Clark leaned back in his chair and stretched. His Superman interview with Lois the previous weekend had gone quite well, including the secondary material on the Foundation he’d given her later that day. Street crime, both violent and non-violent, had taken a precipitous drop in the last month or so. In the same time frame, the tests he was sure Lex Luthor had been sponsoring had stopped, or at least had taken a hiatus. He’d taken to staggering his shifts as the hero, not doing a full patrol every night, checking different areas of the city at different times. And he’d perfected the spin-change to keep from creating serious wind gusts and alerting the street people to his presence – and to keep a high-speed camera he’d not seen from recording him nude. There would be no super-porn if he could help it.
With all that happening, he felt he was due some down time after work that evening. He saved his open files, shut down his workstation, stood and stretched again. There was an old KU game being replayed on the cable sports channel, one where he’d performed well, and he wanted to critique his performance—
“Kent! A moment of your time, please.”
Once again, Perry had managed to sneak up on him. Clark was still puzzled as to how such a big man with such a commanding presence could move so stealthily. “Yes, Mr. White?”
Perry sat on the edge of Clark’s clean desk, beside the backward-facing plaque which read, “A clean desk is the first sign of a troubled mind.” It had been a gift from Catharine, and even though he’d let her down in the romance department, she was still his co-worker and he liked her. However she felt about him, it hadn’t damaged their relationship as friends.
He still had to deal with his boss, though. The man smiled and patted Clark on the shoulder. “I’ve asked you several times to be a little less formal with me, Clark. Saves time and emotional pain.”
“Sorry, Chief. Er, I mean, Perry.”
“Much better, don’t you think? You know, son, it seems to me that you’re not connecting with your co-workers as well as you might. On a social basis, I mean. I think you could do better, and I’ve come to realize that one of the reasons might be that I haven’t brought you into some of our social circles with enough enthusiasm.”
This was starting to sound like an invitation to join some kind of professional organization, and Clark realized that contacts like those could give him some inside info on how things worked in the city. “That sounds good to me. When would be a good time to—”
Perry stood and pointed the first and second fingers of his left hand at Clark. “Seven o’clock tonight in the conference room. You’ve just got time to go grab a sandwich and hit your bank’s ATM.” He started to walk away.
“Huh? ATM? Perry, what’s this—”
Over his shoulder, Perry called out, “Eduardo’s oldest is in a music school recital and he can’t miss it. We need one more for our regular Monday night poker game.”
Clark felt his eyes bulge. “Poker? Perry, wait a minute! I don’t—”
“Ha! You’re going to tell me you’re not a great player, but so what? No worries, as our Aussie friends say. We’ll teach you as you go along.”
Teach him as they went along? Not this little blue superhero! He didn’t play often, but when he did, he won. A lot. He never used his powers to peek at the other players’ cards, but he couldn’t help but notice things like elevated or depressed heart rate and blood pressure, skin temperature and color, changes in breathing patterns, expansion and contraction of the iris, and tension in another person’s voice, all of which are biological indicators that anyone could read. And he could count cards with the best of them in any stud or blackjack hand.
He looked through the open door of the conference room and saw Lois mouth to her other partner, “Perry’s recruiting Clark for tonight’s game. We got some fresh meat.”
“Straight outta Kansas.” Catharine grinned back and quietly added, “Mama needs some new shoes, baby!”
They were looking for fresh meat? Well, this fresh meat was going to make a meal out of them. And if anyone got new shoes tonight, it would be Clark.
*****
Cat smiled at Clark as he held Lois’ seat back for her. Except for Jimmy, who was occasionally smiled upon by the poker fairy godmother, the other players played the other players and not the cards. She’d bet the first pot that Clark was Jimmy’s kind of player.
Perry started the deal. “Okay, people, this hand is plain old draw poker, pair of jacks or better to open. White chips are a quarter, red ones are a dollar, green are five, blue are ten. Ante up a white chip if you’re playing the next hand. If no one can open, ante up again, discard one, and get one off the top. If no one can open after the second ante, the pot rides, we re-shuffle and re-deal. Table stakes, but IOUs can be used with the approval of all the players still in the hand. Got it?”
