Kendall bobbed his head. “Well, it’s not as if you left us a bunch of patients to clean up for you.” He brightened. “By the way, I’m discharging . . . the teenager you helped me break through to.” Confidentiality stopped him from speaking the name.
“Oh yeah?” Susan knew he meant Connor Marchik. No happy ending existed for the teen with refractory liver cancer; but, at least, he could spend his final months with friends and family in an environment more pleasant than the PIPU.
John Calvin took the hint. “You two look like you want to talk shop. Why don’t I walk Mr. Bogart back to the unit, if that’s okay with him?”
“I’m fine with that,” Ronnie answered. “It’s only a matter of days till discharge.”
As the other men left the room, Kendall’s smile faded. Even without the black eyes, the bruises, and abrasions, he would have looked more serious than she had ever seen him before. He paced the floor. Twice.
Barely recognizing him, Susan tried to break the silence. “So, what is our next rotation? The Violent Care Unit?”
Kendall resisted the joke, which surprised Susan in and of itself. “Outpatient psych,” he answered distractedly. His smile returned, but it seemed forced. “You’re already scheduled to see some old friends.”
“Diesel,” Susan guessed. “And Monterey. Maybe even Starling.”
“Yup.”
“And I imagine you’ll see Connor.”
“Almost certainly.” Kendall dodged her stare.
Susan could not stand it any longer. Clearly, he was not going to raise the issue that bothered him on his own. “What’s bugging you, Kendall? You look like a shark’s eating you from the feet up.”
“Susan?” Kendall attempted to look at her; then his gaze flitted away. “When I was up on the roof. With the gun. I had a perfect shot at . . . her.”
Susan blinked, trying to understand the implications of what Kendall had just revealed.
“I could have prevented the explosion, Susan. Remy would still be alive.” Kendall’s eyes blurred behind pools of salt water. “No one would have gotten hurt. Not you. Not anyone.”
Susan did not know how to feel. “Come here,” she commanded.
As if in a trance, Kendall moved to her side. An uncharacteristic stiffness to his gait betrayed his own injuries, ones that ought to keep him out of residency, too, for at least a week or two. Susan caught him into an embrace. “It’s not your fault, Kendall.” She spoke the truth the instant it came to her mind. “I couldn’t have pulled the trigger, either.”
“Remy could have. To save us. He —” Kendall choked on the words.
Susan did not know how he had intended to finish, so she used her own words. “He was a rare type of person. A true hero.” It occurred to her the word was thrown about too casually, applied to inappropriate things. She had heard parents call their children heroes for winning a difficult race, had heard newscasters refer to random survivors of catastrophes as heroes, had heard hero bandied about the hospital to apply to patients who did nothing more than survive a dangerous procedure or let a dying loved one go. Surely, those things took courage and fortitude, but she wondered when hero had lost its meaning, when it had ceased to refer to someone who risked or sacrificed his own life to save the lives of others. Susan thought she had cried out all her tears, but new ones stung her eyes.
Kendall clung.
“We can’t all be like that. If we were, it would take all the specialness, all the greatness from men and women like Remy.” Susan clutched him tightly. He felt warm and comfortable in her arms. She had never seen him confront vulnerability with anything other than humor, and she liked this strange and different side of him. She whispered, “I couldn’t have shot her, either.”
Kendall pulled away far enough to look at her.
Susan explained. “That was why I refused to take the gun. Even knowing what she was. Even knowing she had murdered before and would eagerly do so again. Even knowing she would have shot me in a heartbeat, I couldn’t have shot her.” She looked directly into his eyes; and, when he avoided her gaze, she followed him until he had no choice but to stare back at her. “It’s no dishonor to be incapable of killing a human being.”
“But — ,” Kendall started.
Susan could not allow him to finish. “No ‘buts.’ Not ever.”
Kendall clutched her again, and they both sobbed with raw and terrible grief, as if the world would end.
And when the embrace ended, Susan knew, there would be robots to construct and improve, diagnoses to make, and lives to save. Like a flower budding from a dormant stem, she would learn to laugh again, beginning, almost certainly, with a quip from Kendall Stevens.
“Nice going, Humpty Dumpty.” He waved a hand to indicate the broken state of Susan’s body. “Thanks to Major Medical and professional courtesy, your bill will only be eight hundred million instead of a cool billion.”
Susan doubted all the king’s horses and all the king’s men had fully finished with Kendall, either. At least, they had salvaged his sense of humor, and she suspected they both would need it over the coming years.
Acknowledgments
Editing and creation: Isaac, Janet, and Robyn Asimov, Marty Greenberg,
Denise Little, Larry Segriff, and Susan Allison.
Inspiration: Koby Moore, Mark Moore, and Arianne.
Research: All the incredible professionals from Lightfighter (the expertise is theirs, the mistakes my own): Dorsai, 3P051, Sigsshooter, Casket, Naveron-ski, Borebrush, Dan Kemp, Renee, Ex11A, Murf214, Doctorrich, XGEP, Thekirk, Witch, Rob Frey, Firemission4mortars, Blackfox, CarlosDJackal, K_randomfactor, Mark LaRue, TimW, Mercy, Flynn, MrMurphy, KWG020, 3Humpalot, Eggroll, Fluffpuff, and especially Pat.
Also Sue Russell of Mayfair Lane and Mark Moore (again).