Mud under my boots.
Arthur’s grey hair plastered to his forehead.
One slipper missing.
His wife’s face when she understood.
My breath comes in too shallow, so I force it down. In through my nose. Hold. Out through my mouth. Not because I am calm. Because calm is sometimes just a set of instructions you give your body until it remembers how to obey.
I am fine.
I am fine because I have to be.
The crew need me steady. They need me able to look them in the eye and tell them the truth without cracking. They need to know that if the alarm goes again in five minutes, I will be ready. They need to believe I can hold the next thing, whatever it is.
And I can.
I can.
I just need thirty seconds where nobody asks me to prove it.
My hands tighten on the edge of the desk.
The first tear falls before I can stop it.
One.
Ridiculous.
Furious.
I wipe it away immediately, angry with myself for letting it happen at all.
“Not now,” I whisper.
My voice sounds strange in the small room.
Not now.
Not here.
Not while we are still on duty.
Not while my crew are twenty feet away, pretending toast is a personality trait because that is better than sitting in silence with a dead man between us.
I press the heel of my hand against my sternum, as if I can hold everything in by force.
It almost works.
Then there is a knock at the door.
Light.
Careful.
I close my eyes.
“Pippa?”
