Vick is not herself.
THE WEDDING ceremony I’m hoping for has to wait longer than I expect. Obstacle one is Vick herself. Not that she’s opposed to the idea; she proposed to me, after all, but she’s been stalling, her self-esteem issues and the fact that it can’t be legal getting in the way. My drive surprises her, and I sense she still feels she’s unworthy, but my insistence is convincing her little by little. However, she isn’t recovering from her injuries at her usual superhuman rate.
Oh, the physical ones and the cosmetic damage have all but disappeared. Thin lines serve as reminders of where the surgeons put her back together, but in a few days, even those will vanish. She looks like the Vick I fell in love with. Her doctors even replaced her auburn curls with her normal long, dark hair. To see her, one would think she’s healed. But I can see inside as well as out, and her psychological scars aren’t fading at all.
Every time I think she’s almost overcome one trauma, another rises up to take its place. Airlocks barely faze her anymore. She can make love to me without flashbacks of her violent rape.
Now it’s reflective surfaces. I notice it first in her room in the medcenter, the day the doctors tell her she’s being released. Vick dresses by feel, without the aid of a mirror. In fact, she stands facing away from the one hanging by the bathroom door. She pulls her brush from the duffel of toiletries and clothes I brought her and yanks it through her hair in a handful of quick movements, all the while staring into the corner, not at the mirror, and not meeting my gaze.
“Your part’s a bit crooked,” I say, laying a hand on her arm to slow her down before she rips out all the new strands. Taking the brush, I fix it for her. When it’s a perfect line down the center of her head, I tuck the brush away in the bag. “You okay?”
I know she’s not. To my sight, she’s shrouded in an aura of green discomfort.
“Fine,” she grinds out, a bald-faced lie. She knows I know. “I just want out of here.”
Fair enough. Vick and medical facilities have a long and painful history with each other. Some terrifying things have been done to her under the pretense of health improvement. But this is more than that.
The Storm restricts her to light duty for her first two weeks back, Vick grumbling about it the entire time. They’ve got her going over mission reports, giving lectures to new recruits, and conducting training sessions—anything not overly strenuous or emotionally taxing. It’s a logical decision, a good plan for most soldiers working their way up to active status, but not for Vick. Her psyche requires constant stimulus as a distraction. Otherwise, she dwells. And when she dwells, the disquiet creeps in.
I worry it’s more than the metal making up her skull. She’s insisting on sleeping apart in our two-bedroom quarters, though we haven’t done that in months. Her excuse? She’s restless at night and worried she’ll keep me awake.
Translate “restless” to “constant nightmares.”
I feel them. Her suppressors don’t work as well when she’s asleep. She’s keeping me awake regardless, but I don’t tell her that. She has enough guilt about what she puts me through already. I hide my exhaustion with makeup. Vick doesn’t use makeup. She doesn’t know how to hide the dark circles that ring her eyes. She’s lethargic and unfocused.
“Will you talk to me?” Before she can disappear into her room for another torturous night, I take her hands and pull her down on the couch in the center of our living room. “It’s been a week. I want to respect your privacy, but I’m worried. The nightmares—”
Her head drops. She stares down at her lap. “I’m sorry,” she says.
“Dammit, Vick. Stop already. I’m not porcelain. You won’t break me.” Not like this, anyway. She’s come damn close before. I don’t mention those times. I wouldn’t trade them. “It’s not your fault. What is your fault is refusing to take steps toward recovery. The first one is telling me what is going on.”
Vick shifts her position so she’s facing forward while I study her from the side. Her gaze darts from one corner of the room to another, flitting about but never settling, carefully avoiding my eyes. Her mouth opens, then closes, then opens again, like she wants to tell me something but can’t quite bring forth the words.
Is she being blocked? The Storm can do that. One order from the right person and Vick can’t tell me anything they don’t want her to. I’m about to attempt some creative questioning when her mouth opens again.
Finally, a whisper. “They’re so real.”
“What are?” I don’t want to push too hard, but I need this information if I’m going to help her.
“The dreams,” she says, then turns to me. I suck in a gasp at the bleak hopelessness in her eyes. Manufactured or not, they are expressive.
“Tell me.”
She takes a deep breath, lets it out. “I’m… doing horrible things, monstrous things. Kel, I’m hurting people, killing them. Not people who deserve it. Not like on assignments. These are people I don’t even know, that I’ve never seen before. Why? Why would I do that?”
A chill passes through me. I force it away. “You aren’t.” I take her shoulders and pull her to me, holding her close. She’s shaking. Hard. “Vick, they’re dreams. You know they aren’t real.” We’ve come so far, and now it’s like we’ve lost years’ worth of progress over the past two weeks.
“But that’s how they feel. Smell, sound, taste, touch, they have them all. Like when VC1 replays a memory for me, except these aren’t mine. And they are. I see myself doing these things. I don’t understand them, and I can’t stop them.”
“When did these different dreams start?”
“When we came back to Girard Moon Base,” she says, then stops. “No. I think… I think I had one that night I commed you and woke you up by accident, but I couldn’t remember it then. I wonder if I’ve had them even before that.”
Wetness soaks into the fabric covering my shoulder. She’s crying. I can count on two hands the number of times I’ve seen Vick cry. Whatever this is, it’s cutting her deep.
“And the aversion to mirrors?” I ask.
Vick goes rigid. Damn. One problem at a time. I should know better.
“What aversion?” She tugs herself free and wipes her eyes on the backs of her hands, then scoots away to lean against the armrest, but not fast enough. I already felt the lie.
“You know what I mean. You haven’t willingly looked in a mirror since the slaver mission. You dress and do your hair by feel. You keep your eyes down. You avoid reflective surfaces.”
She shakes her head, but I reach out and place my hands on either side of her face.
“Vick, you’re healed. There’s nothing bad to see.” Maybe they’re connected, the dreams and this aversion. But no. She was having these new nightmares and asking me about her soul before we went after the slavers. What is this? And how do I help her get through it?
Vick raises her hands to my wrists and pulls mine away. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? When I look at myself, I always see something bad, even before the toxic lake. It’s worse now, but the monster has been there since the airlock accident. The Storm hid it, but it’s always been there.”