A Spaceman

Chapter 10--The Special Man

"Has it occurred to you, Nicole, that we're all just waiting to die?" Now you see why I needed the stiff drink before I did this.

"I suppose," I say, looking out across the grassy field of the hospital. Quentin is sitting next to me, in a wheelchair, I'm on a bench, slouching. And I'm still higher than him. He used to be so big, so strong, gentle, steady, quiet, predictable. All around a nice break from Titus. Now he's withered, he looks ten years older, with grey already in his oddly long hair, wearing yellow tinted glasses, because his eyes were damaged by the smoke from the crash that took his legs. His shoulders are a bit slumped, and his face sunken, pale from too many hours in the hospital.

"You don't have to come to see me," he says, not looking at me, "It's kind of you."

"I haven't seen you since the ceremony," I say. When we all go get medals for nearly dying. Yay us. He and I and all the others were melancholy about it, since we had lost so many of our squadron, it didn't feel right getting medals for staying alive. Titus thought it was a complete waste of time and mental energy and spent the whole time either complaining or waxing on about the injustice of it. The injustice being that we were finally out of the pressurization chambers and hospitals and had to spend a whole day standing around in our dress whites getting medals when we could be doing something like oh he didn't know flying and shooting Isylgyns---not the injustice that a lot of people had died and some were maimed. I had to remind him of that. And smack him. And eventually find something to entertain him. And something for him to eat. and then he shut up.

"You saw me week before last," he says. I was pretending to come by on official business but really I'd been checking on him since I knew his mother had him on a suicide watch. I'd met his mum several times. She was nice, decent sort of person, loved her son, which I figured was what mattered most.

"So I did," I say.

"It's all right. That it's not all right. I'm going to be fine," he says, though he doesn't sound like he believes it. "I've been thinking is all. Thinking a lot."

"What about?" I ask.

"About what I want to do now. about what happened. I really don't remember much after the crash," he says, shaking his head, "Major Card gave me the first adrenaline shot, after that it's hazy, like I was drunk. I hate that."

"Yes, probably best though," I say, quickly.

"Why?" he asks, frowning, "What happened?"

"What we've told you, Major Card and a couple others broke into the compound while the rest of us had a fire fight with the Isylgyns on the surface," I say, innocently.

"Did I say anything? To Major Card in particular?" he asks, suspiciously.

"A few things, I don't know," I lie.

"Tom, what did I say?" he asks, "I remember being angry with him, blaming him for the crash---did I say anything to that effect?"

"Sort of---Titus really didn't care though," I say, wincing.

"What did I say?" he asks, annoyed, trying to move in his wheelchair to get closer to me.

"You might have completely blamed him for the crash and called him a bastard along with a variety of other choice adjectives and likened him to the Isylgyns," I say, unable to meet his eyes.

"What??! Why didn't you guys stop me?" Quentin moans.

"Titus has deserved to be called those things to his face for quite some time and you were dying and we thought we were dying and in the situation it was kind of funny and like, fulfilling," I say, weakly.