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bigmouthlass · 6 days

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Title: Of Constant Sorrow

Author: BJ

Fandom: The Boys

Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Rating: Mature

Synopsis: The after-the-fact deposition of the nurse brought in to care for a certain explosively hot patient.

Tags: Solider Boy, Ben O'Connell, Original Female Character, Billy Butcher, Grace Mallory, Starlight, Annie January, Hughie Campbell, MM, Marvin Milk, Frenchie, Serge Cassell, Kimiko Miyashiro, Original Male Character, Unethical Experimentation, Unethical Medicine, Canon Divergence, AU, No Good Answers

AN: Content warning -- unironic use of racial slurs.

This was actually my mother's idea-- my mom spent twenty years as a home health aide who specialized in elder care. She and I got to speculating on how someone might connect with Soldier Boy even in his vulnerable state at the end of S3, and this is how I ran with her idea. Factual errors are mine; I'm not a medial professional. Songs are, "Ship of Fools," by Bob Seger, "Man/Maid of Constant Sorrow," by Dick Burnett, "My Favorite Dream," by Bill Walsh and Ray Noble (the magic harp's lullaby from 'Mickey and the Beanstalk'), and "Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral (An Irish Lullaby)," by James Royce Shannon. All recognizable intellectual properties are owned by their respective creators and holders of any trademarks or copyrights. This is a not-for-profit work of fan art and is protected by Fair Use.

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Data classified Top Secret/eyes only under authority of case officer Mallory

Interrogation session 8 re case Solider Boy. Subject: DePoister, Charlotte, captain, USA.

WB: We recording? Right, this can go all sorts of ways, love-- CD: You can knock off the intimidation schtick. I can see how sick you are. You should be in a hospital.

HC: He's been doing a lot better lately-- how can you tell? CD: Because it's my damn job, jackass.

WB: Don't you worry 'bout me. I'm sound as a pound. MM: Okay, let's not get sidetracked. Tell us about how you got hired to be Solider Boy's nurse. CD: I'm a Supe-- super-ability immunity to poisons and radiation. However, I’m not indestructible. I didn't even get super healing. I cut, I bruise, I bleed, I break. I age. At least my sister went gray first. Take that, ya brat. I turned down Vought and enlisted, got trained as a combat medic and went to college for my nursing degree after I was wounded in the line of duty. Immunity to poisons is a great thing to have for a first responder.

HC: Wait-- I thought the Army banned Supes. AJ: Supes that are the property of Vought are barred from serving. People with super-abilities aren’t. CD: Right. Given a choice, most Supes pick Vought because the money is a lot better. My dad never did forgive me for turning them down. I could be rich'n'famous right now. Decontamination Charlotte, complete with sequined “HazMat” suit with florescent Fuck Me boots. Instead I picked Uncle Sam, like an idiot. I came out of the Army with a captain’s commission, an RN license, and an average of about four nightmares a month. Anyway. Colonel Mallory came to me herself after the incident at Vought Tower. She explained the situation and pointed out my sister's six-figure tax debt thanks to her idiot husband's house-flipping business and how she could make it go away. That’s pretty much how I ended up taking what was basically an orderly’s job in that spick-and-span underground Purgatory. Nasogastric feeding tube in one end, Foley catheter in the other, and between the two a living body that still needed things like bathing and haircuts and whatnot. The Russians were clever to keep him in an upright position. No pressure sores. Not that he’d be prone to them. --- You think you’re gonna get used to it, but you never really do, Charlotte remembered her practical instructor saying as she completed her unit in the chronic care building at Walter Reed. Ward 4, where long-term coma patients and people in persistent vegetative states lived out their lives until a merciful God called them home. Especially when the patients were healthy otherwise-- young, strong, people who should’ve been out in the sunlight.

With that Me Doctor You Nurse sneer some of them just seemed to have, Dr. Sanjeer briefed her on the acceptable baselines for the patient’s vital signs. “Any independent motion, no matter how minor, must be reported at once. When he was originally roused from captivity in Russia, he blasted through a reinforced concrete wall before he was fully conscious and oriented to time and place.”

“So we’re worried he might haul off and punch a hole in the world.”

“In brief, yes.”

“Great.” Not that the good doctor was worried, from the other side of a camera feed in a laboratory in a completely different part of the facility. Leave the cleanup to Charlotte. Decontamination Charlotte, the filth doesn’t touch her in a bad place.

The containment capsule opened with a sigh of equalizing air pressure. Up close the wrong feeling was worse. White adult male, bearded, mass 85 kilos, height 185 centimeters, beautifully cut muscles, broad shoulders, and long legs. Electrodes stuck to his temples and on his chest fed data to the containment capsule's monitors, with telemetry readings well within Dr. Sanjeer's provided baselines. The only concession to modesty was a drape over his groin, the line of a catheter running to a onboard reservoir. Urinalysis made for a crude substitute for a proper blood test but the needle hadn’t been invented yet that could pierce his skin. A breathing mask clamped over his face fed him air laced with the nerve agent keeping him . . . keeping him in some Supe-enabled state that wasn't quite comatose and wasn't quite dead.

"Hi. Ben, right?” she said.

Over the monitor Dr. Sanjeer's condescending frown deepened.

Charlotte wasn't fazed. Dr. Sanjeer's specialties were in genetics and biochemistry, not direct care. She'd lay money he'd never gone near a patient in his life-- not a human one anyway, he had the look of a monkey man. “His brain still works, right? He’s not an inanimate object. I refuse to treat him like one.

“Ben, my name is Charlotte DePoister. I’ll be your primary care nurse. You have a tube in your nose feeding you fluids and a catheter’s been inserted into your penis. I apologize if either feel uncomfortable. I’ll be in for four hour shifts every day at 0600 and 1800 to see to your physical needs, which will include moving your limbs to keep your muscles from atrophy, keeping you clean, reflex checks, and tactile stimulation tests. I’m going to put something in your hand to demonstrate." From her scrub top pocket, Charlotte pulled out a tennis ball. She took the unconscious Supe’s hand and shaped it into a cup, fitting the tennis ball down into it.

No response. His fingers were warm and totally lax.

“All right. I’m going to give you a quick bath with some dry shower cloths. Clever things, keep you almost as clean as a full sponge bath and a lot less labor intensive. Full baths are still on the agenda, every fifth day. I’ll wash your hair then too. Beard trims as needed, haircuts once a month, but I don’t manscape.”

Charlotte hummed as she worked on the heavy pile of inert tissue that might've had a man inside somewhere. Dr. Sanjeer watched with a look of greed on his face that made her uncomfortable. Reminding her that he saw her patient as a specimen.

At the end of her shift, she covered Ben with a light blanket and sealed the containment capsule. The air inside went misty as it pressurized and filled with the Novachik nerve agent. Carefully, with the thick plastic gloves built into the capsule, she removed the breathing mask. The pad beneath him activated to hold him in place and the capsule went into lateral rotation mode, rocking him side-to-side. A child in a cradle made of lead and poison. "See you this evening, Ben." --- MM: What were you told about the actual research going on? CD: Just broad strokes. The laboratories were all dedicated to studying him, trying to figure out how that radiation of his neutralizes super-abilities. I sat through a lot of meetings with lab coats pissing and moaning about not being able to access their specimen directly.

WB: And you never thought to ask where you fit into the master plan? Spending all day wiping Soldier Boy's arse you'd think you'd be a bit more inquisitive. CD: What do you want from me, you prick? I'm a soldier. My job's to execute orders and hope like hell the officers over me know what the fuck they're doing. You're military too, you should know that. In the day-to-day it was pure routine, like caring for any long-term coma patient. I’d clean him up at the start of my shift, do basic physiotherapy, provide sensory and tactile stimulation with things like soft toys. I read somewhere that he's a baseball fan, so I started playing the radio play-by-plays over the speaker in the containment capsule.

SC: Why even bother? What care does a monster like that warrant in light of the crimes he's committed? CD: Because he’s a person, no matter how horrible a person he is. Nobody deserves to be tortured with the effects of long-term immobility. “We must be what we are, else we become our enemies.” Historical fantasy. A Song For Arbonne. --- "I saw that one on the TV," Charlotte said as she scrubbed her patient’s hair. Soft and fine like her own and sweet with the mild smell of Johnson and Johnson No-Tears. "The home plate ump totally blew that call. Even I could see that wasn’t in the strike zone." Over the capsule’s speaker Dickerson called it-- White Sox over Tigers, 13-6. "Buncha dipshits this year. The Tigers haven’t been able to get shit done with Cabrerra out. I hope we haven’t lost him for the season."

