“What?”
“I saw you kiss Breanna in the raft. I was watching through the UMB feed. I’m the one who got the Osprey there.”
“Zen?” Stoner blinked his eyes.
“I’ll fight for her. I will.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” said Stoner.
Zen wheeled backward a half stroke. His anger balanced on the edge of a knife blade. He knew what he had seen.
“Is Bree all right?” Stoner asked.
“Yeah.”
“Where is she?”
“They moved her over to Bright Memorial. Her mother’s a doctor there. She’ll be fine. She was sleeping when I left.”
Stoner nodded. “My head feels like shit.”
Zen stared at him. If Stoner was looking for sympathy, he wasn’t going to get it from him.
“Seriously, man, there’s nothing between me and Breanna. I mean, she saved my life. And maybe I saved her. We tied ourselves together so we’d stay in the raft. Ferris — we lost him.”
Zen took a deep breath, letting his body lean forward slightly in the wheelchair. Why was it Stoner who had lived? Why couldn’t it have been Ferris? Or Fentress? The poor kid, he was just getting the hang of the Flighthawks, just learning his damn job.
Why had anyone had to die? So the Indians and Chinese wouldn’t blow themselves and half the world to kingdom come?
Yes, thought Zen. That’s what it came down to. Their deaths meant millions of innocent people would live. it was their job, and their duty. The men would have said so themselves.
And yet, it didn’t seem fair at all. If Bree had been on of the ones to die, he’d have been inconsolable.
“You got the helicopter there?” Stoner asked. “The one that picked us up?”
“It was an Osprey,” said Zen.
“Thanks. We owe you a big one. You saved us.”
Zen stared at him. He had seen what’d he’d seen. But what was it — their bodies tied together, their cheeks close?
Maybe they hadn’t kissed. He trusted Bree more than that, didn’t he?
“You’re welcomed,” Zen said.
By the time Zen made his way back to Breanna’s hospital room, the others had left and she was sleeping again. He pulled his wheelchair up alongside her bed and leaned back, thinking at first that he would watch her TV, but then deciding that might wake her. He watched her sleep for a while, thinking she’d of a similar vigil he’d kept some months back, after she’d managed to crash-land an EB-52 that had lost its tail.
Nothing harder than waiting in a hospital room, he’d thought then, but now he knew there were many harder things indeed. He thought of what she must have felt those long months after his accident, the one that had cost him his legs — the one that had cost her much of her hope for their lives. She’d stuck with him through that, even when he didn’t want her to, even when he didn’t know if he could stick with it himself.
How could he doubt her love after that?
It was his own security he should fear, his doubts about himself, not her. He shouldn’t doubt her at all. She was the one person in the world who’d had faith, who didn’t treat him like a gimp, whose face didn’t turn red when she caught sight of his wheelchair.
Ashamed, Zen reached his hand over and stroked her fingers.
“Hello,” she mumbled, opening her left eye and then her right.
“Hey. About time you woke up. You been sleeping the whole day.”
“I woke up and you weren’t here.”
“You did?”
“Yes, I did. Where were you?”
“I went over to see Stoner. He’s at the Navy air base. I had a hell of time bumming a ride.”
“How is he?”
“Looks like you.”
“Oh, thanks.” She pushed up on her elbows; Zen reached over and slid her pillow, then realized he could adjust her bed by the control. He fiddled with it, getting her to about a thirty-degree angle.
“My dad was here, and Danny,” said Breanna. “My mom. Did you meet her?”
Zen shook his head. “I talked to her on the phone twice. She didn’t remember anything I told her. Pretty dizzy for a doctor.”
Breanna smiled weakly. “That’s my mom. Opposite of my dad.”
“Yeah.”
“I saw Chris die. I couldn’t save him.”
“You couldn’t.”
“Collins and Dolk. They’re gone too.”
Zen took her hand.
“And Curly’s missing. Fentress.” Her eyes welled up, but as she started to cry she laughed too. “Remember all your nickname for him?”
“I was a bastard to the poor kid.”
“You made him a good pilot. I couldn’t save them, Jeff. I tried. I did.”
“Sometimes you can’t.” Zen leaned over and kissed her. Breanna’s lips were warm, but the exposure to the salt water made them feel like sandpaper, and he could see her wince even though he barely brushed against them.
“Sorry,” he told her.
“It’s okay, babe.” She patted his hand.
“Listen, I saw you and Stoner in the raft,” he said. “I saw you and two tangled together. I thought — look, I’m an asshole, but I thought you were in love with him or something. Last fling on earth. I went a little crazy.”
Pain creased her face.
“I know you’re not in love with him or anything,” he said. “And that you didn’t. I’m sorry. It was just the idea of losing you, you know? I’m sorry.”
“That’s good, baby,” she said, drifting back toward sleep. “You know I love you.”
“I do,” he said.
Her eyes closed. Zen sat back in his wheelchair, his hand still gripping hers. Exhausted by the last few days, he slipped off to sleep as well.
