Sure, uh-huh. Not convinced at all, she crosses her arms in front of her chest. She tries very hard to ignore that his gaze lingered a substantial bit too long on the space right above her arms before visibly wrenching his gaze back up to her eyes. “You gonna stop s-sirring me ‘n I gonna go with you. Rrright away.” He even makes a take-off gesture with his hand to illustrate his point.
As Laura would say, holy Mother of God. The… bastard. He actually managed to bully her into calling him by his first name while being seriously trashed. Because she just knows that in that mood, nothing short of complying with his stupid wish is going to make him comply to her wish. She gives him one of those withering looks Laura is so partial to. “Okay, Tom, get your ass up. We’re leaving this joint.”
His entire face lights up in the possibly most innocent smile she has ever seen on Thomas Moore’s face - actually, it’s the only innocent smile she ever saw on his face. It’s doing decidedly unhealthy things to her heart and she hates it. “Oh. Hey,” he chuckles at some private joke he’ll hopefully reveal to her, preferably in the next thirty seconds. “Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.” Or maybe not. “Get it, Kid? Get it?”
To be honest, it was a pretty passable imitation of Humph… Fuck it. This is getting her nowhere. “Tom… I’m being serious. Can we please…”
“Okay, okay, okay,” he drawls, getting off his barstool with a bit of a hassle - not his usual agile self, is he? - “if you’re sayin’ please, that’s a whole diff’rent ballgame, you know.”
Not dignifying this with an answer, she simply stands by to slip his arm over her shoulder when he’s stumbling at his first step away from the counter. Why the hell is he so heavy? Can’t be all just muscles now, can it?
Anyway, there’s no use in complaining as she nods at the barkeep, implying that she’ll settle Moore’s tab tomorrow morning while he’s hopefully snoring off all that alcohol. She gets a confirming nod - again, not the first time she’s doing it, and she has yet to tell Tom… Moore about secretly paying his debts, instead of always telling him he already did that and just can’t remember it - and starts to drag her pilot’s ass out of the bar.
Okay, so he’s doing his best to help but the night is hot and damp and even though she tries to work out regularly even here, she’s just no match for several pounds of muscular, tall, handsome male.
Wait.
Where did that just… “Kid?”
She tries not to grunt when he halts and immediately sacks against her. “What is it?”
“Can we just… sit down? Jus’ for a minute. Jus’ till the world stops spinnin’.” He sounds so, well, miserable that she doesn’t even protest, only helps him walk over to a crate someone put against the wall of a side building of the club. Almost gently, she lets him down and when he’s seated, she just can’t resist sitting down next to him.
He leans back, his head against the wall and his eyes closed and she wonders how to make him stay awake. Whatever “eight” he consumed, falling asleep can’t be good for him right now. Mh. There is one thing she maybe could keep him awake with. Also, allegedly drunks and children tell the truth, so maybe he’ll even spill tonight. She clears her throat. “Tom?”
There’s no answer at first and she’s prepared to shake him to get him to wake up but then he makes a sound, something like “Mh?” and she takes that as a hint that he hasn’t fallen asleep yet. She’s that desperate.
“What the hell’s going on with you?” She really, really wants to know that.
To her irritation, he takes his time with answering and when he does it’s a stupid, “What d’ya mean, “goin’ on” with me?”
You know that perfectly well, even three sheets to the wind, she wants to say but then again… even Thomas Moore deserves the benefit of a doubt. “I mean that even you have never managed to get drunk twenty-four hours before you need to be back in the cockpit until now. And even you have never needed to be dragged out of that bar more than twice a month before. What’s the matter with you?”
“Y’know,” he slurs, “that’s prob’ly the longest speech I ever heard from you.”
It’s not and he knows that. She can’t believe he’d be trying to bullshit her even in his current state. She’s starting to get desperate and pissed off. “Tom.”
“Maureen.” Oh great, now he’s using her actual name and somehow she never thought she’d prefer the incessant “Kid” he placed on her after their first flight to her first name but damn, she does. There’s something inherently dangerous in the way he says it, even though it was an absolutely drunk innocent tone this time. Dammit.
