Chapter Text
“Your eyes are stunning.” Cruz tells the angel that has Aaliyah’s face.
“Thank you, please, just lift your leg a little?” She asks Cruz.
“I’ve seen postcards with clear, tropical waters, and they don’t compare to your eyes.” Cruz admits and she sees the way the other woman blushes.
Cruz smiles to herself. She likes the way Aaliyah smiles. It makes the whole room feel brighter.
“Thank you. I like your smile too.” Aaliyah tells her. As if she could read Cruz’s mind. Then again, she is an angel. Maybe that’s something only angels can do and not Aaliyah.
Cruz can feel her body go cold from this thought. Even while in heaven, she can feel herself sweat.
She’s nervous.
The real Aaliyah wouldn’t have known how much Cruz liked her right? She wouldn’t have been able to read her thoughts… she wouldn’t know how much Cruz’s hands itched to push Aaliyah’s hair back behind her ears. The way Aaliyah would often do when they were talking… would she?
She steals a glance towards Aaliyah.
It’s a mistake.
It only makes Cruz want to kiss her.
“I also want to kiss you, but I think now might not be the right time.” Is all Aaliyah tells her.
Cruz wonders when the right time will be. She’s already in heaven. How much more time would she need?
“You’re not dead.” Aaliyah answers in that cute, exasperated way that seems reserved only for her.
Aaliyah smiles softly at her. “Thanks. I’m glad you think it’s cute whenever you get on my nerves.”
Cruz is suddenly tired and her body feels weird.
“Can you tell me what feels weird?” Aaliyah asks. Smiling nervously as she wipes her forehead with the back of her forearm.
Her hands are a deep red, still slick with blood.
“Woah, who got injured?” Cruz asks before looking around.
Heaven looks suspiciously like the middle of the fucking desert at night.
Cruz tries to shift. For a second, she’s 16 again and she swallowed too much air while running. Her side hurts whenever she breathes in too deep. It’s beneath her ribcage.
Cruz reaches up. Trying to find the source of pain.
The tips of her gloves catch on something.
It’s sharp.
With jagged edges.
Cruz feels around and by the time she hears Aaliyah’s panicked “no,” it’s already too late.
She pulls something that was lodged inside of her and suddenly she feels a rush of dizziness take over.
“I don’t feel so good.” Cruz slurs. Her tongue heavy.
She tries to blink against the darkness behind her eyelids. The kind that makes things feel deflated.
Cruz thinks of the desert. The bright lights when there should have been nothing but darkness. The feeling of panic that is trying to break through her clouded thoughts.
Cruz’s hands feel wet, even through her gloves.
She remembers the first time she saw a man bleed out. How it was made worse by his panic at seeing his own wounds. Cruz knows she shouldn’t but she needs to see.
She has to know.
If Aaliyah is right and she isn’t dead, she needs to know how close she is.
She blinks away the tears she didn’t know managed to slip out of her eyes and she sends out a prayer for Josecito. For her mamá. For the version of herself that always sought out wars because it was all she knew. She hopes they all find peace.
Cruz clenches her teeth and instead of looking down, Aaliyah’s face is there.
She is impossibly close.
Her eyes are so green.
They are tropical pools of sadness so deep that Cruz feels lost.
Cruz almost doesn’t see the hint of panic in them.
She is also distracted by how close Aaliyah is to her.
Cruz doesn’t hear the words at first.
“Don’t look down. Don’t look down.” Aaliyah is repeating and Cruz was never one to shy away from a fight.
She looks down and instead of whatever warm, wet thing she expected to find near her hands. Near Aaliyah’s hands. She’s being kissed.
The pressure in her chest never lets up and Cruz is as elated as she is tired.
She wants.
She wants.
She wants so many things.
But she can’t want things while fighting against the darkness that closes in around her vision.
Cruz reaches up and touches Aaliyah’s face.
The smile she gets isn’t the same as before and Cruz wants to ask about that.
Aaliyah kisses her again and tells her that she’ll be fine.
//
She nods herself awake. Cruz didn’t feel herself fall asleep.
It’s still dark but the familiar sound of radio chatter wakes her.
Aaliyah’s hand, slippery with blood, is on her shoulder. She’s wearing the headset Cruz thought was for her radio.
Cruz doesn’t know what’s happening.
Her body is aching, and she wonders if she lost her hearing again because there’s nothing but silence and a constant clicking that’s coming from behind Aaliyah. Her boys are unusually quiet, and she wonders if they’re still sleeping.
They should be awake by now.
There’s a mission she has to prep them for.
//
//
Aaliyah’s voice filters in and Cruz can’t make sense of it. She’s not speaking in a language she understands. It’s all garbled static.
//
//
Cruz hears the sound of a helicopter drown out the static.
She wakes up and her hands don’t work.
“Aaliyah?” She calls out, confused.
There’s a spotlight blinding her, and she can’t turn away from it. Cruz can’t raise her hands to shield her eyes.
She tries to squint and look away. Aaliyah is there. The light makes it seems like she’s glowing.
