Sin (The Waite Family) (4 page)

~~~

Cain watched her breathing. In and out, in and out.
He knew that she really had no choice in the matter being hooked up to a
ventilator
,
but it
still gave
him comfort to see her chest rise and fall like it did.
He’d been watching her for over an hour now and he still couldn’t bring himself to look beyond her breathing.
But he
did glance
down at the chart in his hands.

He couldn’t seem to make himself open it either.
It would solve a lot of his questions, but Sin was his baby sister, the baby to them all
,
and to have her looking like this, pale and wrapped up the way she was, it was nearly too much for him.
When the door to her room
opened
then closed,
he
didn’t even turn to see who it was.

“I feel as if I know you.”
David sat in one of the chairs
;
the sound of the air going out of the cushion was loud in the room. “She talked about her family all the time.”

“She told us that you were her friend and that she wouldn’t have gotten this far without
you
saving her bottom a few times.”
Cain looked at his sister’s face.
“I don’t feel much like thanking you for that right now.”

He heard the man snort.
“I don’t like me much for it right now either.
She’s a hell of a girl, but she has a small problem with…let’s just say that I’ve noticed it seems to be a trait in your family to speak your mind
s
.”

Cain smiled
,
remembering his
wife having a word with Commander Welsh just about an hour ago.
She’d torn a strip of hide off the man Cain was sure he’d feel everytime he sat down.
He loved Alyssa more every day.

“What do you mean you ca
n’t do much more for her?
You will do everything in your power to make sure she lives or I will find someone who will.
I’m not going
to have to go
above your head
, am I?
”
Alyssa had been nursing
Connor
and looked very Madonnalike sitting there.

“Yes,
m
a’am. No, ma’am.
That is to say…Captain Waite has a
DNR
.
We can’t go beyond that for her. You understand.”
Welsh wiped the sweat from his brow and looked over at Cain. He just shrugged.
He would let her handle this
. S
he was better at it anyway.

“And that means what to me?”
She lifted the blanket and
adjusted herself.
Cain started to tell her what it meant, but was cut off
by Welsh
.

“It means Do Not Resuscitate. We can’t do anything heroic to—
”

“I’m well aware of what
DNR
means
,
you dolt.
My husband is a top notch physician.”
She
stood now and so did Welsh.
“You will do everything in your power to save my sister or
,
so help me
,
I will have you busted back down to a buck private in three minutes.
Do I make myself clear?”

“We don’t have buck pri…
Yes, ma’am, I will
remove
that from her file as soon as I get back to her room.
And
I will make sure that she has the u
t
most best care that I can…the Navy can give her.”

Commander Welsh
looked as
though
he was going to say something else
,
but left in a big hurry.
Cain had no
doubt
he had not only removed the offending sheet from her file
,
but had made sure that every man and woman on that ship knew that
Sydney
Waite was cared for as if she were the President.

“He crumbled very quickly
,
didn’t he?
Do you think it wise to have a man who would give up so easily in charge of our fighting men and woman
?
” she asked as the door closed behind the
c
ommander.

Cai
n
pulled her into his arms, baby and all.
“I think he thought you were scarier than even the worst
enemy.
You should think about
advising
the President on how to run his army. Might be fun to watch.”

That had been two days ago.
Now Cain was sitting in the room with his sister who was hooked up to every known piece of medical equipment known to man and then some.

“Cain, what if…she’s not going to be able to come back to the service you know.
There was too much…the damage was too much.
They won’t let her come back.”

Cain had figured that. He’d heard a few of the others talking about her retirement.
Cain wasn’t sure how Sin would take it, but he knew it wouldn’t be pretty.
He wasn’t going to tell her either. That wasn’t his job. He glanced over at David.

“Do you know what happened yet?”

David didn’t say anything for a few minutes.
“No, not really. We are looking into it with the u
t
most care.
Whatever the fuck that means
.
I have my own team of people looking into it.
Some
of her own men
,
too
,
are helping me out
.”

Neither man said anything for awhile longer
then
David said he needed to find the
c
ommander. David said he was expecting someone soon.
Cain nodded.

It was time, he knew it.
He opened the file and immediately shut it again.
It took him several more minutes to reopen it and actually begin to read.
After two hours he knew that he would have nightmares about the file
’
s contents for the rest of his life if not beyond.
He sat back in his
chair
and cried.
Then found his wife and cried
some
more.

~
Chapter 3~

Sin watched the men in front of her.
Not one of them had said a word since she’d told them what the doctor had told her. Well…most of what the doctor had told her.
The rest, it was personal.

“But you’ll be back
,
right?”
Harley Johnson was a good man and she loved having him on her team, but there were times, like now
,
that she wondered how he knew to breathe in and out all the time.

“Do you have any brain cells at all in that noggin of yours?
She just said she was mustering out.”
They knocked him around good naturedly
before Shipley whistled.
Silence reigned.

“No, Johnson, I’m…I’m finished.
I’ve been too long in the field anyway and they want someone younger to take over.”
Sin glanced at Ship
ley
. H
er sergeant was the only one who knew the real truth.

Sydney Waite was being Honorably Discharged with full pay and
benefits
.
Hell, even the President had been by to give her a Purple Heart and her Gold Star.
She was
also
up for the Congressional Medal of Honor.
All thanks to the men before her.
Each
and
every one
of them had put in a request to honor her
. E
ven David
Patterson had sent in a less than cordial request.

She smiled when she thought about h
im telling her.
“It’s the least they can flipping do.
Damned
bureaucrats sitting
up there in that flipping office sending you to who knows where to be shot up and then beat to heck and back.
Why
,
if I had an ounce of sense, I’d retire right this
blessed
moment.”
David had been worked up, but not enough to let go with some real cussing. His late wife had asked him not to speak like he lived in a gutter and Sin had only heard him let go of that tight hold once in all the time she’d known him.

“Hopefully she’ll be prettier.
Gotta tell ya, Capt, you look like shit.
I mean
,
for all
that’s
happened…well, you was passable.
Now?
Not so much.
You might have to settle down with ugly old Barnes here now.
I know he ain’t much, but he might’n be all you can count on to take you.
And we all know he ain’t par-tick-u-lar.”
She laughed just as Morgan had wanted her to.

But only a few of them, Shipley being one
,
could see that it didn’t reach her eyes.
The truth was
,
she wished she’d died out there in that field all those months ago and only now was wondering why she hadn’t.