Page 5 of Dax: Gratefully Bonded (Rogue Bonds #2)
Zeke
I glared at Aiden, ignoring the waitress as she brought my meal, set it on the table, and flitted away again. “I’m not giving up my Green Star,” I snarled at him, once we were alone again. In some ways, it was just a medal, a small square of metal with a star engraved on the front. But it was also the one thing that had so far dissuaded me from showing up at the military shooting range, checking my handgun out of the storage locker and shooting myself in the head with it. I’d never officially been discharged from the military, so I was working on the assumption that they’d still actually give me the gun, if I went and pretended to want to shoot a few rounds in the practice range. Aside from the heavy drinking, I’d given them no reason not to trust me.
“Then clean yourself up,” Aiden responded, with no hint of compromise in his voice. “Henderson and I talked about this yesterday. We’re prepared to give you as much support as we possibly can, and he’s put a plan together for how to do that. But it’s only going to work if you’re willing to work with us.”
I stared down at the bottle of pills. It wasn’t even nine o’clock in the morning and I was already craving a drink. Stopping drinking, just like that, while trying to hold both myself and Dax together, and dealing with the mountain of nightmares left over from Ixralia?
“What if I can’t do it?” I murmured, not sure whether I was asking Aiden or myself. “What if it’s just too hard?”
“You can do it,” Aiden said, with absolute conviction. The words themselves were exactly what I’d expected him to say. It was his job to convince me to fall into line and follow the rules, after all. But the way he said it caught my attention. I glanced up at him, astonished to see a very genuine admiration shining out of his eyes. “Four ships with a total of a hundred and twenty crew were sent through the Ixralian wormhole at various points in time. A grand total of eighteen survivors ended up coming back. And only four of those are still alive; you, and the three soldiers you rescued. Every single other person who dared to set foot into that hellscape either died there, or has since committed suicide. The simple fact that you are still here, sucking air, a year on from that clusterfuck, says to me that you have the strength to keep going for the long haul. Yes, you need help. Yes, we need to provide better support. But you can do it. You’ve already proven that. No one else lasted longer than six months, and the ones you saved have said numerous times that the reason they’re still here is because you are. You told them you believed in them. And they believe in you, in return.” Was it my imagination, or were his eyes a little brighter than usual?
The mention of my former crewmates rattled me. I was fully aware that survivors of Ixralia had tended to kill themselves, and it had been six months since I’d had the courage to ask about my team. “How are they?” I dared to ask now. Only because he’d already told me they were all still alive.
“Gasrin is on a disability pension. He runs art workshops down by the coast. According to Henderson, he’s on anti-anxiety medication, but he’s been stable for the last six months. Ru left the military and works for an animal shelter in Adavi and she regularly attends a community activity group for trauma victims; movie nights, card games, that sort of stuff. And Matchi…” Aiden paused, then a wistful smile crept onto his face. “Matchi got married. His wedding was two months ago. Henderson said he’s met his wife, and she’s a delightful woman. She’s an author, and Matchi spends most of his time growing vegetables in an extensive garden over in Hollyver.” Hollyver was a medium-sized city on the west coast, and while I’d never been there, everyone who had said it was a beautiful place.
There was a pause, as Aiden was apparently waiting for me to say something else. I didn’t. My team were alive. I still had that. Even if the rest of my life was a fucking mess.
“So here’s what we’re going to do,” Aiden said, when it was clear I had nothing else to say. “There are a number of support groups we can set you up with. There are three for alcoholics, with various different styles of operating, there’s one for trauma suffers that meets in person, and another one that meets via comm. There’s a physiotherapy group that meets near the military base for people with physical disabilities-”
“I don’t have a physical disability,” I interrupted him sharply.
He paused before answering – either fighting for patience or attempting to find something diplomatic to say. “But you do have nerve damage in your right leg from the Svince venom. Physiotherapy can help maintain long-term mobility.”
