Chapter Text
As a teenager I never really liked sleeping. As I young adult in the military I never had the time. So you can imagine when I came home, taking a year off duty to get my ducks in a very straight row, so I wouldn’t have to deal with them for a while, cause I had a lot of ducks that didn’t like walking straight, I had a hard time sleeping.
Overseas, in Afghanistan I never had a hard time sleeping because my body needed a break from the stress.
But now sitting on the couch in my grandmother’s apartment, I couldn’t sleep. My hands shaking slightly. From sleep deprivation, I assumed.
I was almost tempted to go get the bottle of sleeping pills in my bag that I’d gotten from the drug store. But I always hated taking pills, which was why they were still in my bag, untouched.
When I went back. Hopefully it wouldn’t take too long. I’d left people there who could be hurt. Most soldiers weren’t trained to remove bullets without risking infection or pulling shrapnel out of organs.
I needed to figure so much shit out before I went back.
As a young child both my parents had been soldiers too. But two days before my 3rd birthday, their last assignment before shipping out failed and they were killed in complications. Neither of my parents had any siblings or close friends that were outside the military so I was sent to live with my grandmother.
My grandmother is awesome. Even before my parents passed. I still, to this day, have no idea how my mom and her were related. My grandmother, Eve Collins, widowed from the age of 49, worked for the military until she was 47, then helped start SHIELD. And after her SHIELD career, she opened up a gun shop.
I have to say, I haven’t seen anything like her. Ever. She was purely unique.
I came to stay with her when she was 64, while she was still working for SHIELD. My childhood was quite eventful, to say at the very least.
I remember her teaching me how to shoot a handgun. While damaging government property. It was awesome. Probably illegal. Me shooting bullets at a stop sign at the age of 12.
Me, being 16 and asking if it was okay to go out to a bar with friends. I had older friends simply because I had skipped a couple grades.
She said no.
I asked her if I was allowed to drink beer.
She told me I was underage.
She asked if I wanted to get drunk.
I said yes, I wanted to get drunk.
She told me she’d let me as long as I was at the house and safe because she didn’t want me getting drunk with older kids and something happening to me.
So she went to the kitchen and got two shot glasses and two bottles of hard Russian vodka. I was a light weight. So was she. But apparently it was in our genes that we could take a surprising amount of alcohol if used to it.
So I got drunk with my grandmother when I was 16.
Since I was born into a military family, I had started cadets at the age of ten and was put into hand to hand defense classes at 8.
And my grandmother taught me how to shoot an assault rifle the year after my hand gun lessons.
So she wasn’t really surprised when I voiced my interest in the military from an early age. My want to help and protect others who couldn’t. Defend my country.
Looking back, most of the things I did as a teen was to ensure a spot where I‘d be able to help people.
So, naturally it didn’t come as a surprise when I enlisted it the military the day after my 18th birthday, the year after the Afghanistan war started. So the night after my birthday, the day I enlisted, she took me to a tattoo place and I’d come out with a quote in red on the front of my left bicep.
When you’re about to quit
Remember why you started
So with an 8 years in cadets, 10 in self defense, a strong military family background and my head set straight on my shoulders I was shipped off to training.
And now…
I’m an emergency in field medic.
I’m the soldier that walks in with the team and runs through gun fire to get to an injured soldier or am elbows deep in blood trying to keep a soldier alive until help comes.
And if the team doesn’t walk out, I don’t walk out.
I’ve been tortured, stabbed, shot, missed by several grenades, hit, choked, presumed missing and dead more times than I’d like to admit.
I probably have worried Eve too many time to count when I go into dangerous situations to drag soldiers out.
So now I think it’s perfectly normal for a person that’s went through that shit to have PTSD. A whole hell of a lot of it.
The nightmares are probably the worst. The screams, shrieks of agony, fear, pain, lost hope, despair.
It’s a weight I carry. A weight I knew I would have to carry, but I never thought it would be this heavy.
Without hesitation, a weight I would carry to save any soldiers or civilians life in the crossfire.
But it doesn’t get easier.
No matter how many lives you’re able to save, it never adds up to the ones you lost.
The ones who died in your arms.
That pain never goes away.
There is no winning a war.
Because in war soldiers die.
And neither side is without loss.
Morning comes, my alarm going off at 5, waking me from an uneasy sleep. I was drenched in sweat and felt unsafe. I looked around, the open flat, calming my fast beating heart.
I was safe.
I’m okay.
Safe.
I pulled myself to my feet, letting them silently carry me to the kitchen, where I pulled eggs I’d cooked the night before to eat before I started my day.
After I ate, I changed into tight pants, which are really uncomfortable if you’ve been in cargo pants for the last 6 years. And with that, I started my run.
I happen to be a good distance runner, but after the military, I gained speed and strength. Which meant my runs were long, at a fast pace and draining.
It was early, the city hadn’t woken yet, so there was few people on the sidewalk.
I didn’t mind running on the road, but I wasn’t sure my brain would handle it, and the last thing I wanted was having a flash back in the middle of the road, where a car could hit me or I could hurt someone because I didn’t know where I was.
I wouldn’t forgive myself it I hurt someone.
My pace quickened and I let the sound of my feet hitting the ground settle me into a good pace.
Two and a half hours I returned to the apartment, tired, my muscles aching. It felt nice. To have a place that was safe and I was welcome.
I quickly made a bee line to the bathroom to shower.
Stopping to grab a sports bra, a red t shirt, black cargo pants and underwear, I let the shower run for a moment.
And I started thinking about something new.
Someone.
Someone, that wasn’t my grandmother or a friend.
I’d never thought about having a relationship with someone, because at any time I could die, and I’d seen what it had done to my grandmother.
Hell. Even me. My parents dying. Leaving their 3 year old daughter alone. My grandmother being handed the flag and me watching both their caskets lowered into the ground. I might not have understood everything that happened that day, but I understood that they weren’t coming home.
Military families were rarely complete, not missing a brother, or parent.
And if I ever got involved with someone…well, if I died, what would happen to them?
The life I had chosen was rewarding, knowing I was helping wounded people and fighting for our freedom and others but…it didn’t really include love.
Not for me, anyway.
That thought left me cold.
I turned off the shower and dressed quickly.
Did I even want to be in a relationship with someone?
What would they be like?
What happened if I hurt them in one of my flash backs?
I was broken. Bent so far, I snapped.
Who the hell would want me?
Well the answer was easy.
No one.