Kael mustered up a smile for the young woman.

“That’s better,” the nurse responded, patting Kael’s arm above her cast. After she injected the pain-killer into the IV tubing, she discarded the syringe and needle and turned back to her patient. “Is there anything I can get for you?”

Despite the volumes of fluids being pumped into her, Kael’s mouth was dry as the desert. “Water?”

“Coming right up.”

Kael struggled to sit up when the nurse returned with a cup and was kept down by a strong hand to her shoulder. “Best keep still for now. You’ve got a nasty belly wound and it wouldn’t do to open up your stitches.” Kael relaxed against the restraining hand and allowed the nurse to help tilt her head up so she could reach the cup. The Marine drank greedily; her first water in days.

“More?” she asked plaintively.

Smiling, the nurse refilled the cup and gave it to her patient. Sated, Kael fell back into the pillows. “Thank you,” she said, her eyes again fluttering closed as the potent narcotic washed through her system, dulling the raging pain to a more manageable level.

Replacing the cup on the night stand, the nurse brushed an errant lock of hair from Kael’s forehead before quietly leaving the room to find Adellich and inform him that his patient was beginning to come around.

Kael opened her eyes to see the broad, stocky figure of Adellich hovering over her, his dark head close to her own as he listened intently to the sounds her heart and lungs were making through the bell and tubing of his stethoscope. After prodding around her chest for a few more seconds, he straightened, pulling the ‘scope out of his ears with a snap and looping it around his neck. His seamed face creased into a smile. “Good afternoon. I won’t bother asking how you feel, ‘cause I know it’s gotta be pretty crappy, right?”

“It’s not that bad,” Kael replied, shifting slightly on the bed to ease the numbness of her back and buttocks.

“Well, the good thing is that it only goes uphill from here.” Pulling back the light cover, the medic exposed Kael’s tanned legs and grasped at the bottom of her hospital gown. “I’m gonna have to pull this up to check on my handiwork, alright?” At the woman’s calm nod, he continued, lifting the gown and exposing the bulky bandage he’d placed over the row of sutures adorning her belly like a macabre tattoo. Pulling away the bandage, he examined the wound, eyes widening slightly at the level of healing already occurring the new incision. “Anyone ever tell you you have amazing recuperative powers, young lady?”

Kael smiled faintly and shrugged one shoulder as the medic continued his examination.

After carefully cleansing the area, Adellich placed a fresh dressing on the wound, then pulled down and straightened Kael’s gown, pulling up the coverlet to the tall woman’s mid chest. “You’re healing beautifully,” he said finally, writing some notes on a chart next to the bed. “Wanna hear the damage?”

“Please.”

“Ok. Obviously, we were able to save your hands and legs. The damage was pretty severe, but it doesn’t look like anything that’ll give you anything more than a pain in damp weather given proper time and exercise after the casts come off. I had to take your spleen and stitch up a cut in your liver, but you’re healing well from that. And I’m sure you can feel the broken ribs, but they’ll also heal in time. Our main worry right now is infection, but you seem to be handling that pretty well. We’ll get some more blood cultures and keep you on the antibiotics till we’re sure you’re out of the woods.”

“Thank you.”

Adellich grinned again. “No need for that. Just glad I could help. Anything else I can do for you?”

“I’d like to try to sit up, if that’s possible.”

The medic’s brow furrowed in thought. “Well, it’s bound to hurt like hell, but I don’t see the harm in it. Your belly wound’s healing well and sitting up would help you not to contract something nasty, like pneumonia.” He nodded, reaching a decision. “Alright, we’ll crank the bed up a little. But you be sure and tell me when enough’s enough, alright?” When Kael’s dark head nodded again, Adellich bent down and grasped the hand crank at the bottom of the bed. With slow movements, he steadily raised the head of the bed, keeping a steady eye on both his patient and the ever present cardiac monitor resting on a shelf above her head. When the heartrate jumped suddenly, he stopped cranking, straightening and coming once again to stand beside her. “You alright?”

After a moment of calm, steady breathing, Kael nodded again. “Yeah. Just trying to get used to a new perspective.”

Adellich laughed, squeezing her shoulder fondly. He checked the wall clock beside the bed, then the chart’s medication sheet. “You’ve got another hour before your next Morphine dose, but I can give you a little something to tide you over if you need it.”

“No. That’s alright. I’d like to stay awake for awhile.”

The medic checked his patient’s coloring and the cardiac monitor again, pleased that both were returning to normal quickly. “Alright then. Just don’t be afraid to ask for something if the pain gets too bad, alright?” He looked down at her and smiled again before releasing her warm shoulder from his grip. “If you’re in the mood for visitors, Tovah would like to talk with you some more.” His tone indicated that all she had to do was shake her head and she’d be left alone.

“I don’t mind,” Kael replied, reassuring him. “Send her in.”

With a final smile, accompanied by a friendly wink, Adellich turned and left the room.

The door reopened bare moments later to admit Tovah, who stepped gingerly into the room, her face lighting up into a smile when she saw the woman awake and sitting somewhat up in the bed. “Hello again,” she said, coming to stand beside the bed. “How’re you feeling?”

Sighing inwardly, Kael wondered if she should just write up a sign saying ‘I’m fine’ and tack it up on the headboard of her bed. Looking down at her casted hands, her smirk showed on her lips as she realized the absurdity of that thought. “I’m alright,” she said softly, her gaze meeting the warm brown eyes looking compassionately down at her. “The medic said you wanted to talk to me.”