No response from her patient.

Charlotte turned the game off and rinsed out the shampoo. Careful of the clamps holding the breathing mask, she used a little travel dryer on her patient’s hair, lifting the strands to get the cool air at the roots. She sang as she worked. "'Tell me quick,' said Old MacPhee, 'what's this all got to do with me? I spent all my time at sea, alone' . . ." --- MM: Let's get back on track. So you were taking care of Soldier Boy while he was . . . out. The nerve agent should've had him totally insensate. What happened to change that? CD: Either his body started adapting to the Novachik or someone was deliberately dialing back the concentration. Possibly both. --- "This is a ball of hemp cord, it should feel rough and abrasive against your skin." Charlotte lightly ran the stim object down his forearm and checked No Response. "What's on the agenda for today . . . oh it's everybody's favorite, Leg Day."

Talking through each flexation and extension, Charlotte moved each of her patient's legs through their full range of motion. "Everything's still moving the way it should be, big guy. You're not even losing muscle tone. Reflex test-- I'm going to run the tip of an ink pen along the sole of your foot."

Accustomed to days and days of the same thing, Charlotte didn't register at first what she was seeing. His foot flexed, curling into the touch of the ballpoint pen as she ran it up the arch. "Woah." She did it again. Another flex. This time, the muscle groups in his calf twitched, like he was trying to point his toes. Charlotte finally registered what it was that had put her on edge-- his pulse and breathing had sped up, just enough to be noticeable.

Dr. Sanjeer had been very clear on this point. Any indication that he might be coming out of his next-door-to-dead state rated a five-alarm panic. Instead, Charlotte squeezed his ankle. "It's okay. You're safe. It's just Charlotte, Ben. Flex your toes again if you can hear me."

Nothing. Involuntary reaction, nothing more. Just a sign that physiotherapy was in fact indicated. --- MM: The doctor told you to sound the alarm if he showed any signs of coming out of it. How come you didn't? CD: I didn't think it'd be in anybody's best interest to punch the panic button, least of all my patient's. I know you don't take the idea seriously, but part of my duty as his nurse is to be an advocate for his well-being.

AJ: He roasted Crimson Countess alive, he bashed Mindstorm's face in-- CD: Have you read his quote-unquote "service record"? His brilliant solution to the Korean conflict damn near started World War III. Under international law he's an unindicted war criminal. And I'm sure all of you have been hurt by him. Directly. At his hands. Making him suffer when he's helpless doesn't do a damn thing to balance those scales or prevent anyone else from getting hurt. Justice is a higher duty than our fucking feelings.

MM: Look, I used to be a corpman. Okay? I agree with you. Just tell us what happened next. CD: According to the EEG, he started cycling between normal periods of dreaming and non-dreaming sleep. They weren’t happy dreams either. His vital signs would start spiking right the fuck off the scale and the Geiger counter would start sounding like a electric woodpecker. Scared the shit out of me the first time it happened. I’m immune to the neurotoxin and the radiation, not to getting vaped or having a mountain dropped on me. --- Charlotte had gotten into the habit of keeping the containment capsule open while she was in the room with her patient. With the room itself isolated and her the only person allowed direct access, it just made her job easier not having to constantly pressurize and depressurize the damned thing. She'd also gotten into the habit of holding his hand for part of her shift. Sometimes there'd be a faint twitch. Nothing that could be misconstrued as deliberate, purposeful action. Once his hand had full-on clamped, just shy of enough force to crush the bones. Hurt like hell. Charlotte blessed the foresight that had made her use her left hand.

The day everything changed was another day exactly the same as all the rest. Charlotte had been catching up on the charting when an alarm on the telemetry monitor went off. The Geiger counter started ticketing away, as the needle rocked right into the red zone. The pump on the gas canisters under the containment capsule kicked on, upping the concentration of the nerve agent in his breathing mix. It wasn't working fast enough, Charlotte could see. His pulse had risen to 50 and the EEG showed highly active REM sleep. Dreaming sleep.

"Holy Mary mother of God you're having a nightmare," Charlotte said. She grabbed Ben's hand and put it over her heart. "Ben. Ben, it's okay! Whatever you're seeing's not real! It'll pass in a second! Calm down! It's not real!" Nothing. His eyes rolled under his closed eyelids and his heart rate continued to climb like the price on a gas pump-- 70, 80, 90 . . .

Charlotte put her lips next to Ben's ear and sang. "I . . . am a maid . . . of constant sorrow . . . I've seen trials for all my days. I'll say goodbye to California . . . the land where I was partly raised."

The motion behind his eyelids paused. Charlotte took a breath and went on, softer and tuneful. "Your friends may say that I’m a stranger, my face they'll never see no more. There is but one promise given, that I'll sail on God's golden shore." As she watched, Ben's vital signs held their plateau . . . and started to sink.

"Oh thank God," Charlotte sighed. "All through this world, I'm bound to ramble," she brushed a lock of Ben's hair back from his forehead. Odd that his ageless face should look careworn, that the eternally sleeping should look so damned exhausted. "Through sun and wind and driving rain. I'm bound to ride the western railway . . . perhaps I'll take the very next train." The image struck her then, Ben out in the world, dressed in clothes for the outdoors, sitting in the open door of a boxcar as it rolled from somewhere to somewhere. God, even jail would be better than this . . . living death.

"I am a maid of constant sorrow, I've seen trials all of my days," she reprised. There. His heart rate had reached it's normal resting pace, as the nerve agent did its work and put him more thoroughly under. "I'm going back to California," on impulse she kissed the back of his hand, "the land where I was partly raised." She laid Ben's arm back by his side.

"Sweet Jesus you scared me," she said into the silence. --- WB: So you just sung the cunt a lullaby, gave him a kiss like he was fucking Sleeping Beauty, and what, defused him? CD: It worked didn't it? The next time it happened, I took his hand and did the whole lullaby thing and he settled. Sanjeer speculated he was having flashback-powered nightmares, but he had already associated my voice with harmlessness so he was able to reality-check his way out of it without waking up. He said to continue as before. I was just glad to end each shift in one piece to be honest. What I didn't know was-- well you guys probably know more about that than I do. There were parties very interested in obtaining my patient who'd finally succeeded in fixing his location. They were trying to access him directly and remove him intact, without waking him up.

K, via interpreter: . . . she's asking why they didn't just come to you. CD: Lack of opportunity, probably. Like everybody else who knew about our payload, I lived onsite, my movements were restricted, and my activities were monitored. That I’m talking to you guys and not to yet another interrogation specialist says Colonel Mallory's already cleared me of any conspiracy. I’m gonna spend the rest of my life in 'protective custody' anyway, so pardon me if I forget my fucking manners.

AJ: Well maybe we can do something about that. CD: Hah. Don't write checks you can't cash. The thanks of a grateful nation amount to not putting me on trial for treason or espionage because that would involve admitting Soldier Boy's alive in an open courtroom, and who knows what Vought or God save us Homelander might do with that information.

MM: We can talk to the Colonel. Move you someplace a little lower security, someplace that allows visitors. I mean, your family's gotta be missing you. CD: That carrot's already been dangled. My sister's been made aware of my status, and has chosen not to communicate. Christ alone knows where my ex is-- probably shacked up with one of his undergrads and a case of Jack Daniels. --- "It's raining outside." Charlotte said as she fiddled with the nail file. She couldn't clip her patient’s nails, exactly, none of the clippers she'd tried had even scratched the nail surface. But they'd file if she ground at them enough. "You know something? There are times I think I'd sell my soul just to take a fucking walk by myself. This place is so double-top-secret they interrogate fresh air before they let it in."

She laughed to herself. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be whining to somebody who can't tell me to shut up. I just realized this morning it's my nephew’s birthday but because I'm incommunicado I can't call him and say Happy Birthday. My sister's a brat and her boys are bratlings, but they're my brats.

