Off Base (Out of Uniform 1)

Professor Hu gathered him into a swift hug. “We’re family here, Pike. Don’t forget it.”

Pike nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

“And that boy cares about you. Don’t let anyone take that away from you.”

“I won’t.” I hope. He hurried to his car in the faculty lot, heading to the sprawling Naval Medical complex, which encompassed many different buildings and clinics and a confusing array of parking options. He accidentally parked a long way from the main hospital where Zack was, but he used the long walk to try to calm himself, not that it worked.

Following Ryan’s directions, he finally reached the post-surgical floor. He paused outside Zack’s room, taking a breath.

“Look, here’s texts from Leslie and Paster Wooten. The whole congregation is praying for you.” A woman’s voice carried out to the hall.

Flattening himself against the wall, Pike peeked in. A curtain blocked Zack from view, but two middle-aged adults huddled near the bed. The man held a worn leather book in his hand, and the woman’s eyes and cheeks were pink, like she’d been crying. She held out a phone and a pale but muscular hand covered in tape and IVs reached out for it.

Zack. Pike had to shut his eyes against the rush of emotion that swamped him.

“That was nice of them.” Zack’s voice was high and thready and didn’t sound like the man Pike knew. “Tell them thank you. Leslie’s always...so sweet.”

Fuck. I can’t go in there. It hit Pike like the wet slap of an ocean wave he wasn’t expecting, knocking him flat, making him hang on to the wall for balance, grief threatening to pull him under. He stumbled to a waiting area at the end of the hall. I really can’t go in there.

He’d thought he could. Thought he could come here, be the casual friend who happened to stop by, not even mention the roommate thing if Zack didn’t. But he couldn’t. No way could he go in there. His feelings for Zack would be all over his face. He couldn’t not reach for him, not touch him. And if Zack was going to continue to play it straight, pretending interest in some girl...

Well, Pike’s heart just wasn’t strong enough for that.

I love him. The knowledge had been building slowly for weeks, but now, seeing Zack laid low like this, being so close and yet so far away, he couldn’t deny his feelings. And that love would be transparent if he ran in there like his heart and feet demanded. And he couldn’t do that to Zack, couldn’t be the one to out him to people Zack loved and cared about.

Pike hunkered down in his seat. All he could do was the one thing he hated more than anything in the world—wait.

* * *

Zack hurt. He’d broken his leg in a nasty parachuting accident during jump training, so he knew pain, but this hurt was something different, a deep cellular-level ache where even his fingernails hurt, and the drugs they were pumping him full of couldn’t touch the pain. He didn’t remember much after telling Harper he was sick. A brief vision of Morrison screaming for a chopper. Waking up in a strange hospital room, hot and miserable but not able to stay awake. Hurting. Being prepped for transport. A nice medic talking to him in a Southern accent. Waking up here, still hurting. Doctors talking in hushed tones. More hurting.

Then today, waking up, more alert, his parents there, crying over him because apparently he’d almost died a couple of times over. That was hard to wrap his head around so he just flat-out didn’t try. Trying to keep up a conversation was hard, so he did a lot of nodding.

And through it all, he wanted Pike. He’d had one or both parents in there all day, even when he drifted off for a bit, and it was killing him, not knowing where Pike was, if he even knew Zack was sick. He needed him here and he wasn’t and that was its own level of pain.

“You should go eat,” he urged his parents after one of the nurses left from checking his vitals. His voice still sounded strange to him, hoarse and high at the same time. The nurse had told him he might get food tomorrow, alerting him to the fact that he hadn’t seen his folks eat. “Really. I’m tired again.”

“Tired? Do you feel hot?” His mother hovered over him, her hand cool on his forehead.

“No fever. The nurse said my temperature is normal. I’m okay, I promise.” Actually, he was dying. Dying to contact Pike, to hear his voice, to know he was okay.

“Joe? What do you think?” As always she deferred to his father. “Are you hungry?”

“I could eat.” His father stretched in the chair he’d occupied most of the day. “And so should you. It’s late back home. We can come back after we eat in the cafeteria.”