“And the police got involved?”
He shook his head, wincing. “I’d gotten to the point that I was prepared to live with the consequences, no matter what they were. But if they’d pursued criminal charges it wouldn’t have ended with just me. There’d have been dozens more arrested, or at least fired. So many promising lives would have been fucked up. They needed treatment, not just punishment. So I suggested to the boss that it wouldn’t play out so well in the courts or the media, or bode well for her career or the hospital’s funding—once I was under oath I’d have to revealeverything. She and the board quietly decided to keep it to internal discipline, and overhaul the hospital’s horrendous working conditions, especially for junior doctors. Which didn’t make up for anything, but...”
“You blackmailed your bosses.”
“Merely laid out the facts and let them make the conclusions. Okay, let’s do the suture strips. I’ll hold it closed.” He gave her instructions, moving aside as she washed her hands again.
“And you were fired?” she said.
“I left before they could. Left the hospital, left medicine, let my license to practice lapse. Figured it was the best way I could ‘first do no harm.’ After that woman nearly died I couldn’t...” He swallowed. It felt like a conker was lodged in his throat. “It came so close to being so much worse. I realized finally the job wasn’t all about me and my bloody ambitions. It was about people who trusted me—the patients, most of all. The bosses vowed to make sure I could never work as a doctor again, anywhere. Not that I intended to. And they announced an amnesty and mandatory drug testing, as well as confidential drug counseling for whoever wanted it—which was a lot of people—so it ended well enough.”
“For everyone but you. You took the hit for your colleagues.” Her mouth puckered as she pressed the strips on. The yellow glow from the bathroom lights painted a sheen on her hair, a warmth on her skin.
“You’re being way too generous. I dragged them into it. Like I told you, for whatever reason, people go along with my crazy schemes. But I was relieved that the person worst affected in the end was me. And in a funny way the hospital became a better place for my having been there—just not in the way I’d intended, not in a way I could be proud of.”
She pulled another strip off the backing paper. “You couldn’t get a job in medicine elsewhere—another country?”
“What’s the first thing any employer’s going to do? Ring my old bosses, right? Anyway, I didn’t trust myself to go back to that environment. I wanted a break from that kind of pressure, from those triggers. I wanted to do an honest day’s work. Physical work. Running off to the Legion was my treatment—cheaper than rehab and longer term. Cold turkey. Removed myself from the triggers, became a grunt. Low expectations, low stress. Nobody to impress, nobody to disappoint.”
“But you’re a commando. A paratrooper. How’s that low stress?”
“I worked my way up to it. And mostly I’m in the team for my medical skills. But the thing with the military—it’s not like working in a crazy city hospital where it’s mental most of the time, where every day you’re gambling with people’s lives. In the military, it’s mostly pretty laid-back. The moments of intense stress are relatively few and usually short-lived. I can cope with that. It was the constant strain of the hospital that got to me.”
“Don’t you carry drugs as a medic? Morphine?”
“Only small doses, and I have a quiet agreement with my CO to check my supplies every day.”
“And that stops you from taking them?”
“The temporary high wouldn’t be worth losing his respect or my livelihood. You see? Playing my many flaws off against one another.”
She patted down a strip. “How does that look?”
“Perfect,” he said, examining it.
“Peeerrrrfect,”she murmured. “And last night, at the cottage—how often do lapses like that happen?”
“They don’t.” He frowned. Except for that one time after the funeral...
“That one did. What was the trigger—stress?”
“More like regret, guilt, insomnia—the usual stuff.”And you.
He looked her in the eyes. Wide, glazed, beautiful eyes. “Samira, this is why I need the Legion, why I can’t have a relationship, why I can’t live in the real world. I need those boundaries. I don’t want the stress of real life, of free choice, of expectation. I’ve hurt enough people around me.”
“You’d rather have the stress of imminent death and injury?”
“The chances of death are actually pretty low. Worst I’ve suffered in the military is a sprained ankle and sunburn. And it’s not like my previous behavior was without risk.”
“So when you set off that trigger next time, what will happen?”
“I’ll avoid that happening.”
“How?”
He started cleaning up the debris. “Go back to the Legion and stay there.”
“Where someone is watching you?”