Nodding, Tovah pulled up the rolling stool and sat down beside the woman, her hands clasped in her lap. “Well, I know that this is really none of my business, but I …we …were kinda wondering who you are and how you ended up in a Republican Guard prison bunker. You didn’t have any identification on you when we found you, and your description doesn’t match any of the MIA files we were able to locate. You speak my language like a native, but something tells me you’re not kin.”

Kael looked away from the open gaze of the woman seated beside her, scanning the room again. “I don’t know if I’m comfortable sharing that information with you,” she said softly, in a tone of regret.

“I understand, of course, given everything that you’ve been through already. You’re not required to tell us anything.” She shrugged slightly. “More just curiosity, I suppose.” Shifting slightly in the stool, she smiled. “How about if I tell you a little about us and how we came to get you out of that hell hole?” Sharing secret information may not have been the wisest course of action, but, for some reason, Tovah felt that she had nothing to fear from this quiet stranger she’d rescued. At the woman’s nod, Tovah began. “Well, you already know my name, Tovah Rybak. I’m a Commander in the Israeli army, stationed just inside Syria. A few days ago, we got word that one of our planes was shot down in Iraqi airspace. There were eight survivors, as far as we know. Our people have been keeping an eye out at all the potential holding areas, and when word came that five people were seen dragged from a truck at the bunker in Ar Rutbah, we thought that maybe we’d found our missing people.” She sighed sadly. “Obviously, we were wrong. But, of course, we didn’t know that then, so we stormed the bunker and found you and your friends. We got out and exploded the bunker, then found out that our primary escape route was blockaded. So I sent the others along the secondary route and took you here, to a safe house in Karbala. We patched you up and, well, here you are.”

Kael looked at Tovah intently. Then she sighed, turning her head away. “You should have left me to die with the others,” she said in a low voice.

Swallowing, Tovah stood and reached out a hand, cupping Kael’s jaw and gently bringing her face back around. “I couldn’t do that,” she said. “We found you, horribly injured, but with enough strength of will to cling to life amidst all that dirt and depravity. I couldn’t just leave you there to breathe your last in that den of hell.”

“It would have been better if you did,” Kael ground out, her voice filled with self-loathing.

Tovah felt a tendril of fear snake through her belly at the woman’s words, but reminded herself that this woman was not her enemy. “I couldn’t do that,” she repeated forcefully.

Kael closed her eyes for a long moment, before forcing herself out of the gutter of self-recrimination. No matter how much she wished it, the fact of the matter is that she was not dead. She was alive thanks to some very brave, very good souls and she’d better make the most of it. “Kael,” she rasped finally, before clearing her throat and trying again. “My name is Kael Evan Androstos.” Taking a deep breath, she gave a short mental shrug, giving in to the need to tell this stranger the information her men had died trying to preserve. “I’m a Master Gunnery Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps.” She laughed almost silently. “Or at least I was.”

Tovah’s eyes widened in shock. “You’re an American?”

“Born and bred,” Kael replied in English.

“I didn’t know the Americans let women go behind enemy lines,” Tovah remarked, also in English. Her accent was light, her words easily understood.

“They don’t. Normally. I’m one of the few exceptions.” An internal pain having nothing to do with her wounds shuttered Kael’s expressive eyes once again. “Apparently, they made a mistake with me.”

Looking up, Tovah could see the heart rate on the monitor increase dramatically. She looked back down at Kael. “Are you in pain?”

The blue eyes which met her own could have been those of a corpse, so empty were their depths. “No,” came the response before those eyes closed once again, signaling the end of the conversation.

Tovah rose from her place by the bedside, reaching out, intending to lay a comforting hand on the American’s broad shoulder. Her hand hovered for a moment, short of its goal as the Israeli took in the closed off expression on Kael’s beautiful face. After a moment that seemed to span eternity, Tovah dropped her hand back to her side and spun on her heel, leaving Kael alone with her thoughts once more.

25 July 1990 – 14 August 1990 Israeli Safe-House. Karbala, Iraq

The days passed quickly for the people inside the house now behind enemy lines in the biggest war in decades. Heads were clustered around monitors as Iraqi tanks crossed the boarder into Kuwait. Concerned Israelis watched as American President Bush declared war on Iraq. Via encrypted satellite feeds, the group was able to watch CNN as the first bombs landed on Baghdad.

Slowly, in pairs and small groups, the house was evacuated under cover of night. Others remained behind, supplying allied forces with accurate bombing targets, well aware of the fact that their lives were at risk by enemy and friendly forces alike.

On the second floor of the house, Kael continued her convalescence. Her mind and body raged against her immobilization; itching to be out among the combatants winning the war. She damned herself in a million different ways for failing her duty to herself, her squad and her country. Damned the injuries that kept her pinned down to a soft bed while her countrymen were dying for a cause she needed to be a part of.

The only thing which brightened her dark mood were the visits from Tovah. The two women developed a surprisingly deep bond in the space of a few short weeks. The two normally reticent women found many things to talk about during those first days of war as bombs shuddered the foundation of their safe house and lit the night sky ablaze.

One night, when suffering a painful hamstring cramp, Kael was surprised when her companion simply jabbed at the nerve center of her groin, deadening all feeling in her leg, as strong fingers worked out the cramp. Fascinated, Kael asked to learn more about the technique, and many hours were spent in the study of the ancient procedure. Though her hands were casted and she couldn’t practice the art, Kael was sure that, should the time ever come when she would need to use it, she would have no trouble imitating what she had learned from the tiny Israeli soldier.