"They're probably going to the beach, since it's the weekend. Grand Haven State Park-- these long fine sand beaches and nothing in the water that might eat you. We went there two-three times a summer when we were kids. The wind blows right off Lake Michigan hard enough to make the air feel nice, even when it's like a million degrees outside. Lucky me I got the suntan gene but my sister'd burn'n'peel every damn year. That fair Irish skin-- you could probably relate. My ex-husband was like that too. Our honeymoon, we spent three days in the Keys. Chris got sunburned so bad we had to spend most of it inside. Kind of a bad omen in retrospect.”

Realizing she was rambling, Charlotte stopped. She glanced at the telemetry monitor; he was in REM sleep but his vitals were still well under the panic threshold. She hoped it was a nice dream. She cleared her throat and sang, "In my favorite dream, everyone is so delightful, no one's mean or spiteful . . ."

She put Ben's hand down. "Good night. See you in the morning," she said, and sealed the capsule. As she took off the mask, she swallowed when she saw a tiny trail of moisture running from the corner of one eye. Charlotte hoped with all her heart it was just a bit of extra water and, careful to keep the touch light, she used her gloved thumb to wipe it away. --- MM: Take us through what happened. Did you notice anything out of routine when your morning shift started? CD: No. The pump that fed the breathing mask was still going so as far as I knew everything was normal. I filled the canister with the Novachik in the lab and changed it out like usual. My guess is the nerve agent was a dud.

SC: That would not be difficult. Novachik is not so easy to synthesize. If the pH is even a little out of balance-- seawater. CD: Right. I was going through his stimulation drills and I noticed his brain activity acting up, so I took his hand and started singing and it seemed like he’d calmed down. So I turned away to get the things for his bath when an alarm started going off on the capsule telemetry display. I looked at his face, and his eyes were open. --- "You've been doing this more lately," Charlotte said as she flexed his hand around the rubber handball. "It can't be because the Phillies are doing more than taking up space in the cellar this year. I didn't mean to get your hopes up there. I gotta suffer through Tigers mediocrity, you get to suffer with me. So there-- oh shit." Ben's heartrate was climbing again, though thank God not as fast as that first time. Charlotte pressed his hand over her heart again. "Okay. Orient on my heartbeat. A-one-and-a-two-and-a-here-we-go-- Too-rah-loo-rah-loo-ral, too-rah-loo-rah-lee . . ."

By the time she finished the Irish lullaby, Ben's vitals were dropping. "There. And according to my handy-dandy calendar, it's bath day. Let me take a look at that manly mane of yours. Might be time for a trim." As she turned to her cart, an alert on the containment capsule started going off. "Wait, what the fuck?"

A look at the EEG waves and her heart turned to ice. Nice and spiky and active and awake. Charlotte barely had time to complete that thought when a hand snapped around her neck. A tiny trickle of urine ran into her underwear as her patient-- as Ben-- as Solider Boy slowly sat up, eyes open and full of enough rage to start a war. Black fog washed over her vision and she went ragdoll. In an almost abstract sort of way she said goodbye to her sister and nephews, remembered the last time she'd watched a really pretty sunrise, regretted running out of her room without making her bed this morning.

"Where. Am. I?" he growled, muffled by the mask. The grip on her neck loosened just enough for Charlotte to breathe.

"West Virginia. Hazardous Waste Containment Facility," Charlotte croaked. --- MM: What happened next? CD: You saw the video. He grabbed me by the neck, demanded to know where he was, told me to take out the tubes, then he told me to show him the way out or he’d rip my fucking head off. Direct quote. --- “I’m sorry, this is probably going to hurt.”

“Just get it out of me motherFUCKER!!!” Soldier Boy screamed as Charlotte pulled the Foley. He cupped his hands over his genitals, curling over them protectively. “Oh that hurt like shit!”

Thankful that her hands weren’t shaking, Charlotte tossed the catheter tube. Picking up a towel she said, “Feeding tube next. Take a few deep breaths, suck in, and hold it,” carefully, she tugged the thin plastic tube out of his nose.

“Jesus Christ snorting fiberglass didn’t hurt this much,” he groaned, taking the towel from Charlotte and using it to apply pressure to his nose. “My God, am I hungry. Tell me you’ve got some food stuffed down your bra."

Deep in that clinical space she’d paid the iron price to learn, Charlotte said, “This is a hot zone. No food or drink.”

“No clothes either, I suppose. Figures.”

“You were comatose and incontinent. Clothes would have been impractical.”

Soldier Boy did a double-take. Was he blushing? Hard to tell with the beard. "Incontinent? You've been wiping my ass the whole time I've been here?!?"

"Calm down. I'm a nurse."

Soldier Boy made another one of those scoffing noises. Charlotte had heard him called an analog Homelander. Nobody who'd seen either up close would make that mistake. Around Homelander there was . . . like hearing a song playing on an out-of-tune piano. There was a feral edge to his mannerisms that led one to question whether or not a whole human being looked through those lake-blue eyes. Soldier Boy, whatever else he might be, was human. Mesmerizingly so. Charlotte could see how he could command men’s souls with a snap of his fingers. Worth wondering if his intense personal charisma was part of his super-ability package or something uniquely his own. Either way, it was overwhelming.

Soldier Boy rolled to get to his feet. On reflex Charlotte grabbed his arm to help him balance. He jerked away. “Get your damn hands offa me!”

“Sorry! Sorry,” Charlotte backed away, hands held up and empty.

Say this much, he was good at assessing situations quickly. He looked around, noting the cameras, the smallness of the room, the cool stillness of the air, the particular quality of the silence. “How far underground are we?”

“I don’t exactly know,” Charlotte admitted as Soldier Boy snatched a blanket off the storage cabinet and wrapped himself up. “Construction on the main facility was abandoned twenty-thirty years ago when nuclear power development started to slow down. The main spaces were retrofitted into laboratories, a tunnel was punched down, and this,” Charlotte circled a finger, “was hollowed out. There’s this room, the observation bay, a decontamination chamber, a locker room, and an elevator.”

Soldier Boy’s twitchy eyes fixed on Charlotte. “That shit they use to knock me out-- why aren’t you dead?”

“Supe,” Charlotte said shortly. “Immune to poisons, including radiation. Also drugs don’t work on me. Made getting shot a bucket of fun.”

Soldier Boy looked her up and down. "I take it instant healing isn’t part of the package? Good. Get me out of here, or I’ll rip your fucking head off. Clear?"

Charlotte commended her soul to God. “Crystal.” --- AJ: It's okay. You don't have to be scared of him. CD: Of course I need to be scared of him, kiddo. You think something as trivial as a detention center crawling with Special Forces trained guards in the middle of a CIA black hole is gonna stop him from getting to me if he really sets his mind to it? So far the only person that’s put a dent in his paint job was Queen Maeve, and she had the help of a sixty-odd story drop. --- “Is there an evacuation plan around here somewhere?”

“What for?” Charlotte asked, pitching her voice to carry over the hiss of the shower in the decon chamber. “The only people down here are the indestructible and the expendable.” Using a pair of scissors she slit the hems and opened a few inches of leg seam on a set of scrub pants. No hope on the tops fitting over his shoulders but one of the cotton T-shirts should stretch enough.

The water shut off. “Fuck that shit is cold,” Soldier Boy grouched. “You have to do this, what, twice a day?”

“You get used to it.” Or learned to accept that God just liked a laugh sometimes. Charlotte remembered praying for cold the long months in the Iraqi and Afghani desert. Underground was nothing but cold. She opened her locker. Her accessories didn't amount to much-- just her watch, her ID badge on a lanyard, and her dog tags with her dad's crucifix on the same chain.

“Towel.” Charlotte tossed him one and turned her back as he emerged from the decon chamber. What was acceptable when he was comatose was an invasion when awake. “Okay. Now, if I had me in a secret underground cell, I’d have the rooms all rigged with that goddamned gas. I’d also have the elevator shaft rigged with explosives. So why am I still awake and we’re not buried under half a damn mountain?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know how you’re awake now. There should’ve been enough Novachik in those canisters to keep you under until Jesus gets back.”

“Yeah about that,” Soldier Boy said. “What date is this?” Charlotte told him. “Clothes.”

“On the bench.”

Fabric rustled. “No drawers?”