Everyone nodded. “Okay, I think the only two players who haven’t met yet are Clark Kent, the Planet’s resident rookie, and Mayson Drake, Metropolis’ own district attorney, so let’s keep it legal. We’re on a first-name basis around this table. You two shake hands and come out betting.”
Clark put out his hand. Mayson stared at it for a long moment, then took it in what Cat knew from experience was a surprisingly strong grip. “Glad to meet you, Clark. Some of these borderline reprobates call me the Great White Shark.”
He smiled at her. “Really? They told me you were more like Atilla the Hun.”
Mayson hesitated, then took her hand back. “You look like you belong in a haystack but you talk like you’ve got some chutzpah. I’ll know soon enough.”
Clark gave her that butter-won’t-melt-in-his-mouth smile and tossed in a white chip. Cat laughed silently. The man was due a comeuppance.
*****
Forty-five minutes later, Cat had decided to leave Clark alone and go after Mayson, Lois, and Perry.
For the first thirty minutes or so, Clark had folded easily, lost regularly, and taken only one small pot that Jimmy had tried to bluff him out of. Then, suddenly, he’d turned completely around and started snapping at the money on the table as if it were a pod of seals and he were a killer whale. If this kept up, he’d earn the nickname “Orca” in no time.
Cat sat out three hands in the second hour with a Coke or the “need” for a bathroom break. Clark gave her a firm glare when she opted out of the third hand but didn’t say anything.
She’d started to suspect that he was peeking at the cards using his vision gizmo – Lois’ catch-all term for Superman’s enhanced visual abilities – but if Clark were Metropolis’ new superhero, he wasn’t reading the cards. She would have seen that. And she strongly suspected that Superman’s ethics didn’t allow him to cheat that way. He’d lost a sizable pot to Mayson that obviously surprised him. Seemed he’d tried to bluff her and she’d called.
He wasn’t reading their cards. He wasn’t bottom-dealing. He wasn’t switching cards.
He was reading the other players, though, she realized, and doing it quite well.
That first twenty minutes or so had been spent learning everyone’s tells, something Perry did naturally and which Mayson the attorney had learned how to do professionally. It was also something both she and Lois could do, although neither was as consistent as Mayson.
And apparently none of them were as good at it as Clark obviously was.
He wasn’t as good as Lois was with wild cards, though. On Lois’ second deal, after Clark switched from passive loser to ravenous winner, she shuffled and called out, “Okay, 7-card stud, ace high-low, first and last cards down, one-eyed Jacks and deuces wild. Real card beats wild if they’re the same value, and you have to have a natural in your hand to use a wild one. Unmatched wild cards are face value. So you can’t just claim five aces with one natural ace and four wilds. Best you can do with that hand is a pair of aces plus the face values of the other three wilds. Any questions? Good. Open from the dealer’s left and go around the table. Mayson, it’s your cut.”
Mayson tapped the deck once and said, “They’re fine like that, especially since we’re playing kiddie rules.”
The Coke bottle in Cat’s hand stopped halfway to her mouth. It wasn’t a good idea to talk trash with Lois Lane.
But Lois just asked, “Perry, are the cuss jar rules still in effect, even after normal hours?”
Perry nodded slowly. “Without question.”
Lois turned back to Mayson. “Then let’s just play cards – sweetheart.”
Lois took that hand with two wild cards and three kings – a non-Vegas approved hand of five kings. Only one ace showed up, and no one else had more than a full house.
Clark pulled a card from the discard stack and acted like he was checking it for markings. “This must be the deck I was playing with the day Bureau 39 showed up.”
Mayson frowned across the table at him. “What makes you say that?”
“That deck was already confused, and Lois’ wild cards just make it dizzier.”
To everyone’s surprise, Lois chuckled. “As long as I win, Kansas, I don’t care if they’re hypnotized.”
