Andrew entered the elevator only to find Hannah Kroeger’s familiar face. Well, almost her familiar face. She was so swamped with stacks upon stacks of papers in her hands, she hardly had enough room to press the button by the side. “E-Excuse me! Um… whoever you are…” she muttered. “C-Could you get–”
Andrew sighed. “What floor?”
“Th-The lobby… th-thank you!”
“Sure…” Andrew clicked the button and let the elevator ride. To be honest, he wasn’t surprised to see Hannah in such a state, since he had only seen her when she was acting like a klutz, but he knew that everyone had their embarrassing moments. If he met himself from boot camp, he would’ve smacked himself in the face.
After a minute or so, they made it down to the lobby, where Hannah tried to offer her gratitude. “Thank you so much!” She bowed. Even with papers in her hand. Not a smart combination.
Long story short, the stack of papers flung onto the floor like a swarm of flies.
“Oh my god! I’m so–”
Andrew was already picking them up as he gave another deep sigh. He was getting second-hand embarrassment from all the people staring. “It’s fine…” he muttered as he grabbed each sheet with her. “I’m only down here to–”
His finger was unlucky—papercut.
“Ow! Fuck!”
“Hey! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” He sucked on his finger to remove the blood. Avoiding staining the sheets with red, he kept picking up the sheets with his left hand. Thankfully, there were no more papercuts there.
In the end, they sat themselves at a nearby desk. Hannah cleaned the cut with an alcohol wipe, wiped on some ointment, and slipped on a bandaid. “So sorry about that,” she said.
“It’s fine. I’m fine,” he said. He at least got to see that the papers were now back in good order. Even from there, on the other side of the table, he could read the words “Sergeant Yang” written on them. Funny coincidence.
Hannah could read his curious expression. “People are trying to see how well she’s doing. They want to know if she’s recovering well, and if she’s been adapting to her new prosthetics.”
“People?” Andrew asked. “Are you talking about Command, the lab, or…”
“No, I just mean people in general,” she replied. “You might not know, since you’ve been busy in this hospital, but a lot of people have been looking up to her. Honestly, even I look up to her. Well… something like that…”
Looking at the redness in her cheeks, Andrew could only roll his eyes. He felt even more secondhand embarrassment, since this felt nothing short of childish. “She’s a spectacular team leader,” he continued. “I think she knows where to find talent in people. Hell, she could turn a homeless man into a diehard vet.”
“I think so too…” Hannah added. “The labs feel like a giant machine and, since starting, I just felt like a hamster turning a cogwheel. Everyone’s been told to do a hundred things, including Doctor Shiro, who has to study demons, weapons, law, and the technical stuff in between. As for me, I have to catch up to him, while getting everyone’s paperwork! It’s so tiring!”
She slammed the table. Causing another scene. Everyone was staring for another second, before they went back to whatever they were doing. “When the Sergeant came in for the first time, I felt…”
“Embarassed?” Andrew asked. It was the first thought that came to mind, considering the personal images that were drawn in her notebook. “I mean, that BDSM picture was really–”
“I thought she was nice,” she said. Fortunately, she had been too deep in her own thoughts to notice what Andrew had been saying. “Even though she likes to be a little cold to the people she first meets, I have the feeling that she really does care about everyone. Maybe too much. But at least enough for me to really admire her, you know?”
To Andrew’s ears, that sounded like she had a fat crush, even though he understood what she meant. At the start of his CDR career, she had hardly said a word to him. Yet in his first mission—one against the Beast of Wrath, no less—she was the one who pushed him away from death again and again. “Yeah. I get what you’re saying,” he said.
“Good. That’s why I’m trying to organize a child to come see her.”
“Wait, what?”
“You know,” Hannah casually went on. “Like Make-a-Wish, except for a grown adult who doesn’t have cancer. Just something to tell her that her work means something to people, and to motivate her to keep going.”
Andrew could only scoff. “Motivate her? You know she was a Marine Corps Sergeant, right? Last I checked, she was still gung-ho about getting back into the CDRs. I doubt she needs any motivation.”
“Do you doubt that she needs motivation?” Hannah suddenly asked. “Or do you doubt that she’d tell you?”
Andrew was blank. “What do you mean?”
“She just got the million-dollar wound. Literally. She could retire now with all the benefits and more. And even from my seat, I can tell that she’s exhausted. All those years have taken a toll. I mean, look at her stress levels. I’ve got a whole report on how she hasn’t been sleeping, as indicated by a constantly active heartrate. Wouldn’t it be nice for her to finally get some rest?”
Andrew didn’t know what to say. He could only mutter, “It’s her prosthetic eye. She said she can’t close it.”
“It’s possible to sleep with it on, since it doesn’t need to blink,” Hannah quickly countered.
“Easy for you to say. We’re sitting here with all our limbs. She’s not.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Hannah sighed. It was a funny pause that made Andrew almost feel bad for talking back. After a moment or so of silence, mixed only with the background noise of an active hospital, she finally said, “That’s why I’m trying to bring someone who can relate.”
***
Andrew returned to the Sergeant’s room with an energy drink in his hand. She had that usual smirk on her face—the one she usually wore when jokingly insulting someone. “Took you long enough. Did you get lost on your way back?”
Her metal arm took the can. Then crushed it. “Shit.”
The two of them cleaned the fizzing juice off the bed before Andrew got out a second can. “I expected something like this would happen.” He placed it to the left of her bed, so her good arm could take it.
“Good to see that you’re prepared, Cheng,” the Sergeant said. “Anyway, sorry about that mess. For a second, I kind of forgot that my hand wasn’t… you know… my hand…” she said.