“I don’t think mine would fit you,” Charlotte said dryly.

Soldier Boy dragged on the T-shirt and toweled his hair. Moving normally, Charlotte noted. Better than normally. He might’ve just woken up from a quick nap. Catching her stare, Solider Boy's lip quirked in a leer. He stretched to his toes, preening like a peacock. "Quit eyeballing the goodies, babydoll. Let's get out of here."

The next indication the situation was FUBAR came when the elevator doors opened. Charlotte put her back to the elevator's side wall. "I don't recognize the guy at the guard station."

Solider Boy nodded and stepped out of the elevator. Charlotte heard a gunshot, glass shattering, and a choking gasp. "You can come out. I got him. Now," Charlotte came out of the elevator and saw the 'guard' on his knees, neck in Soldier Boy's grip, "who the hell are you, and who do you work for? Talk fast or--" the strange man gurgled.

Charlotte saw he was wearing Carmichael’s name badge and rushed past. Her suspicions were confirmed when she saw the big guard shoved in the corner, shot through the back. She checked for a pulse, nodded, and noted the time on her watch. Her mouth tightened when she looked at the Rogue's Gallery on the filing cabinet and saw the picture of Carmichael's three daughters gathered around the family mutt, all four grinning big and bright.

The mook who'd taken Carmichael's spot grunted as Soldier Boy broke his neck. Soldier Boy took Carmichael's sidearm from the mook's holster and let the body flop to the floor. "Come on doll, you can have the vapors later--"

"Fuck you," Charlotte said on reflex, taking the dead man's wrist. The dead man's pants darkened as he spasmed and voided. Under Charlotte's fingers his pulse gave a last feeble twitch and stopped. "I might be your hostage but I've also why you haven't spent the last several months floating in your own shit."

“Am I supposed to be grateful for that?” Soldier Boy examined Carmichael’s weapon, nodding when he found it loaded. “You bastards buried me alive and expect me to kiss your ass for it?”

“Never mind,” Charlotte shoved the reflex to put him in his place aside. Mom had always told her that her pride would get her killed one day.

“I wasn’t out the whole time, you know,” he went on, pushing past Charlotte and opening the filing cabinet with a screech of breaking locks. File folders and papers started fluttering to the floor. “Did you know that?”

“Dr. Sanjeer said it was theoretically possible,” Charlotte said.

“Theoretically,” he mocked, “I kept feeling what you were doing to me.”

“I’m sorry if I hurt you,” Charlotte said and Soldier Boy paused in his rooting. “I promise, I wasn’t trying to.”

For just a second, Charlotte saw someone else standing up in the old Supe’s skin, a man trying hard to hang on to himself through terrible stress. The blink of vulnerability vanished as soon as it happened. “Maybe just having things done to you is bad enough.”

Charlotte remembered his state of utter helplessness, and it took a moment to step down on a feeling of terrible pity. She looked over at the red switch on the wall, the one next to the fire alarm. The one that would switch the fire suppression system from halon gas to water vapor laced with--

A hard hand landed on her shoulder. Soldier Boy squatted to her level and leaned in close, so close Charlotte could smell the fresh soap in his hair. “Get it straight angel. I will hurt you if I have to, to keep from going back in the box. Do you understand?”

“Yes. Yes I understand,” Charlotte said. A tide of hysteria rose within her; she fought it back. Falling apart could come later.

“Good girl.” With a gentle shake, Soldier Boy let Charlotte go. --- MM: So you got him out of the containment area. And then? CD: The main facility was full of bodies. According to Colonel Mallory--

WB: Everyone in the underground levels was already dead. CD: Right, the Novachik traps in Sublevels 1 and 2 had all been popped off and killed the laboratory personnel and most of the guards. The ones not caught by the nerve agent were just straight up shot. We were not exactly dealing with subtle people. --- The long hallway between the access point to the containment area and the rest of the facility was empty. The next body lay just outside the security checkpoint at the other end, shot through the head. In the sublevel's main area, more people lay slumped in the corridors. From the condition of the bodies it was obvious what had happened. “Somebody deployed the nerve agent,” Charlotte said.

“Obviously,” Soldier Boy said, taking a sniff. “You never forget that smell.”

Charlotte looked up in surprise. “You’ve got a sharp nose. Novachik’s odorless.”

"Super senses were part of the package," Solider Boy said. He cocked his head, like he was listening for something. "Hmm. You wanna move it along already? These men are dead."

"Yeah." Charlotte laid the man's hand down on his chest. She knew him-- Dr. Lamar Reginald from Spring Valley, Pennsylvania. Would talk by the hour about fishing, even if fishing wasn't what he was really doing.

"Oh for God's sake--" Soldier Boy grabbed Charlotte by the bicep.

She squeaked as he pulled her to her feet and down the corridor. "Ow-- let go! You're hurting me!"

"Tough titty kitty, I don't have time to baby you through this. Hustle!" At least he let go. Charlotte rubbed her arm as she quick-stepped in his wake. "How many floors between us and the way out?"

"Depends on which way you want to go," Charlotte replied. "We're on Sublevel 2. The main entrance is on Level 1 and the helipad is on Level 2--"

"Nertz on the helipad," Soldier Boy said. "Anything airborne has a transponder. They'd shoot me down before I get ten yards. Tell me about the main entrance."

"The gates are programmed to maglock if someone pulls the alarms. Steel doors about four inches thick." Soldier Boy ignored the elevators and continued past the laboratories. Charlotte glanced through the wired observation windows and her jaw clenched when she saw more bodies. “There’ll be a trap there, most likely."

"I'm not an idiot sugarbritches. They'll knock me out and take me, and either shoot you dead on the spot or disable you and drag you along thinking it'll make me behave." Solider Boy paused, looking down his nose at Charlotte. "It won't. I don’t make deals for hostages.”

"A No Hostage clause was part of my deal with Colonel Mallory. I know--"

"Mallory?" Solider Boy cut her off. "Grace Mallory? CIA?" He laughed. "Well I'll be damned. She must be a million years old by now."

"Such a gentleman," Charlotte muttered.

"Now now," Soldier Boy said, and Charlotte cussed to herself-- right, sensitive ears. "I know how to treat a lady. Only it seems to be an endangered species these days. Even in the seventies, seemed every time I turned around I had a set of tits in my face. In my day, a girl went around dressed like that," he rounded the corner, "it's because she wanted a log for the beaver if you know what I mean."

"Vividly,” Charlotte said in her driest of dry voices.

"These days? Jesus Mary and Joseph, you got grown men acting like they want to be pregnant, women with pants so damn tight you can read their razorburn-- what is it with that anyway? What do men even want these days? Little girls who act like sluts?"

Twenty years in the service had pretty well inoculated Charlotte against offense when it came to male nasty talk. "Couldn't tell ya."

"And the niggers? They're fucking everywhere. God save us,” he crossed himself, “we even elected one President! The President of the United God damned States!" Yet another bigoted idiot who assumed anyone white secretly sympathized with their crap. "I'm not a racist," he went on when Charlotte didn't say anything, "I just don’t think it’s good when people try and do things their temperaments aren’t suited for. Niggers don’t belong in leadership positions, as anybody with any sense knows. Am I right?”

"Explaining why not would take more energy than I got," Charlotte said.

Soldier Boy scowled but let it drop.

Charlotte cussed when Soldier Boy opened the door. There was another body slumped at the bottom of the stairwell, a body with a big splotch of birthmark mostly obliterated by an exit wound.

"Knock it off," Solider Boy snapped as Charlotte bent. Jerry Rivers. Dedicated Slipknot fan, amateur guitar player. "This is-- what are you doing?" Charlotte took the pistol out of Rivers's hand. She looked up and saw the enemy’s body, blood puddled on the stairs where he’d fallen. "Look honey, why don't you stand back and let me handle the men with the guns, okay? I stormed Normandy, I survived Inchon, I think I can handle a bunch of--"

The snap! of Charlotte's patience failing was so distinct it made her teeth rattle. "If you think I'm relying on you to get me out of this alive, you are fucking deluded. I don't feel like being a sidebar in the New York Times piece describing the collateral damage you inflicted during your big escape."

Looking legitimately taken aback, Soldier Boy asked, "Do you even know how to use the damn thing? In an actual firefight? Where men are shooting back at you?"