She tries to keep up the only slightly irritated tone in favor of the seriously pissed off tone she’d rather use right now. “Don’t do this, Tom. Don’t…”
“I got a letter.” Huh? What does that have to do with anything… “Where’s the damn thing? ‘M pretty sure I had…” Now he’s fumbling around the pockets of his jungle greens until he seems to have struck up something as he’s pulling a crumbled piece of paper out of one of his leg pockets with a triumphant “Aha!”
He presents it to her with a rather proud grin, like a fourth grader who just finished his math homework with correct results for the first time presenting them to his favorite teacher. Okay, she thinks and takes it from him, trying not to look too weirded out. And then she sees the sender’s address.
Anna Williamson.
She has to swallow at the realization that suddenly dawns on her. That must be Lorne’s sister, as he might have mentioned her once or twice. Charlie Williamson’s wife. And she sent Moore a letter, apparently not too long ago. “Tom… how long have you been carrying this around with you?”
He frowns, scrunching his nose, as if he has to think about this really hard. “Endearing” is a word she’d never have thought to associate with Thomas “Jackknife” Moore but here it is. He’s looking endearing with his drunk thinking face and she hates how it makes her feel. All… “Three days. I think. Yeah. Gotta be three days.”
He never even told them. And, seeing as they have been either on shift or on call in the last three days, he must have been waiting to get shit-faced if the first thing he did after shower and change when they got off duty this evening was to plop himself in front of the club’s counter and not leave until being dragged out by her. Which is a scary thought. There have always been days when he didn’t exactly go easy on the alcohol but she can’t remember him ever having been anxious to drown in it. What in God’s name is in that letter? “Tom…”
“Read it. I don’ mind. I trust you. I don’t trust anyone but you ‘n Dee.” It’s not fair. It’s not fair that he’d say that now, when she can’t even be ticked off at him because he’s just too fucking drunk for that. It’s just not fair that he can break her heart so easily.
Aside from that, “So you don’t trust Major Lorne?”
“Okay,” he drawls after another moment of deep thinking, “you ‘n Dee ‘n Lorne. You’re trusty.” He frowns again. “Is trusty a real word?”
A little absentmindedly, she confirms that trusty is a real word indeed as she skims through the letter Lorne’s sister sent Moore. It’s a really nice letter, full of thanks to Moore for being a friend to her husband since their Academy days, for keeping Lorne and Williamson in check after Charlie proposed to her and Lorne absolutely did not agree with it - she nearly laughs out loud at that, not believing a word of this - for accepting the request to become godfather to their second kid… it’s terrifying how well exactly she can see why this made Moore seek refuge at the bar.
She lets the letter sink to look at him. “Look, I didn’t know. I’m… sorry for…”
He waves her apology aside with a drunken snort. “’S okay. You didn’ have to put up with me an’ you still… oh. Not… good.”
She wants to ask what the fuck he’s on about now but well, the gagging and surprisingly fast and agile jumping up are sure signs… yep, there he goes. Hands braced against the wall of the side building, he’s sick as a fucking dog. Very briefly, she considers letting him sort it out on his own - he could get drunk on his own fairly well, after all - but then the nurse in her wins and damn, she just can’t watch him suffer.
Resisting another longsuffering sigh, she gets up and walks over to him, just when his drunkenness gives him a break long enough for him to mutter “Aw, shit,” with great feeling before dry heaving again.
For a moment she’s tempted to reply with a deadpan “No, actually that’s puke.” but yeah… despite everything he claims, Thomas Moore just doesn’t understand nurse humor.
So instead she goes for gently rubbing his back - absolutely professionally, of course - and making sure he doesn’t choke or otherwise incapacitate himself while purging all that damn alcohol from his system. She better never tell him that this is actually what she’d been secretly praying for. This way, they might have a chance to get past Landry’s uncannily keen nose.
When he’s done, he gives her a heartfelt and kind of heartbreaking sigh of relief before staggering back to the crate and practically collapsing into a heap of… well, not misery but he’s certainly not a little ray of rosy-cheeked healthy sunshine, either. Trying not to grin, she walks over and hides her sudden amusement behind the façade of her profession, putting a hand on his shoulder and carefully turning his face to her to look him over.
It’s a not a pretty sight.