The last hand of the night was straight five-card stud, no wild cards, Perry dealing. When everyone had their cards, Clark showed a pair of red deuces and a pair of black treys. Jimmy had a ten-high nothing and folded – Lady Luck had not sat down with him and he was tapped out. Perry showed a pair of nines and nothing else, and Lois folded with a jack-high nothing on the table. Mayson’s hand showed two aces, the five of clubs, and the eight of spades with an unknown hole card, and Cat showed two black queens along with the seven and ten of hearts. Her hole card was the six of spades, so a bluff was her only hope.
Given the skill level both Mayson and Clark had showed, it was a pretty thin hope.
Perry folded, saying, “I was about forty years old when I quit beating my head against the wall. I’m not starting again tonight.”
Mayson gave out that predatory grin she loved to show. “Cat, it’s just you, me, and Clark now. The bet is five bucks to you.”
Cat’s hand hovered over her pile of chips for a moment, then she turned her cards over. “Fold. I’m just barely breaking even, and I kind of want to watch you and Clark go at it.”
Mayson chortled evilly and said, “The bet is five bucks to Clark.”
He smiled and softly said, “I’ll see your five and raise you ten.”
Mayson stared at his eyes, then said, “You’re trying to bluff me. I’ll see your ten and raise another ten.”
“I won’t tell you that I don’t bluff because you know that’s not true,” he replied. “But I will see your ten and raise – oh, another ten would be nice.”
Mayson looked at Clark’s pile of chips, then at her own. “We could both go all in, but I wouldn’t want you to have to take your meals from the donut cart. I’ll see your ten and raise you twenty.”
It got quiet around the table. Clark played with his chips for a moment, then said, “My bank is slightly bigger than yours, so I could raise you again and bankrupt you or force you to fold.” He picked up a pair of blue chips and tossed them in. “But I don’t play that way, and you’ll need bus fare to get to work next week. Call.”
Mayson’s predatory grin showed her molars as she turned over her hole card, the ace of spades. “Three aces. I think that beats your measly two pair.”
Clark nodded as she reached out to rake in the pot. “It would – except I don’t have two pair.” He turned over his hole card to reveal the two of clubs. “I think I win this hand.”
Mayson froze for a long moment, then laughed. “Full house, deuces over treys! Whoever heard of that hand winning anything?”
Clark tossed each player a red chip. “People, thank you for a most instructive and entertaining evening. We’ll have to do this again some time.”
Still chuckling, Mayson said, “How about next time we play a game requiring real skill? Like Monopoly?”
Cat breathed a sigh of relief. Mayson wasn’t always a gracious loser. Maybe she, too, thought highly of Clark. Maybe she thought that taking offense at losing to him would be a bad start to a relationship. She was several years older than Cat, so she’d really be playing the cougar role, but she wasn’t over the hill yet.
Of course, neither Cat nor Lois would sit still for that kind of play from Mayson. It wouldn’t be according to Hoyle.
*****
Clark got home in time to see the second half kickoff of the replay he’d wanted to see, and after changing into just a pair of exercise shorts, he watched himself run the kick back for a touchdown. He’d seen the play a number of times before during coaches’ review sessions, but it was the first time he’d noticed that one of the guys on the kicking team was blocked below the waist from behind, a penalty the officials had missed. The flag that wasn’t thrown would have nullified his score. It was the first time he’d seen this contest on TV, and somehow it felt unnatural, almost as if he were peeking into someone else’s past life. It was just too weird, and for some reason he felt uncomfortable in his own home.
It was as if he were chewing something really nasty, and the longer he watched the nastier his mouth tasted. He turned off the game and stood up to go to bed instead.
Then someone knocked on his door.
He pulled an old jersey over his head and peeked through the door outside.
Great. Catharine and Lois were both there. At least they weren’t sniping at each other. But he was in no mood to entertain them this evening. If Lois had been alone, yes, probably, but not both of them together.
If whatever they wanted wasn’t work-related, he’d get rid of them as fast as he could.
He opened the door and shook his head when he saw them. “Okay, what’s going on? Have I got a target painted on my back or what?”
Lois crossed her arms as she strolled in and almost smiled. For a moment, Catharine looked startled at his attitude, then she moved to one side and closed the door. “We have a question for you.”
