Third Person - Complete

No Fear

Roberts sat in the passenger seat next to Carol, staring out the window as the car went by houses. There was a song on the radio that Roberts didn't recognize and Carol was talking about how she'd met the people who were hosting the party they were going to.

Roberts wasn't paying attention to any of it, instead staring at the houses.

They looked strange. Roberts didn't know why, but the houses looked off somehow. Like a Hollywood set where it looked fine from the front but the houses weren't real, the shapes inside the windows weren't real, and if he looked at everything from the right angle he'd be able to see that there was nothing real around him.

I want to go home to Atlas, to my barracks room. I wanna watch Patch drink and work on doctrine, protocol, and Atlas SOP, Roberts thought to himself.

He suddenly remembered that Patch had put a stuffed animal in his suitcase. An earth toned little rabbit with floppy ears.

Flopsy. I'll call it Flopsy and he can sleep on my bed and keep an eye on my stuff while I'm gone, Roberts thought.

"Everyone's excited at the thought of meeting you, Jamie," Carol was saying. Roberts turned and looked at her. Roberts frowned when he realized she was wearing his class ring on the hand she was using to steer. Her right hand was holding onto his left.

"Some of them you'll remember from high school, like Lawrence, Connie, Bart, and Leanne. The rest are from community college," Carol smiled.

It looked to Roberts like she was pretending to feel something, like the emotions only were on the surface and not any deeper.

"You started wearing my ring again," Roberts said.

Carol suppressed a frown. She didn't like the way Jamie looked at her. Like he was looking through her at something only he could see. His voice bothered her too. Distant, like he was distracted or wasn't interested in actually talking to her.

He's in the Army, she thought, He's probably just staying detached.

"Of course I am. We were just taking a little break," Carol said. She gave him a quick smile. He'd always liked her smile. "Now that we're back together of course I'm going to wear it."

Roberts nodded, staying silent.

The car bumped over the railroad tracks and Roberts stifled a moan of pain. It wasn't the deep burning agony it had been, more of a sharp twinge, but he still had to restrain a gasp.

Patch lives with the pain, so can I. I'm injured, but it just hurts, Roberts thought to himself.

For a moment he could remember the deep burning pain as the bullets, fired by the Soviet troops that had survived being raked by the M-60, hit him in the back and exited his chest in a spray of blood. How he'd kept running, even as he started coughing up blood. He could remember Taggart telling him only a few more meters, only a few more steps as he lurched along, his left arm over her thick shoulders.

"Jamie?" Carol asked, stopping at the light.

"What?" Roberts asked, facing back out the window.

"Are you all right?" Carol asked him.

"Just... tired, I guess," Roberts said, staring out the window.

"You'll feel better once we get to the party," Carol smiled. "It's Saturday night and Reggie throws the best parties. Archie said he's going to get the beer, so it should be a good time."

Are Betty and Veronica going to be there? Roberts thought for a moment. He pushed the thought away, staring out the window. I wonder if Cromwell and Stokes went to the club? I should have taken Patch up on one of the offers to go to the club, see what it's like.