"Three years in country as a combat medic in Iraq, another six as an RN in Afghanistan," Charlotte told him. "Besides, why the hell do you care if I'm armed? It's not like I can kill you with friendly fire."

"All right," Soldier Boy said. "Keep it if it makes you feel better."

A hissing gas grenade clunked to the bottom of the stairwell. In seconds the place filled with stinking clouds. Soldier Boy sniffed, and scoffed. "Tear gas. Good God." He raised his pistol and shot twice. A body clumped down a flight of stairs and came to rest next to their fallen mate.

Charlotte fanned the air in front of her face, coughing.

"I thought you were immune to poisons," Soldier Boy noted. His eyes were turning red and his nose had started running. Somebody standing downwind of a trash fire, not in a chimney full of toxic smoke.

"I am," Charlotte choked. "Doesn't mean this crap don’t smell bad."

Chuckling, Solider Boy cocked his head. "Shall we?"

"Captain DePoister!" a voice bellowed over the base PA. Solider Boy flinched; Charlotte frowned. It was a woman’s voice, heavily accented. "We do not wish to harm you! Lay down on the ground with your hands on your head!" Music stated to play, something synth-heavy with lyrics in a different language.

Soldier Boy froze. Threat response froze.

"OhmyGod." Charlotte grabbed his hand as he doubled over and fell to his knees. She pressed his palm over her heart. "Benjamin Arthur Michael O'Connell look at me. Look at me!" His eyes snapped to hers, wide and blank of sense. "Focus on my eyes and on my voice, okay? The sound of my voice--" she pulled from the belly and let it rip, carrying right over the pop crap, "I . . . am a maid . . . of constant sorrow . . ." he blinked the emptiness out of his runny eyes. Charlotte felt his hand move between her breasts. She didn’t pull back. If copping a feel helped ground him, let him feel.

To Charlotte's shock he joined her on the last chorus, singing in a sure and resonant voice that blended well with Charlotte’s soprano. They ran through the whole thing together, holding hands and shouting for Jesus, their mingled voices drowning out the other noise. By the time they were done with their second run-through, it had stopped. Silence.

Solider Boy took his hand back and stood, visibly shaking off the willies and shoving the whole episode into the memory hole. Charlotte squashed the urge to get some talk going; this wasn't the time or the place. Or the man. --- WB: So your magic lullaby kept him from popping one off on the way out the door-- right? CD: I did something right. He didn't blow a crater in the side of West Virginia. I know the results weren't optimum but gimme a break. The friendly casualties were not inflicted by Solider Boy. To his dubious credit the murders he committed since you geniuses broke him out of containment in Russia were of people who'd condemned him to forty years of physical and psychological torture-- --- Pale as cheese but composed, Soldier Boy hung back as Charlotte waved her ID at the door sensor. Nothing. "Shit. They must've reset the locks."

"Not to me they didn't," he said, taking two steps forward and using his bare foot to kick the door clean out of the frame. Hard enough to crash it into the opposite corridor wall.

Charlotte directed him to the right and followed him down the hall. She was watching the rear when she bumped into him, hard. Grumbling a curse, she looked past Soldier Boy and saw the long windows looking out over the Allegheny Plateau. The sun was hitting the maple leaves just right, turning the forest an intense, almost firey green. She kept quiet as Soldier Boy approached the window. She could see his reflection, a faint ghost in the wired glass. The sunlight turned his eyes jade green and touched off the red in his hair. It brought him to life.

Hesitatingly, he raised his hand and laid it on the window. He leaned forward to rest his forehead on the glass, closing his eyes against the sunlight and breathing hard like he was trying to reach the fresh air beyond. Like a prisoner just getting out after a long stretch in the stockade, or a patient allowed to go outside for the first time after a while bedbound. Both at once, come to think of it.

Charlotte kept her mouth shut, let her patient have his moment. It didn’t take long, and Soldier Boy straightened up. “What else is on this level?”

"Storage, armory, infirmary, receiving. Residential on Level 2.”

"Does this place have a kitchen?" At Charlotte's incredulous look, Soldier Boy shrugged. "I wasn't joking about being hungry. Give me a good red and a side salad I think I might eat you."

"'No! Don't eat me! I'm too chewy!'" Charlotte mock-screamed, and he laughed. "There’s a locker room for offsite personnel on this floor. You could probably scrounge a lunch."

"And different clothes," he said sourly, picking at the scrub slacks. "Don't suppose my uniform's around here someplace."

"I'm pretty sure they gave it to Homelander so he could burn it," Charlotte said.

"He can't do that!" The humor had flown right out of him. He seemed . . . offended. "I'm still a goddamned hero and all!"

"Oh boy." Charlotte did some mental backdating and-- "Fuck."

"Oh," Solider Boy said. "The smear campaign's started hasn't it?"

Fully aware these might be her last words, Charlotte said, "The Deep. He's one of the Seven--"

"I know who he is."

"He leaked your Vought file. The unadulterated file.” Soldier Boy's eyes widened and his already pasty complexion paled further. "The one that they buried after you," Charlotte finger-quoted, "'died' in '84. Made a bigger sensation than the fucking Watergate tapes. The official story is that you were kidnapped and brainwashed by former KGB black ops." Might as well pull the splinter now. "The Russians kept records. Of what they did to you. I've seen them." Charlotte didn't elaborate. The grainy video footage held special guest star status in her nightmares.

That flash of vulnerability was back, and deeper. For a second Charlotte saw the soul, trapped in a loveless, featureless, white-cold hell of pain. She didn't move. She tried her best to not even breathe. Through the stretched fabric of the heather gray T-shirt, she could see a sullen glow starting in the center of his chest. The end of her life written in a blast of poisoned fire.

Soldier Boy punched the wall and it caved in almost a foot. The whole hallway shook, cracks spidering everywhere. "Come on. Which way to the locker room?" --- AJ: You're defending him?!? If Vought Tower had gone down-- CD: Have you been listening? That doesn't make the collateral damage he's caused okay, and since you geniuses aided and abetted him while he was a fugitive I'm guessing you have a fair amount of moral flexibility on the subject.

HC: Soldier Boy sneezed on a busy street and killed almost 30 people. He's a weapon of mass destruction with PTSD and a two-second fuse. MM: And a racist motherfucker. HC: That too. CD: What's your point? The best idea anyone’s proposed for confining him’s failed. Twice. Look, it's true-- no one person should have that kind of power. It's why you need a roomful of people to agree when you start talking about nukes. You guys just don’t see an issue with using people who do. How is that anything but a lateral move in this idiotic arms race? Your solutions amount to continual escalation and/or fucking ethnic cleansing. Excuse me all to hell if that confuses my priorities somewhat. --- In the locker room Soldier Boy snapped the locks off each locker and rifled through the contents. Clothes and wallets piled up on the changing bench. "No," he said, as he held the bottom of each shoe to the sole of his bare foot, "no . . . no . . . oh for Christ's sake, quit it. You look like a frightened chipmunk, Captain."

Charlotte’s spine went straight and she snapped, "Don't you fucking dare. I earned that commission, you fucking pogue.”

“Right. You’re the real hero,” Soldier Boy drawled.

"I've seen your actual service record,” Charlotte retorted. “The only action you've seen in a combat zone was hanging out in Pusan long enough to call Truman a, quote, ‘spineless faggot sucking on Stalin’s balls,’ unquote. Soldier Boy. What a fucking joke. You are the fucking opposite of a soldier. You are a thug and a coward.”

The smile went out of Soldier Boy’s eyes, though it stayed on his face. It made him look insane. It made him look like Homelander. “May I ask how you arrived at that conclusion, Captain Butch?”

“Not gay. Brave men don’t corner teenagers in the shower for mutual masturbation sessions. Brave men don’t call their girlfriends dumb cunts . . . period.” Charlotte paused. “Brave men don’t take aim at kindergarteners.”

“It’s called acceptable losses, woman--"

"I don't see an insignia. What's your rank, mister?" Charlotte demanded. “Where are you in the line of command? What is your authority?!?"

"My authority,” he snarled, “is that I am motherfucking Solider Boy, and if I have to hear another word out of you--"

Today is a good day to die. "Oh for Christ's sake just fucking kill me if all you got's threats," Charlotte cut him off.