It reminds her of the day she died.
No, that’s wrong.
She didn’t die.
It’s right there, on the tip of her tongue. The knowledge that something worse happened to her.
Cruz blinks and the world is darker.
The lights are gone, but she can still see the way Aaliyah’s face is covered in blood. Her neck has red speckles all over.
She’s trying to reach up, to touch Aaliyah. She can’t.
Cruz’s hands still don’t work and the more she struggles, the drowsier she gets.
She blinks again and Aaliyah’s face is slightly different. Now there’s a combination of filth, sweat, and blood running down from the edge of where her helmet meets her head.
Aaliyah’s eyes are huge. Terrified.
Cruz needs to comfort her. Find a way to make this all better.
“Aaliyah.” She groans and her body is so tired.
//
//
Cruz is holding someone close. Her hands are covered in blood and there’s something familiar about the long hair peeking beneath the helmet.
It’s not regulation, to have long hair that’s not tied back.
Her heart speeds up and it sounds like a truck backing up.
The beeping gets louder. Cruz turns over the body in her arms, knowing it’s Aaliyah before even seeing her face.
Aaliyah’s lip is quivering. She is bleeding out and asking Cruz to save her.
There’s no first aid kit. No supplies. It’s just her hands trying to press against a wound she can’t see. One that is deeply hidden. Cruz feels blood coming up from beneath the ill-fitting vest that has the word “press” velcroed on the center of Aaliyah’s chest and she’s shouting for help.
The blood is still rushing past her fingers.
Her hands are useless at applying pressure.
All Cruz can do is try to reassure Aaliyah. Who goes from asking for help to asking the same dumb questions Cruz heard in the mess hall. When all the reporters were flooding the place with their unwelcome presence.
Before she got to know Aaliyah.
“What is war like?”
“What would you tell people back home?”
“How many people have you killed?”
The questions keep repeating and Cruz wants Aaliyah to know all the answers. But her throat hurts from all the shouting.
She can’t say a word.
//
//
Cruz feels like someone is pulling barbed wire out through her throat.
She tries to set her jaw. Bite down. Fight against the feeling of fire coming up her esophagus.
She gets pushed down and told to stop fighting. Except there’s no one else here. It’s just her and the pain.
Aaliyah’s voice is suddenly there, asking what’s wrong. It sounds shrill. Like she’s shouting. Worried. But she’s not here.
She’s not here.
It’s just Cruz.
Fighting and fighting.
Up until the point where she feels like she’s throwing up. Cruz is gasping for air. Then, the darkness overtakes her again.
//
//
There’s a light being shined in her eyes and Cruz is annoyed. She wants to sleep for just a few more minutes.
She swats it away and she hears a tired sigh.
“Pupillary response looks good. She’ll be stable enough to ship back by tomorrow.”
Cruz groans. Her body hurts and she just wants to drink her entire pouch of water so she can get rid of the way her throat feels dry and achy.
She’s also tired.
It feels like she’s been tired for so long that she can’t remember anything else but this feeling of exhaustion.
//
//
Cruz wakes up in pain.
She coughs and suddenly a straw is at her lips.
“Take small sips.” Aaliyah orders. Voice tired.
Cruz tries to do that. But the way her throat aches makes her greedy for more water than she should drink.
She starts coughing.
Choking on gulps that are too big for what her body can handle.
Aaliyah takes the cup away and starts to rub her back.
Cruz closes her eyes and shivers at the way Aaliyah’s fingertips graze bare skin. Peeking out from beneath the ugly hospital robe she’s wearing.
It feels electric. The way Aaliyah is touching her.
Even if she feels gross at not having showered in however many days she’s been here.
Aaliyah’s fingers touch the raised scars left by the extension cord.
If it were anyone else, Cruz would have flinched.
It’s not anyone else.
Aaliyah’s fingers follow the raised skin. Cruz can sense the question behind wandering fingers.
She takes a deep breath. Tries to forget the way her thirst makes her ache for water as she waits for Aaliyah to ask. Everyone asks.
Aaliyah. Aaliyah stays quiet.
“For a reporter, she’s kind of shit at doing her job.” Cruz thinks. Just like when they met, Aaliyah isn’t asking her anything.
She’s not saying anything.
She’s just here, with Cruz.
Her fingers are still tracing the raised skin. A little more confident. Wandering further beneath the edges of the hospital gown. And still, Aaliyah is silent.
Cruz wants to lean back.
Trap Aaliyah’s hand between the pillow and her back. Find a way to keep Aaliyah where she is without having to remember what happened.
Cruz just wants to stay in this feeling of… of anticipation. Just a little longer.
She’s waiting for Aaliyah to ask. But she’s also waiting for something else… For Aaliyah to move. To do more… to kiss her.
Cruz shivers at that thought.
The monitors next to her beep faster. Keeping up with the beating of her heart. The staccato rhythm highlights how her pulse is speeding up because Cruz realizes it wouldn’t be their first kiss.
