Between the Rivers

VOICES. Sound. People. A swarming whirlwind of chaos. It was all too much and Gideon could not make it stop. That face. That face before him. So clear. So shocked. It shattered, replaced by another. A more familiar face that hurt far worse.

  Oh, please, no.

  In the darkness, an explosion of compressed powder. A rock in his knee. A voice calling out. His own voice, too late. Gideon crawled, heedless, mindless. Warmth. Warmth beneath him that soon would be gone forever.

  No!! Take me! Please, take me!!

  The acrid smell of a gunshot. The buzz of a bullet zinging off rocks. Vision blurred but fingers working. Empty cylinder swapped for new. The gun roaring defiance. Gideon fired again and again. Through the fear and the anger, the disbelief and the guilt– still he fired. Warmth. Warmth reaching him, reaching his clothes, soaking his shirt. Slipping though his fingers with every fading heartbeat.

  “Gideon, it’s alright!” Aspen shook the trembling figure beside him. Gideon’s breath came in short, ragged gasps and his body curled in a convulsed knot. “Gideon!”

  The last word spoken on dying breath. The darkness closing in—

  “Gov!”

  Gideon felt himself shaken and forced onto his back. He stared up into a worried face. Aspen’s face, not. . . not that other. Gideon tried to focus, to cling to reality, only it was all real and it gripped him, strangling him and he couldn’t breathe. . .

  “Look at me! Look at me, Gov. You’re safe. You’re here and you’re safe.”

  Those words, an echo from Gideon’s faded past, broke through the nightmare. His insides twisted with the grief of loss and inadequacy. He rolled onto his side, his back to Aspen, as his entire body succumbed to tremors that would not stop and his fists clenched white-knuckle tight trying to make them.

  Gideon fought hard, but the images wouldn't leave him in peace. They danced grimly before his eyes, drawing him back to fallen friends and the flicker of flames and how little he had done— and that face he tried not to see and would never see again— and it pushed against his chest and he held his breath trying to fight it all down.

  Aspen turned away, and that was fine because alone was how Gideon knew he ought to be. The tang of sulfur blossomed briefly. For a moment, it was the acrid smell of gunpowder and Gideon's chest compressed even farther until he thought he might not breath at all. The glass on the bedside lamp was lifted and replaced. A wall appeared, and bedclothes, and the larger feel of Aspen’s room surrounded him.

  Aspen’s room.

  Gideon’s body had gained an anchor, but his mind remained adrift between two worlds. Silently he pleaded for Aspen to go, go anywhere. He burned with the shame of a fit he could not control, and even more with the sympathy implicit in the arm Aspen draped over him, holding him safe against the shadows.

  With all the force of continental drift, Gideon tried to make it stop. His body froze, his gasping breath held, his mind went as blank as he could force it to be.

  Aspen counted a slow five and then Gideon jerked and the tremors returned. He was trying, Aspen knew, and he knew how hard that boy could fight. He tightened his hold, knowing whatever he might say would not be heard. What haunted Gideon was having its own way tonight. Not a tear fell, not a sob broke free. It was the deepest anguish held with the tightest rein Aspen had ever seen. He murmured a soft susurration of soothing sound whilst his mind staggered at the living nightmares Gideon had endured and his heart ached at the raw pain of it.