"Maybe I don't want to do that." Soldier Boy stalked close, his body language changing from athletic grace to something animal. He crowded up to her, towered over her. Charlotte clenched her fists to stop her hands from shaking. "Hmm? Maybe, it's been a while." He traced his fingertips down her neck, a featherlight caress that made Charlotte prickle. He put his hand at the juncture of her neck and shoulder, her clavicle under his palm and his thumb a spot of pressure against her throat. All he had to do was shake, and bones would snap like little branches. Charlotte shuddered; she couldn’t stop herself. "Maybe, I could feel you touching me the whole time I was under," his free hand pressed to her back and yanked her close, his body big and hot against hers, "and now, I want to touch you back."

“Look,” Charlotte said as she sucked air to catch her breath, slow her pounding heart, “in the last ninety minutes, you have threatened to rip my head off, promised to hurt me -- underlined -- if I didn’t assist your escape, and told me you’d write me off if I was taken hostage. You are also my patient and I don't fuck patients. These things make you someone I do not want touching me and my libido doesn’t get a vote. Now back off.”

"Is that what you really want, Captain?” Solider Boy purred. His body, his smile, all of him was pure seduction. Except his eyes. His eyes were empty as a skull's. "I can feel your heartbeat. Your mouth's saying no but your--"

"Sometimes you’d get an erection when I was disimpacting your bowels. You're the expert-- should I have fucked you right then?" Charlotte went up on tiptoe to speak in his ear. "Is that why you think you might like dick?"

The hands on her body turned to iron, hard and hurtful. "You watch your filthy mouth."

"Or what? You'll kill me? Assuming I live though this, I'm either getting shot for treason or put in jail for the rest of my life. I'm aiding and abetting an enemy agent. The UCMJ's pretty clear on what happens to traitors. The only reason you're still sucking air is putting you in front of a firing squad'd be a little pointless."

"Then why bother taking care of me? Hmm? You could’ve left me in the box to rot and just sat there picking your nose or playing with yourself or whatever people do to goldbrick these days. Why didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Soldier Boy shoved Charlotte behind him as two people walked into the room, “do tell why you did not simply leave this poor boy all alone in the dark.” Charlotte swore in Arabic; one of the newcomers was Dr. Sanjeer. The other was a lanky young man wearing a dirty baseball cap and orange All-Stars. In one hand he carried a large tablet displaying a woman’s face. Both men wore oxygen tanks on their backs, masks hooked to the shoulder straps. “My sources tell me you are not soft-hearted Captain. Despite the clichés, good nurses rarely are."

"Who are you?" Solider Boy asked.

"You may call me Nina, my Soldier Boy."

"I'm not your anything. Tell me why I'm not stomping your messenger boys' guts out."

"Because you haven't. You are not mindless, and you are not crazy." The woman on the tablet took a huff off a cigarette. "I would have preferred to discuss this in person. Unfortunately, my inside man could not access your cell directly.”

Inside man. "You bastard,” Charlotte spat at Sanjeer. “What’s she giving you? Money?”

“Quite a lot of it,” at the same moment Sanjeer said, “It isn’t about--"

Solider Boy pointed at Sanjeer. "You. Shut up." His finger jerked to point at the woman. "You. Talk."

"I have a proposition. It must be very clear to you by now you exist in a world that neither needs nor wants you. Vought has their poster boy, more popular than ever thanks to his reinvention as family man." Solider Boy snorted. "Grace Mallory has recently been diagnosed with heart failure and has been given a prognosis in months, William Butcher is dying by inches of brain lesions, and your former comrades are all dead."

"There's still Homelander, and Vought," Solider Boy said. "Those cocksuckers need to go down. Hard."

"A feat you cannot accomplish on your own and is even less likely now that he has taken your measure. What does it profit you, to kill him?"

"I have a commie lecturing me about profit."

"Your outdated thinking is showing, my Soldier Boy. If there is a lesson of our times it is this-- ideals are perishable. Like eggs, no? The only truths are the things that can be held in the hand," she cupped her palm like she was holding a pile of coins. "Like gold. A child's hand. A lover's cock. Your enemy's heart."

Soldier Boy's glower deepened. "There's a ribeye steak and a bottle of MacAllen 18 somewhere with my name on it. Get to the point."

"Directness, I like it. I've made a niche for myself as a facilitator for many things around the world--"

"You want me to do hits for you," Soldier Boy cut her off.

"In a word. You are both uniquely talented and very skilled, and despite recent evidence to the contrary I know for a fact you can be discreet. Vought left you to the enemy and replaced you with a very pretty maniac. You owe them nothing. Your country's best use for you was to shove you into a coffin and bury you alive. You owe them even less. You have no friends, no real kin. You have no one, except possibly Captain DePoister, who cares for you at all, and some time in your waking company has probably cured her of that."

All through this the lanky man stood still. Charlotte saw his eyes flick over to one side. A tic worked under one eyelid. Sanjeer's eyes kept moving in the same direction. His hands kept pinching and worrying the side seems of his trousers-- a nervous stim she'd noticed in him before when he was under stress.

Soldier Boy glanced back over his shoulder. "Well doll? You sick of my company yet?"

Charlotte squared her shoulders. She looked Soldier Boy in the eye, and deliberately cut her eyes to the right. "I know for a fact you were raised properly. You will address me as Captain.”

Soldier Boy did that scoffing thing. "You never answered my question. Why did you bother taking care of me, if I'm so fucking terrible a person?"

In her peripheral vision, she saw the lanky man's sleeve twitch. "HOLD YOUR BREATH!" she screamed and fired from the hip. The lanky young man flinched as the shot nipped a piece of fabric from his coat. The red switch next to the fire alarm exploded into pieces.

Sanjeer screamed and tripped running for the door, belly-crawling into a corner. Still holding the tablet displaying the Russian woman's smoke-haloed face, the lanky young man made a flicking motion with his free hand as Charlotte fired again. Agony burst up her arm as the whatever-it-was the lanky man could throw hit it. Charlotte fell to her knees; the kid fell on his back with a hole in his throat.

Charlotte curled over her wounded arm, panting out screams. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she peeled the pistol out of her right hand. She was an okay shot left-handed, not great, but--

A commotion broke out. Three more men had burst into the room wearing oxygen masks and shooting MAC-10s. As she watched, Soldier Boy turned them into piles of broken meat. The last man, he twisted the head off. Like opening a jelly jar. Blood sprayed everywhere. The head rolled on the floor like a soccer ball.

Charlotte grayed out for a moment. When the world came back online, Soldier Boy was talking into the tablet. The conversation must not have gone well-- he hurled the tablet into the bank of lockers so hard it punched through, leaving a dash in the metal shaped like a giant cockeyed coin slot.

Cowering in a corner, oxygen mask clutched in his shaking hands, Sanjeer moaned. Soldier Boy, covered in blood and looking like some sort of Celtic war god, paused in gathering up cash and clothes long enough to lift Charlotte to her feet. He picked Sanjeer up and twisted the portly doctor’s arm up behind his back. "Talk."

“Charlotte please,” Sanjeer said. “We need more. We need data. We need . . . we can end it, all of it!" He started to snivel. “He's the key to everything. Just . . . let us figure out how he can do it. Once we have that we have the upper hand over-- over--” he stuttered to a stop.

Over you, Charlotte heard the part he didn’t say. Spangled costume or GI issue, Vought or USA, Decontamination Charlotte or Captain DePoister. All the same. An error in the system. Even begging for his life, she could see the sneer he always had when he spoke to her.

“Please, please-- I,” Charlotte raised Rivers’s pistol, “I have a family--”

“And I don’t?” Charlotte asked. “Rivers? Carmichael? Dr. Reginald? Your lab techs? We were all here to help you.”

“Not fast enough. We need that weapon in our hands now but to do that we need examples of compound-neutralization effect in action. The subjects from the Vermont incident aren't enough. Too many variables. Analysis of data could take decades and we need answers now."

“Experimental data,” Charlotte said. “Test subject-- me. That’s why she tried to trigger him but she told me to get out of the way first. You need a specimen." Her guts turned cold as she ran down the chain of logic. "God have mercy-- I was never here to work was I? This whole time! You've been trying to get him to pop off while you had us both under observation. Did Mallory know about this? What am I talking about?-- of course she fucking did, that woman never misses a trick. God damn you!"