He nodded and sighed. “Of course you do.” He swept one arm at the middle of the room. “Would you like something to drink, either of you? I believe I can brew up some coffee, or I can offer you ice water, iced tea, or cream soda. What’s your pleasure?”
Lois led the pair to Clark’s couch and took the near end as Cat scampered to the far end and flopped down. Clark stood in front of them, almost touching the table with his calves. He crossed his arms and faced them both.
“I guess you’re not thirsty. So what’s this big important question you have for me?”
Lois leaned her elbows on her knees and finished her smile. “Cat says she did some digging on your college football career. She says you played free safety for KU in the Sun Bowl six years ago and returned the second half kickoff for a score. She also says you intercepted three passes in that half, ran one back for another touchdown, and almost won the game all by yourself. That true?”
He leaned closer to them. “You came over at this hour to ask me about a six-year-old college football game?” He lifted his hands and turned away. “It’s late, I’m tired, and I was headed to bed when you two beat on my door.” His voice rose in volume. “Don’t we see each other enough at work during the day? Or during the poker game? Or was there some other reason you two showed up at my apartment at eleven-twenty tonight?”
Catharine’s face fell. She was obviously surprised by his pique. Lois, though, was positively angry. She abruptly rose from her seat and said, “I’m sorry we kept you from your slumber, old man! We’ll just leave and let you get your beauty sleep!”
Catharine touched Lois’ shoulder. “Lois, I think—”
Lois spun into a front stance and glared at Cat. “Don’t tell me what you think, you red-headed Jezebel! This was your idea, remember?”
Catharine nodded. “I know. And it wasn’t anywhere near as funny as I thought it would be. I’m sorry I talked you into this. Totally my fault. I’ll meet you at my car, okay?”
Lois seemed surprised at her conciliatory speech, but replied in a calmer tone. “Okay, fine.” She turned to Clark and said, “I’m sorry. I blame it on – on anything I could think of if I could think of it. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Catharine waited until Lois closed the front door, then said, “Clark, I’m really sorry. It’s really my very bad idea, so don’t take it out on her, please. Lois didn’t want to come but I kinda pressured her into it.”
He waved at her dismissively. “I’m sure I’ll laugh about it in a couple of days. It’s just that I anticipated spending time alone tonight, then Perry roped me into that poker game, I tried to watch myself on the replay of the game you asked me about but it felt – icky, somehow, then you two drop in and ask me about the game I was trying to watch but couldn’t. It’s really no one’s fault. Please tell Lois that I’ll apologize to her in the morning.” He took her hands in his. “And let me apologize to you now. I shouldn’t have blown up at the two of you. Neither one of you deserved it.”
Catharine’s soft smile almost made him reconsider his decision not to pursue a relationship with her – almost, but not quite. “I’ll tell her. And then we can chalk this night up to experience.” She took her hands back and made finger quotes as she intoned, “Don’t drop in on Clark Kent this late at night without a really good reason.”
He shared her laugh. “Good night, Catharine. I’ll see you at the office tomorrow.”
“I think we’re to the point in our relationship where you can call me Cat.”
“All right, Cat. Good night, and sleep fast.”
She grinned at him. “Good night, Clark.” She reached out and tweaked his nose. “And we’ll both see Lois, assuming she lets us live.”
*****
When Lois went to work the next morning, she was still bothered by Clark’s reaction from the night before. She hoped they could straighten everything out this morning. So she was surprised when Clark met her as she walked off the elevator. “Lois, please let me apologize for last night. I didn’t react very well to your sudden visit. I’m really sorry I was such a jerk.”
She didn’t smile, but she didn’t frown either. “I understand, Clark. I’m sorry we burst in on you like that. I’ll know better next time.”
His eyes twinkled at her. The sight gave her a warm and fuzzy feeling in her chest. “You have my permission to burst in on me any time,” he said.
This time she grinned. “As long as I’m alone, right?” He nodded, and she touched his hand briefly. “Staff meeting in ten minutes, okay? We’ll talk later.”
He nodded again and turned to go to his desk. She watched him move, thinking that there were many less pleasant ways to be greeted at work.
She could get used to this.