“Fuck you,” I said, because I hated the fact that he was talking about it like he actually knew what it was like. I hated the whole idea of this. I always had. “I’m not going to sit around and talk about my fucking feelings with a bunch of whiners who lost a finger in a fucking lawnmower accident. No one there is going to understand shit about what I went though, and you and I both know that. They took us apart while we were still alive, and laid eggs in us, and ate our fucking body parts, and-”
“You need help,” Aiden interrupted me, his tone a notch or two sharper. “And just because the people in these groups didn’t suffer the exact same things as you did doesn’t mean they don’t understand pain, or fear, or helplessness. You will choose at least one group to attend, and you will do so on a regular basis. And while we’re on the subject of therapy, Doctor Green is going to assign a new psychologist to you. A very brief review of the old one revealed that she’s basically been letting you do whatever the fuck you like, no restrictions, no accountability, not even any godforsaken goals for things you’d like to improve. That ends now. And she’s going to be facing a hearing for professional misconduct. Doctor Green will have someone new for you by the end of the week.”
I sat in silence, feeling numb. It was hitting home now just what this whole recovery effort was going to mean. It meant facing all of those demons, admitting to the nightmares that still haunted me, and then actually finding a way to move past it all. To avoid looking at Aiden, I aggressively pulled my bowl of yoghurt towards me and started shovelling it into my mouth. That was a mistake. I bit down on a ling berry – where the fuck had this café got ling berries this early in spring? – and a burst of the most delicious sweetness swept over my tongue. I ignored it, attempting to maintain my anger. A chunk of peach was next – that would have been canned, rather than fresh – but it had been so long since I’d bothered eating anything other than toasted cheese sandwiches and meat pies that I’d somehow forgotten that food with actual flavour existed. And the way it was tossing my emotions about was truly bizarre. Hope was not to be found at the bottom of a yoghurt bowl. But even the yoghurt itself had a passionfruit flavour, and it was deliciously thick and creamy. I had the brief impulse to hurl the bowl at Aiden… but the hard reality was that it just tasted too fucking good.
“I’m not committing to any of this,” I told him, through a mouthful. “I’ll give it a go for like, a week, or something. But don’t hold your breath about it working.”
Aiden nodded. “Well, there’s one more part of this that you’re not really considering,” he said, largely ignoring my minor tantrum. “Dax is-”
“I know, I know. If I give up, Dax is probably going to top himself.” It was a horrific outcome to all of this. And yet, at the same time, I honestly wasn’t sure if I could prevent it. Just talking about going to therapy while sitting in a cushy café was making me break out in hives.
I glanced over my shoulder towards the two dimari, and my heart sank at the sight. Kade was sitting up straight, clearly attempting to say something encouraging to Dax. But my dimari was slouched in his seat, poking at the breakfast he’d been given and looking like he was going to burst into tears at any moment. A brief surge of determination rose in me, the idea that I really could save him, if I tried hard enough. But a moment later, the optimism was gone, drowned in the reality of living nightmares and scars that never quite healed.
“That wasn’t what I was going to say,” Aiden said, looking just a touch amused. As if a dimari killing himself was something to laugh about. “But Dax is most certainly part of the equation. Because you’re looking at this like you have to do all the work. You have to take care of yourself, and arrange all of your groups and therapy sessions, and figure out how to look after Dax all the while as well, and I can thoroughly imagine that that kind of workload would be doing your head in.
“But there are actually only two things that you have to do. You have to show up to the appointments – Doctor Green will arrange everything else for you and let you know the times and locations – and in the meantime, you need to step back and allow Dax to look after you . I know that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to you right now, and I will certainly be explaining it in more detail – maybe once we’re back home, because not all of it is suitable for public consumption. But before we get to that bit, I’d actually like to know how you came to have Dax in the first place. Because there’s absolutely nothing about that in your service record.”
I finished the yoghurt and set the bowl aside, dragging the eggs towards me instead. “It’s a fucking awful story,” I told him, shoving the first bite of eggs into my mouth. “And you think you’re having nightmares now? Don’t blame me when you start leaving the lights on to go to sleep. And remember that you’re the one who asked me to tell you this.”