Solider Boy shoved Sanjeer to his knees. “He’s all yours,” he said to Charlotte as he went back to scrounging.

Sanjeer wrung his hands and begged, “Charlotte please, we’re close, I swear we’re close, just let me do my work. You owe it--”

Charlotte shot. One in the head, the rest of the magazine in the back.

“Good girl,” Soldier Boy praised.

"Piss off," Charlotte retorted. She tried to move her bad arm and the pain took the feet out from under her. Soldier Boy caught her as her legs gave out. “You can find the way out from here,” Charlotte told him. “Just follow the Exit signs.”

Instead, Soldier Boy bent and swept an arm behind her knees, lifting her into his arms. He picked up a duffel bag and a pair of hiking boots. "Where's the infirmary?" --- CD: Sanjeer was the inside man. The woman -- Nina she said her name was -- waved seven figures and a chance at a Nobel under his nose. I don't know if she was working with or for anybody; that'd all be guesswork on my part. The last of her strike team was waiting in the locker room on the main floor. The Novachik trap inside was still intact. While Nina had Solider Boy distracted, she had a Supe try and spring it. I shot him, and he broke my arm. Soldier Boy saved my life when the shithead's backup came in shooting. He could’ve left me there. He had a clear line to the door. Instead he took me to the infirmary and helped me administer first aid.

HC: Why would he do that? CD: Probably because he didn't want to walk out of there thinking he owed me one. Why he'd care about that, I don’t know. Solider Boy's not really capable of respect. You have to understand people have a value beyond what they can gain you to do that. He and Colonel Mallory are birds of a feather in that regard. --- Gently, Solider Boy set Charlotte down on the infirmary's exam table. Charlotte cussed in pain as she examined the injury.

"How bad is it?"

"Both the bones're fractured," Charlotte reported. "Swell."

Moving quick and efficient, Solider Boy ransacked the room. Looked like her Dad trying to figure out the kitchen, opening every cupboard trying to find the paper plates. A brace and some rolls of compression bandage piled on the table at Charlotte's hip. "Shit. Morphine, morphine, wherefore art thou morphine--"

"Bad time to get fucked up," Charlotte said.

"Not for me."

"Don't bother. Drugs don't work on me, remember?"

Soldier Boy paused. "Oh. Right. Sorry." He watched Charlotte hiss and whimper as she tried to reduce the fractures. "That must hurt like a sonofabitch. Here." Charlotte jerked away as Soldier Boy reached for her arm. "Stop that. Let me see."

"Why do you even care?" Charlotte snapped.

"What are you talking about? Of course I care. You probably just saved my life." A bitter smirk twisted his lips. "Such as it is."

"Knock it off. Self-pity's unattractive."

Giving her another one of those unreadable looks, Soldier Boy repeated, "Let me see-- this needs to be set."

“I can do this--”

“So can I. Learned how when I was a kid out camping with my cousins. Mother insisted I learn first aid.” Scoffing to himself, he added, “One of the few things she and my father agreed on.”

Taking deep breaths, Charlotte said, “Can you, just really carefully, pull between my elbow and my wrist?”

Soldier Boy grabbed some gauze and wound a roll over his first two fingers. “Bite down on this.”

Wrapping one hand around her elbow and the other around her wrist, Soldier Boy pulled. Like a thick piece of rubber tubing, the muscles stretched. The pain was amazing. Panting hard into the gauze between her teeth, Charlotte manipulated the bones with her left hand. Simple fracture of the ulna, incomplete simple fracture of the radius-- painful but not serious.

The broken ulna moved into position. Charlotte managed to get the brace on her arm and strap it into place. She spat the gauze out and said, “Slowly. Release.”

Soldier Boy slowly eased the pull and let go. He found a sling and helped her settle her arm into it. “How’s that feel?”

“It’ll hold until I can get somewhere with an MRI machine.” At his blank look, Charlotte explained, “Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Like X-rays but better.”

Chuckling a little, Soldier Boy patted her shoulder. His brow furrowed a little. Charlotte held still as he ran a finger under her neck chain and pulled her dog tags out from under her scrub top.

DEPOISTER CHARLOTTE O.E. ######### B NEG NO PREFERENCE

“What’s the O-E stand for?”

“Octavia Elizabeth. My mom’s favorite book as a kid was Charlotte’s Web. Octavia is the nurse who delivered me and my sister-- we're twins and we were high-risk. Elizabeth’s my Confirmation name.”

“That why you became a nurse?”

“That’s complicated.”

Soldier Boy frowned thoughtfully at the metal on his fingers. “If you’re an atheist how come you wear a cross?”

“I’m not an atheist.” Charlotte took the tags back and put them back under her scrub top. “Recovering Catholic isn’t available as an option.”

Soldier Boy took her left hand, thumbing at her watch. “You’re right-handed? That stinks.”

Charlotte’s eyes flicked up and there he was. Head bent close like a friend sharing secrets. He stank like blood and hot skin, and despite knowing better she felt herself melting at the quick. Vivid full Technicolor fantasies she hadn’t allowed herself in all the time she’d been his caretaker filled her imagination--

Son of a bitch. Charlotte snatched her hand back. “Stop that.”

“Stop what?” he asked, all low and sensuous.

“I mean it. Stop it.”

One of his blood-gritty hands cupped her face. His nose touched hers. “You're blushing for me, angel,” he said.

“Of course I'm blushing. I’m a heterosexual female with eyesight that works. Now, take your hands off of me and take one step back, now."

Instead, he kissed her. Gentle, insistent, and reminding her in painful detail exactly how long it had been since her last kiss. Soldier Boy smiled against Charlotte’s mouth as she put her hand on his chest. The look of total confusion when she shoved him back as hard as she could was almost funny.

"Read my lips," Charlotte said, pointing to her mouth. "Back. Off.”

Finally, finally, that seemed to get through. Soldier Boy stood there like an unplugged toy as Charlotte got down off the exam table, awkward with her slung arm. She gave him the room and pulled the privacy curtain as she passed, veiling his face. Blank, bloody, lost. “Get cleaned up and get changed."

No answer from the other side of the curtain, though Charlotte supposed the squeak of a faucet handle could be taken as one. She listened as he slurped a drink. Mild splashing as he washed his face. The soft sound of fabric shuffling as he changed his clothes.

Soldier Boy whisked the privacy curtain aside and found Charlotte gathering bottled water and boxes of meal bars. “Hey woah doll,” he said, "you don’t--"

“Captain. For the last fucking time,” Charlotte said. “My name’s not doll, or angel, or any of the other little pet names you use in lieu of a woman’s actual name.”

“Okay, Captain. I’m sorry.” Soldier Boy laid his duffel bag on the counter and packed it full, quick and efficient. In regular clothes and shoes, he was . . . he wasn't her patient any more. But he wasn't Solider Boy either, all dash and attitude and winking at the camera as he fondled the leading ladies. He was just a guy with a solid build and restless eyes. "Captain? Charlotte?"

Charlotte blinked, realized she was staring. "Sorry. Zoned out a moment." She took a deliberate step back. "Come on, the main entrance is--"

“I’m not a bad guy,” Soldier Boy blurted.

“I never said that you were,” Charlotte blurted back, surprised into bluntness. "Look, net effect of today’s adventures on my end is a broken arm and the rest of my life in jail-- if I’m lucky."

"Come with me." Charlotte's eyebrows shot straight up her forehead. "I'm serious," Solider Boy added.

"Don’t be ridiculous." Charlotte lifted her bound arm, grimacing in pain as she did. "I'm wounded. I'd only slow you down. Besides, not thinking you’re a bad guy’s not the same thing as trusting you."

Solider Boy put his hands on his hips. "So you're too good for me? Is that it?"

"For Christ’s sake--” Charlotte cried, “what do you want from me? Absolution? I'm a nurse, not a priest!” Soldier Boy’s arms went across his chest, like a man bracing for further blows. “You're not bad. You're indifferent. And for someone who can do what you can do, indifference is worse. Come on." She was half out the infirmary door when she realized she was walking alone. Solider Boy just stood there, again with that unplugged look. Like he was -- Charlotte wanted to smack herself when she finally put it together -- dissociating, an overstressed mind and wounded spirit fleeing from the Here and Now. She'd seen in before, in patients coping with post-traumatic stress. "Come on, you're wasting daylight and you're gonna wanna get gone before shift change."