*****
The Tuesday morning staff meeting arrived with the usual fanfare. Perry handed out assignments, checked on the progress of unfinished stories, and made sarcastic, aggressive, or encouraging comments as he deemed proper to the staff during the meeting. Lois knocked on his office door as soon as the meeting broke up to check with him about the veteran’s session that night. She hoped she could explain why she wanted Clark with her. She wasn’t sure she herself understood.
He waved her in as he punched in numbers to an inside line. “Hang on a second, Lois. Be with you as soon – Benton? Oh, sorry, Booth. Perry White here. I need you to tell Benton that there’s a meeting this afternoon at three he has to attend. That’s right, three o’clock. He’ll find out what it’s about when he gets there. No, it’s on the top floor, Mr. Stern’s office. No. Stern knows he works with the presses, so he doesn’t have to worry about the ink on his shirt, he just needs to be there on time. Good. And also tell him that if he skips this meeting, his next emergency will be at the unemployment office. No, that’s from Mr. Stern. Just tell him, okay? You should be there too, assuming no problems in the print room. Yeah, see you then.”
He hung up and turned to Lois. “What do you need from me, honey?”
Her mouth worked but no sound came out on the first try. The second time, she managed to say, “Perry, there’s a voluntary therapy meeting tonight at seven and I want to take Clark with me so can he and I get loose a little early and grab a bite to eat before we go?”
He blinked as if processing her run-on sentence, then nodded. “Assuming we don’t have any screaming emergencies, sure. I gave you and Cat and Clark the investigation into the state comptroller’s office, didn’t I?”
“Yes, and you know how those things go. It’ll take until Friday, at least, to get anything concrete out of those people, then we’ll have to verify it which will take until Wednesday of next week, then we’ll need to poke around in the other avenues we don’t know about yet, and I guess we’ll need something else to occupy our dead time.”
He grinned. “You three get started on that story. You and Clark can take off at five-thirty, and I’ll let you tell Cat that you’re leaving her here to hold the fort.”
She gave him the meanest friendly look she had. “Gee, thanks, boss. I guess you remember that Cat still hasn’t been de-clawed.”
*****
As Lois made her way to Cat’s desk, she glanced at Clark’s workstation and noted that it hadn’t been powered on yet. He must have found something else to take care of after the staff meeting. As she got closer to Cat, the redhead blew out a raspberry as Jimmy walked away from her desk and dropped her face into her hands.
He met Lois’ eyes with his and shook his head slightly. As he hurried off on some other errand, Lois softly asked, “Bad news, Red?”
“Huh? Good morning, Lois, Clark and I both want to apologize again for last night, and the news isn’t bad, it’s just useless.”
Lois perched on the edge of her friend’s desk. “I’ve already talked with Clark. Everything’s fine as far as I’m concerned.” She gestured at the folder Jimmy had given her. “What useless thing did you find out?”
Cat leaned back and stretched, causing Sean Lombard in sports to have a coughing fit, one she didn’t appear to notice. “I just talked to Lieutenant Perkins with the bomb squad. The police finally got the chemical analysis back on the C4 in the Carlin building bomb. It appears to be from a munitions plant in eastern Kazakhstan, but the chemical signature doesn’t quite match, so we can’t use that in the follow-up article. All we can say is that it might have been mixed from two or more different sources.”
Cat gripped her keyboard as if she were trying to snap it in two, then dropped it on her desk. “The detonator was cannibalized from parts in one or more burner cell phones. They don’t know how long the C4 has been in-country, the phones they’ve identified are unregistered, and they were used only for that one call."
She slapped the keyboard and popped the “backspace” key off. “The blasting cap was a generic one usually used to set off dynamite charges in construction or demolition sites or in strip mining. They didn’t recover enough leftover bits of the cap to get a manufacturing code or even a country of origin, and they can’t match it to a theft or illegal import. The only lead they have – and it’s thin – is that somebody had mad skills building that bomb, and unless he or she makes a serious mistake we’ll never find that somebody.” She picked up a pencil and held it for a long moment before snapping it in two. “Crap, this is frustrating! All that waiting and we got nothing!”