Ignoring the sheepish look in his face as he tries to look away, she keeps a hold on his chin with one hand and gropes around her leg pockets for something to wipe off his face. Finding a couple of sterile dressing pads, she makes do and gets everything that doesn’t belong on his face off, a little amazed at how he just lets her do that, completely silent, with his eyes closed and his head leaned against the wall.
“Okay,” she says when she’s done, extending her hand to him, “up on your feet, Major.”
It takes him a moment to realize that she’d been actually serious. Then he takes her hand and she’s surprised that even after that unsavory episode they just had his grip is still as strong as the first time he shook her hand to welcome her aboard his plane after she’d proven her worth in an evacuation under fire. She hates that she still remembers all those moments as clear as if they just happened yesterday.
He’s upright now and it’s kind of amazing that he isn’t even swaying anymore, just looking a little under the weather. Up until now she only ever managed to get him to bed safely with Dee looking over him at the BOQ but she never actually saw him sober up and sober up so damn fast. She clears her throat. “So, uh…”
“Please don’t tell me you really carry that stuff around with you on a regular basis.” Huh, what? Oh, oh the pads of dressing she’s still holding in her hand. Which is really gross, come to think of. Okay, she’s pretty sure that she had a… there it is. Pulling out a pair of surgical gloves she had in one of her front pockets, she wraps them around the used pads and uses the last fresh pad she had to meticulously clean her hands. That earns her a raised eyebrow and an added, “Seriously? Surgical gloves, too? In your spare time?”
Good God, it’s not like he hasn’t seen her in action before, is it? And how come that she usually needs an entire night to sound at least remotely normal again and he can just puke and sound all sober again? Life’s just not fair. She huffs. “I’m a nurse, dummy. Of course I carry sterile pads and surgical gloves around everywhere with me.”
A smile - an actual fully sober smile, as opposed to his usual grins and drunken slurred smiles - slowly spreads across his face, making him look five years younger and she nearly dies of a heart attack realizing what just happened. She even nearly misses him saying, “You, Captain Maureen Reece, are a woman full of surprises.”
There’s this weird moment when they’re looking at each other, only a few inches distance between them and he leans down and she moves to stand on the tips of her toes… until she remembers she’d just been wiping drops of bile away from the corner of his mouth. She clears her throat again.
“Uh… rain check… Tom?” He opens his mouth, probably to say something along the lines that she shouldn’t make promises she doesn’t intend to keep but she’s faster than him. “You might even get to cash it in if you manage not to get drunk whenever you’re less than forty-eight hours off-duty.”
He starts with “I don’t really…” but shuts up astonishingly fast at her giving him another withering look that would make Laura proud. It’s a small miracle that it really does work.
But damn, there’s no reason for him to look so stupidly dejected. And there’s not a bit of reason for her to sigh and tell him, “Okay, let’s go and find a pitcher of pure caffeine and a gallon of water that won’t kill you for you. I’m not gonna climb into a plane you’re flying with that kind of booze breath.”
It makes him laugh and she hates how that makes her feel all warm and fuzzy inside and she hates how it makes her think I love you like it always does when she manages to make him laugh and she hates how she’d do all of this again in a heartbeat if it just got him to laugh so freely and without a hint of cynicism again.
And then he goes and puts an arm around her shoulders, giving them a short squeeze and she tries to be indignant but it’s just so damn hard when she’s carrying the reason that made him drown himself in booze in her pocket because he trusts her. In the end, she lets him do it again and she lets him call her Kid without even once protesting and she lets him make her laugh and maybe she can keep up pretending that making him laugh doesn’t make her think I love you for two more months, until their tour’s over. Maybe she can go back to the US without ever letting him cash in on that rain check, after all. Maybe she can go back home with her heart unbroken.
Maybe, just maybe she can go on and make herself believe that it’s all for the better if she never allows herself to stray off the lonely career path she once carved for herself, that it’ll all be worth it in the end. It is worth a try, after all. Isn’t it?
( It’s Way Too Soon (To Be Obsessin’ Like This) )
( America Has Heard The Bugle Call (And You Know It Involves Us One And All) )
( Military Madness (Is Killing Your Country) )
( And All Of The Men In This War Torn Land (Salute The Nurses of Vietnam) )