"I didn't mean to kill anyone besides the twins. At that house," Solider Boy said, talking like he hadn't heard her. "And that building. I just," he waved a hand in front of his eyes, "I blacked out, and I guess this," he taps his sternum, "popped off by itself. In that stairway. I think I felt it starting to happen again. My head started hurting and . . ." he trailed off. Charlotte didn't move. This was Ben talking, not Solider Boy, and Ben deserved to be heard. "It almost happened again. But you stopped it." His eyes refocused, saw her. "How did you know singing to me would stop it?"

"I didn't. Not for sure," Charlotte admitted. "I've had patients who have," she picked her words carefully, "attacks like that. The usual protocol is to talk them around until they come back on their own. I had to be a little more direct in your case."

"Hell of a gamble. I could've killed you. I almost did." Charlotte shrugged. "Why risk it? You could've just gotten out of the way."

"And anyone else who might've been in the line of fire? They might've been the enemy. They might've been one of the guards here. Shit, they might be some random jackass hiking the mountains looking for standing stones."

Ben still looked blank, like a kid trying to parse meaning out of an algebra problem. Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally who can kill me in her sleep. "You never answered my question. Why bother taking care of me at all?" --- HC: What did you tell him? CD: 'Because it's my job.' We made it to the main security station. I told him where the nearest airport was. The last thing I remember was him apologizing for having to knock me out. --- "Watch your face Captain." Charlotte turned aside as Ben put his fist through the glass of the security station's observation window. He reached through and unlocked the door. A map of the immediate area hung on the wall; Ben examined it thoughtfully, then pulled it down and folded it up. “So what are you going to tell them when they find you?”

“The truth,” Charlotte shrugged. “You forced me to take you out of the complex, stole some clothes, and asked if I knew where the nearest airport is.”

Ben nodded, stuffing the map in his pocket. “That should give me enough of a head start. One of those freight trains should take me halfway to the--"

"Wait!" Charlotte snapped up her hand. "Better I don’t know."

"You're right. I'm sorry. How's the arm?"

"Hurts. Thank you for helping splint it."

Ben nodded. "Guess you know what comes next. You know where your knockout button is?"

"Yeah," Charlotte pointed, "just don't break my teeth. Dental work's a bitch when Novocain doesn't work."

"Affirmative.” He touched her face. “Thank you. For . . . just . . . thank you. I’m sorry to have to do this.” He pulled his hand back and curled his fist. “On three-- one--"

Stars exploded across Charlotte's awareness and the last thing she felt were Ben's arms as he caught her falling body and lowered her carefully to the ground. --- CD: I half-expected him to just kill me. But the next thing I know I’m coming to in legirons with Colonel Mallory explaining that I’m in protective custody, and I’m at least eighty percent sure I’m never leaving.

MM: Do you have any idea where he is now? CD: No. He didn’t share his plans with me. He was able to smuggle himself back to the US all the way from Moscow; I don't think he'd have as much of a problem staying under the radar as you guys seem to think he would.

WB: Oi Florence Nightingale-- if you knew, would you even tell us? CD: Yes I would tell you if I knew. I didn't forget my duties as either an officer or a nurse, and so far my reward is an indefinite term of imprisonment as bait, on the off-chance Soldier Boy grows a sense of duty or obligation and shows up to break me out. Which he won’t. So fuck you very much. Take me back to my cell. --- One early spring evening, Charlotte was in the yard with The Lions Of al-Rassan open in her lap. The alarm klaxon bellowed and she jumped a foot.

“What’s going on?” she asked Private Lett, the MP on duty in the yard. Seemed a bit overkill for one . . . whatever the hell Charlotte was on paper these days.

“Power interruption. Again. I think you’ll be okay back in your suite.”

“Cell,” she corrected. “Let’s call things by their right names, shall we PFC?”

She had the grace to look embarrassed. “Yes ma’am. Return to your cell. We’ll have this figured out in a snake flick.”

Compared to the stockade, Charlotte supposed, her confinement could've been considered comfortable. A little collection of buildings cut out of the nowhere between the UP and the Wisconsin state line, surrounded on all sides by a perimeter wall and a shitload of trees. In the winter, the snow piled up in yardsticks and the silence got so profound it hurt. Now that it was warmer Charlotte spent every moment she could get away with outdoors, soaking up sun like some half-assed weed. Just her, a handful of guards, and nowhere to go. Welcome to life in the discard pile.

Charlotte was halfway up the sidewalk back to Hut 3 when she heard something. A low, tuneful baritone floating from the thick box hedges lining the path, “I . . . am a man . . . of constant sorrow . . .” Charlotte dropped her book and knelt to pick it up. “Meet me by the birdbath," the voice softly instructed.

“No killing anyone,” Charlotte said.

"Haven’t yet. Go."

She'd just finished scribbling on the title page of her book when a dark shape cut itself out of the gathering shadows by Hut 2. "You about done lollygaggin, Captain?"

“Yeah,” she said, putting her book on the side of the birdbath. She took off her dog tags and her cross, kissing the cross as she laid it beside the book. “Let’s make like donkeys and haul ass.”

Ben laughed. “Come here. Faster if I carry you piggyback.”

“This isn’t,” Charlotte grunted as she clambered onto Ben’s broad back, “terribly dignified.”

“Woman, you have had your hands on my dick and your fingers up my ass. Your dignity can take a few jabs.”

“Yeah yeah.” Charlotte wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.

Ben stood like Charlotte weighed nothing. “Hang on tight.”

Charlotte hung on tight and Ben took off, running free and easy. Vague memories of riding like this on her mom's back as Dad took Kay made her want to cry. She put her head on Ben’s shoulder and shut her eyes. Weird to feel safe in the company of a borderline lunatic and mass murderer, but she did feel safe with him now. Maybe Nina had a point about ideals. Charlotte’s had certainly died, bleeding out as she lived out her life in captivity and flatlining for good as Colonel Mallory’s Boys grilled her for answers she didn’t have.

“Here,” Ben said some time later, squatting to let Charlotte down. They’d come to a motorcycle loaded with supplies, parked next to a gravel road running roughly east-west. "How's your arm?"

"It's good," Charlotte said. "Aches a little bit when it's cold, which is all the goddamned time." Ben chuckled as stretched to his toes, shook out to limber up. Looked to be in perfect health, she noted, hair and beard neatly trimmed. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what the last months have been for him. "Do you have a knife?"

"Course." Ben opened a pocketknife as Charlotte shrugged out of her coat and pointed out the little scar in the fleshy underside of her arm. Working by moonlight, he slit the skin and pinched out the tiny black cylinder of a tracking device. At Charlotte's nod, he crushed it between his thumb and forefinger and flicked it away like a spent cigarette.

“Do you have--”

“Here, I got it,” Ben said as he bandaged the cut. “Can I ask you something?" he asked as he worked. At Charlotte's grunted yeah, he asked, "What were you writing in that book?"

"A note to my sister. Said I loved her and the boys, and to pray for me the next time she goes to Mass.” Ben nodded as he mounted up. “My turn,” Charlotte said. “Why come break me out?”

“Heard a rumor. Homelander.” Charlotte felt herself go pale. “Nobody deserves what that stupid motherfucker would do to you.” He hesitated. Honest feelings didn't seem to come naturally to him. Like learning to play an instrument-- all that came out was noise at first. "Besides, I owed you one."

"Okay."

Ben paused in getting himself settled, cocking an eyebrow back at Charlotte. "'Okay?' So you trust me now?"

"Let’s just say prison life's not agreeing with me." Ben patted the saddle behind him and Charlotte got on. "So what now?"

“You know something?” Ben said as he heeled up the kickstand. “For the first time in my entire goddamned life . . . I have no idea."

"It’ll wait for morning,” Charlotte said. “Let’s just make some miles. Head west."

"Hang on tight." Ben kick-started, and they sped off into the dark. ---

AN2: UCMJ-- Uniform Code of Military Justice, body of laws applying to United States armed forces personnel.

Crime-a-nilly it's so much easier when it's just porn.

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