Lois waited for Cat to grab the reins of her temper. Cat finally looked up at her and said, “I’m sorry, Lois. Was there something else you needed?”
“Um – yeah, there is. Clark and I are leaving a little early tonight, work permitting. I’m going to a – a meeting.”
Cat tilted her head slightly. “For your therapy sessions?”
“Yes.”
“About the PTSD?”
Lois hesitated, then nodded. “Yes.”
Cat smiled thinly. “Good. I’m glad you’re going.”
Lois let out a long breath. “I – um – I have to admit that I thought you’d be upset. At least a little bit, anyway.”
“No. I wish I were the one going with you, Louise, but the important thing is that you go, not that you go with me.”
Lois grinned back. “Thanks, Thelma. After all, if it doesn’t work out, you can always buy that red T-bird you’ve been looking at.”
Cat returned an amused frown. “If all we’re gonna do is shoot Brad Pitt and drive the car off the edge of the Grand Canyon, I’ll just steal one.”
*****
Clark got out of the Jeep’s passenger seat and waited for Lois at the front bumper. The signs pointed the way into the small church’s fellowship hall, so he knew they wouldn’t get lost inside.
Lois stopped beside Clark and grabbed his elbow tightly enough to hurt a normal man. “Uh, Lois, can you let some blood flow back to my forearm?”
She eased her grip but didn’t release him. “Sorry,” she whispered. “Well, I – I guess we better go in, huh?”
“Only if you really want to. I’m not going to force you or point a weapon at you to get you to walk through the door.”
Her eyes widened in realization. “Oh! Speaking of that—” she glanced around, then slipped her hand into her purse and handed her pistol to Clark “—I’d appreciate it if you’d hang on to this while we’re inside. I’m guessing the other participants would appreciate it too.”
Without changing expression, he dropped the magazine into his left hand and put it in his pocket, then worked the slide, ejected the round in the chamber, caught it with his left hand, put it with the magazine, and made the pistol disappear his other front pants pockets. “Done. Shall we enter?”
She paused to reflect on his excellent manual dexterity, then took a deep breath and let it out quickly. “Might as well. We’ve come this far.”
*****
It was time to begin the meeting. Dana Friskin looked around the room – no Lois Lane. She was more than a little disappointed. Whether or not she realized it, Lois needed to see and hear and talk to some other vets who’d been through the same type of experiences she had.
She glanced at the introductory remarks printed on the notecard in her hand again, despite having already memorized them. So she almost missed the door opening and Ben Hector greeting a newly arrived couple. It wasn’t until Ben asked the newcomers their names that Dana’s heart did cartwheels.
“I – I’m Lois.”
“Hi. My name’s Clark.”
“Hi, Clark, hi, Lois. My name’s Ben. Come in and find a seat anywhere. We’re about to start.”
Clark stopped them. “Before we get too comfy, Ben, I need to tell you that Lois is a vet but I’m not. I’m here for her, but if anyone is really upset with my being here, I’m willing to wait outside in the car.”
Dana could see Ben’s broad smile from her seat. “We already have three or four non-vets here tonight. One of us will mention your civilian status before we get started, but I doubt that’ll be a problem. And thank you for mentioning it.”
Lois’ sigh of relief was audible halfway across the room. This would be hard for her, Dana knew, but there was no shortcut to mental health. Sometimes you just had to walk through the minefields and hope you weren’t blown up too badly.
*****
As soon as they found two seats together in the circle of chairs, Lois grabbed Clark’s hand and tried to crush it. Every nerve ending in her body was yelling at her to run fast, run far, and hide well. He slowly moved his head into her line of sight and whispered, “I’m right here, Lois. I’ll be here as long as you want me to be. I’m not going anywhere.”
She turned what she knew were wide, panicky bunny eyes to his and locked on to him. After a long moment, her breathing eased a bit and she relaxed ever so slightly. Then she offered him a shy smile and tucked her hair behind her ears with her other hand. “Thank you, Clark. You – you’re a good man.”
“You make it easy. Wups, I think we’re starting.”