“It’s fine,” Andrew said as he tossed the dirty wipes away. “It’s not easy for anyone to have to deal with a new prosthetic.”
She dryly chuckled. “Easier than dealing with a stub,” she casually said. “You know, this whole thing reminded me of coming back from deployment. When I came back state-side, I got to see the guys who were medically discharged. Some of them were lucky with a scratch that took them back home. But others… one of them had his leg blown off by a mine…”
The Sergeant stared at her new arm. In fact, she was staring from her prosthetic eye. “And here I am,” she muttered. “Complaining about issues with a state-of-the-art arm that could let me go back to normal.”
The way she looked, Andrew realized that he had been an idiot this whole time. Even though the Sergeant definitely cared about everyone in the CDR team, the fact was that she was exhausted. She had seen enough blood, and lost enough blood, for multiple lifetimes.
“Sergeant,” he suddenly asked. “If you weren’t in the CDRs, what would you do?”
“Shit, are you tired of me already?” she chuckled.
“No, not like that,” Andrew replied. “Like… what would you do if–”
“Don’t worry, I understand the question,” the Sergeant sighed. She tsked her lips—Andrew knew she was feening for another cigar. “I just don’t know what the fuck else I’d do. Even if I left with all that money, what would I do? Play games during the day, work out at night.” She took a breath. “I’d get bored.”
The door suddenly buzzed. A little boy’s voice was on the other end.
“Chào Cô Hổ! Cô khỏe không?”
Though Andrew was initially confused, he saw that the Sergeant clearly recognized the voice. She stared at the door with her mouth open, like she saw a ghost. Andrew didn’t know if he should open the door or not.
“S-Sergeant?”
She stared. “Open it.”
“What?”
“Open the door.”
Andrew swallowed the knot in his throat before he pushed down the handle. He watched as a young boy blasted right in. “Cô Hổ! Cô Hổ!” The boy looked no older than seven as he rushed over to the Sergeant’s side and held her hand.
But it wasn’t the short black hair that stood out. Not the shirt with a cute lion on it. Not the smile that gleamed on his face.
Andrew looked at the prosthetic leg. The one that looked to be a similar make and model as the Sergeant’s arm. It didn’t take long for Andrew’s memories to churn. He remembered what the CDR team had told him—how Wade died.
“They found a boy hiding underneath a collapsed seat. Wade offered covering fire as the Sergeant lifted the debris. That’s when they found that the boy’s leg had been ripped off.”
The boy’s parents funneled in to pull their son away. “Xin lỗi! Xin lỗi!” They looked tan, skinny, and definitely hard working—judging from the calluses on their hands. Andrew guessed that they were probably migrant workers who came to the rapidly growing city of New Changan.
Hannah followed inside. “I’m sorry about that,” she calmly sighed. Her usual temperament and clumsiness were gone; at least blanketed by a layer of composure. “Khien is a young kid. He’s been excited to meet, who he calls, the Tiger Auntie.”
“Tiger Auntie?” Andrew asked. He at least knew what ‘Cô Hổ’ meant. “Look, I get what you’re trying to do, but I don’t think the Sergeant is in a good headspace for this. She looks like she saw a ghost.”
“You think so?” Hannah asked.
The two looked at the Sergeant and the boy. They watched as she extended her prosthetic hand out, clearly nervous about accidentally crushing the boy’s hand. But as the boy clasped his hand around her fingers, they found that the fear was gone. Cold metal never looked so warm.
“I think they’re doing okay,” Hannah said. “I think it’s hard to keep doing a job when you feel like it’s not worth anything, so I think it’s nice to be reminded how people are positively impacted. Sure you kill demons, but you also save lives. A lot of lives, actually.”
Andrew took a deep breath. It was nice to see the Sergeant playing with the kid without any need of introduction. “I’ll… I’ll let them be for a moment,” he said. “Just call me back in when they’re done.”
“For sure,” Hannah said. “And what was your name again?”
At that moment, Andrew realized he had never formally introduced himself to her. It was a little embarrassing on his part. “Andrew. Andrew Cheng, if you’re a fan of last names.”
“Oh, we don’t do last names in the labs, unless you’re a doctor or something,” Hannah giggled. “Well, Andrew, I hope I catch you around.”
“Yeah. See you.”
***
After an hour or two, Khien’s family said their goodbyes and Andrew came back in. Frankly, he was surprised that she didn’t accidentally crush the kid from her ordinary strength alone. And despite the obvious language barrier, they seemed to have a good time.
“He wanted to meet me for a while,” the Sergeant said. “He even got me this necklace.”
She held up a silver chain that ended with a jade teardrop. It was a beautiful thing that radiated a silver glow. “His family spent a good amount on this, but they insisted it was fine. They said something along the lines of getting a pension from the city, not to mention the lab.”
“The lab made his leg?” Andrew asked.
“Yeah, of course they did. They’ve been offering a program for rehabilitating victims of demon attacks, so Khien’s family volunteered him as soon as they could. It was kind of funny, how they didn’t blame me for his lost leg.”
“Why would they blame you? The attack wasn’t your fault.”
To this, the Sergeant just shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know why they would blame me…” Her voice trailed off as she instinctively raised her fingers to her mouth, only to realize she didn’t have a cigar.
“Anyway,” she continued, “do you mind tossing me that stressball?” Andrew tossed it—she caught it. He watched her squeeze. But unlike last time, he watched her release. “I hope I see that kid again,” the Sergeant said. “He’s a good kid.”