Dana stood in the open part of the semi-circle of chairs and said, “Okay, this therapy session is about to begin. I think we’ve got some new folks tonight, and if they choose to do so, they’ll introduce themselves in a few minutes.
“First, let’s cover some familiar ground. Most of you know that up until the American Civil War, there was very little occurrence of anything like PTSD on the battlefield – or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – because armies would just march up to one another, fight using bladed weapons or slow-firing muskets, then one army would back away and cede the battleground to the other. A soldier would train, equip, and prepare for a battle for weeks, then fight for maybe a couple of hours, maybe a full day. Then the cycle would repeat itself. The break between battles allowed almost everyone to recover from the shock of close combat. Plus there weren’t a lot of wounded survivors in those armies.
“There were some notable exceptions, of course, but the Civil War was the first time that so many soldiers on each side broke under the stress of continuous combat and being under fire for consecutive days instead of just an hour or two. The Confederates didn’t do much for their damaged vets because they had so few reserves and couldn’t rotate either individual soldiers or complete units out of the combat area. If a man could carry a rifle and march, he did it.
“The Union, though, had enough reserves and sufficient nursing care to give this phenomenon a name. They called it ‘soldier’s heart’ to indicate a man who’d taken as much combat as he could handle and then had seen more without enough down time between bouts of fighting. The only treatment they had was rest and quiet, but it worked well enough to keep using it on the sufferers.
“World War One accelerated the frequency of diagnosis of PTSD, although the British often called it ‘nostalgia’ or ‘railway spine.’ The latter name was often used for civilians like Charles Dickens, who displayed these symptoms after being in a railroad accident. Americans often called it ‘shell shock’ or ‘war neuroses.’ In World War Two, the US military sometimes called it ‘battle fatigue’ or, among the guys who fired rifles at the enemy, ‘the thousand-yard stare’.”
“I knew a couple of guys who had that look,” whispered Lois. “You didn’t want to be on a patrol with them.”
He nodded back without saying anything.
“Now we call it PTSD,” Dana continued. “But whatever it’s called, whatever symptoms show up, it interferes with your life on a daily basis.”
“Or your loved ones’ lives,” a thin blonde woman on the front row blurted out. Then she looked around and hunched down in her chair. “Sorry,” she muttered.
“That’s okay, Cindy. Do you have something you want to share?”
The young blonde stiffened. “Do I have to?”
“Of course not. You don’t have to do anything that makes you uncomfortable.”
Cindy wrapped her arms around herself and tried not to cry. Everyone held still for a moment, then to everyone’s surprise – including her own – Lois moved to the chair beside Cindy and wrapped her arms around the quietly weeping woman. Lois lifted her head and said, “It’s my first time here. Hope I’m not stepping in where I shouldn’t.”
Dana smiled and shook her head. “You’re doing fine, Lois. Do you have something you want to share with the group?”
Lois looked at Clark, who said, “We want everyone to know that I’m not a vet, and if anyone is really uncomfortable with that, I’ll step outside.”
Dana snapped her fingers to get everyone’s attention. “Clark is here with Lois as a friend. Unless they’ve eloped in the last few days, they aren’t married—” she waited while a chuckle flowed across the room “—nor, to my knowledge, are they significant others, and he’s made this offer on his own. If anyone is uncomfortable, I understand, but remember that he’s here to support Lois, who might not be here tonight if not for him. Clark knows that what is said here or happens here stays here. Right, Clark?”
He smiled that disarming smile again. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Okay. Anyone uncomfortable with Clark being here with Lois?” A short man with floppy brown hair lifted his hand from the back row. “Yes, Mickey?”
“What does Clark do for a day job?”
Before Dana could speak, Clark turned and said, “Doesn’t matter. If I weren’t here for Lois, I wouldn’t be here at all. If anyone talks about this meeting to anyone on the outside, it won’t be me.”
Lois was less surprised at the sudden steel in Clark’s voice than the rest. After a moment, she turned back and smiled at Cindy, who took Lois’ hand and clasped it to her chest. “Cindy?” whispered Lois. “Anything you want to say?” The woman – little more than a girl, actually – opened her mouth as if searching for words. Lois pulled their joined hands back to her own chest and quietly said, “Why don’t you just tell me about it?”
Cindy freed one hand and wiped her eyes, then nodded at Lois. “Sean and I – we got married just five weeks before he deployed – he was gone almost a year – and when he came back it wasn’t him. I couldn’t touch him while he was asleep and – and he started drinking and now he – he gets furious for no reason and one morning I woke him up and he punched me right here—” she touched the middle of her left eyebrow “—and then he – he gave me this scar.”
Cindy touched a small depression on the skin covering the orbital bone around her right eye. “I bled a lot and he took me – took me to a clinic where they sewed me up and threatened to have him arrested and Sean would have hit the doctor if I hadn’t held his arm and then he cried and told me he was sorry and he loved me and he took me home and left and I – I haven’t seen him in four months.”
She broke down again and Lois could barely understand her next words through her tears. “I don’t know where he is! I just want him back! I want my husband back! He loves me and I love him! Every time I look in the mirror I see my eye and I know how much pain he’s in! Please! Oh, please help me!”
Cindy wrapped her arms around Lois again and wailed. After a moment, Ben and a woman Lois didn’t know appeared beside Cindy and gently helped her out of the room.
When they were gone, Dana knelt beside Lois and hugged her. “You did great, Lois. You deserve another medal.”
Lois shook her head. “No, I don’t. I just – I think I understand some of what Sean is going through, wherever he is.”
“I know. Is there something you want to share with the group?”
Lois caught Dana’s eyes with her own and slowly nodded. “Yes.” Then she stood and walked back to her original seat beside Clark. “But I’m going to do it from this chair.”
Dana grinned as another chuckle ran its course. “Whenever you’re ready, Lois.”
Clark stood and helped her sit. She fidgeted for a moment before speaking. “My name is Lois. I was in the Middle East, one of the first combat infantry women in the theater. On my last mission, I got shot in the leg and now I’m separated from the Army on a partial disability pension. I saw some of my – my buddies die in combat. And I know I killed some indigenous personnel.” She bent over for a moment, then sat up again. “Indigenous personnel. Some euphemism, huh? Makes them seem less human somehow.” She rubbed her hand across her face. “Doesn’t matter that they were shooting at me.”
She grabbed for Clark’s hand again. “Sometimes I dream about those actions. The worst dreams are when those live-fire actions get all jumbled up together in my dreams and I’m edgy all day. Kind of like Sean. And I don’t drink or take drugs but I – I always carry a weapon with me.”
Dana’s eyes widened, along with those of about half the room. “Lois? Are you armed now?”
Lois shook her head. “No. My Beretta is unloaded, and Clark’s holding it for me. I don’t think I could take it from him if I wanted to, either. He’s pretty strong.” She gave him a thin smile. “And quietly determined.”
She basked in his return smile for a moment, then looked back at Dana. “Anyway, I’ve finally realized that I need more help than I’ve been getting. I’m not a danger to random passers-by, but I don’t – I don’t relate to people in general very well.” She closed her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. “I woke up from one of those bad dreams and pulled my weapon on my best friend a few months ago because she startled me and she thought I was going to shoot her.” Her eyes opened and liquid sneaked out. “I never told her how close I was to pulling the trigger.” A soft sob escaped. “I think I would have shot myself if I’d put a bullet in her.” Her fists clenched and her eyes closed again. “I – I need help! Can you help me?”
Almost on its own, her body turned toward Clark and fell into him. His arms encircled her and he gently embraced her with just the right amount of pressure. His hand came up behind her and stroked her hair.
He might never be her husband, her lover, or even a boyfriend, but he was a rock she could hold to, a friend she could depend on every minute of every day. Somehow she knew he’d take on a battalion of heavy tanks for her, that he’d lay down his life for her if the moment of decision came for him.
And she trusted him with her own life.
Dana knelt beside her again and took her hand. “You’ll get through this, Lois. I really believe you’ll be okay.”
Lois knew she’d be okay as long as she was enveloped in Clark’s gently powerful embrace. All she needed to do now was to tell him how much he meant to her.
That task might take more courage than she’d ever had.