It’s fuzzy. The details on why she’s here.
Yet, she still remembers Aaliyah’s face being impossibly close and how her lips tasted like sweat and ash.
It reminds her of the empty inside her. The way she ached.
Her hands reach down to find a lump beneath the robe.
Bandages.
Cruz asks Aaliyah what happened. Her voice is raspy.
Aaliyah’s hand stops. Her palm is warm against her back. Cruz lets herself enjoy that feeling. It’s selfish. To give herself this moment. But Aaliyah makes her want so many things she never allowed herself to think about before.
Aaliyah takes a deep breath. She takes her hand back and pushes her hair back behind her ears. She’s biting her lower lip and Cruz is too entranced by this to be disappointed by Aaliyah no longer touching her.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Aaliyah asks. Brows furrowed.
“I was on the ground. Not feeling good?” Cruz says the last part as if it were a question. Trying to get her mind to cut through the haze of missing pieces of what happened.
“And then you kissed me.” Cruz looks at Aaliyah. She wants to know if that was real or if it was part of the weird dreams she experienced while she’d been sleeping here.
Aaliyah laughs nervously at this and pushes her hair back.
Cruz smiles.
At least that much had been true.
Aaliyah takes a deep breath. It makes her shoulders rise and fall in a way that is noticeable. It makes Cruz wary.
Aaliyah half sits on the hospital bed. Facing Cruz. Her face is serious. It makes Cruz feel anxious.
As Aaliyah recounts what happened, Cruz understands why her mind didn’t want her to remember that day.
It was a mess.
Cruz should have protected her boys. She… she should have known better. They were her responsibility and now they were dead. All of them, except for her.
She didn’t know she had been crying until her face is pressed up against Aaliyah’s neck.
There’s so much guilt and pain and sadness that she can’t breathe.
Aaliyah keeps holding her tightly and Cruz thinks that she doesn’t deserve it. This feeling of being comforted. She shouldn’t be held because it’s her fault her entire team died.
An ugly thought crosses her mind. It’s about Kamal. How he cost them precious seconds…
Just as soon as the thought enters her mind, it leaves it.
She doesn’t understand how they were the ones caught unaware during the night raid. Their intelligence shouldn’t have been faulty. No one else knew when they were ready to strike but Pakistani army intelligence and their own chain of command.
There are so many questions swimming inside of her. Cruz starts feeling warm and smiley. There’s something different about the world. It feels like the edges are fuzzy all around her. Cruz starts laughing at that thought.
Aaliyah’s thumb stops pressing down on the button near her bed and Cruz wonders what’s happening.
Aaliyah smiles at Cruz.
Cruz laughs and smiles back.
She feels her body fall backward, landing on happy clouds that look surprisingly like pillows.
Aaliyah laughs. “They are pillows.” She tells Cruz.
Cruz blinks against the heavy feeling and Aaliyah’s lips look so kissable that she could just forget, for a moment, how shitty it is that her friends are dead.
Aaliyah looks conflicted for just a second.
Then she leans in and kisses Cruz.
She’s so surprised that her eyes stay open.
“Wow, you kissed me.” Cruz says, giddy with a happiness that is spreading all over her body.
“I did.” Aaliyah nods.
Cruz mirrors her by nodding. Then she stops. Cruz doesn’t know why she’s nodding.
She remembers Aaliyah kissing her and she smiles. She doesn’t know why it happened but she’s happy about it.
Cruz wants to ask Aaliyah about it. She wonders if Aaliyah kissed her because she was just being friendly… or if she could possibly like like Cruz.
Aaliyah sighs, rolls her eyes in such an exaggerated manner that it makes Cruz smile. Then she kisses Cruz again.
Aaliyah leans back a little, hands still on her face, and she tells Cruz the truth. “I kissed you because I like you. I’ve been flirting with you this entire time.”
Cruz’s mouth drops open. Thinking back to all of their interactions, she had hoped it wasn’t a one-sided attraction. In the end, she just thought that Aaliyah was being nice.
Aaliyah laughs. “Thank you. I am nice. But I didn’t flirt with anyone else to be nice. I flirted with you because I like you.”
Cruz yawns.
She’s trying to fight to stay awake, afraid that Aaliyah will disappear once she’s asleep. She heard about the transfer. She doesn’t want to go back home without at least getting Aaliyah’s number.
“Don’t worry about that. Just get some rest.” Aaliyah tells her and Cruz drifts off.
//
//
Cruz wakes up and the room looks different.
The place feels different too.
The hospital doesn’t have that feeling of urgency that make the people around her feel like they’re constantly running from one emergency to the next.
The nurses are standing around in front of her room, talking about weekend plans. Relaxed. Happy.
Cruz knows she should feel better, but she doesn’t.
The guilt is still there.
They should have lived. It shouldn’t be her, here, safe.
She looks around the room, it’s pretty empty, save for a newspaper next to her bed. Cruz sits up. It’s painful.
She grabs the paper, unfolds it and an envelope lands on her lap.
It has her name on the front. The writing is looping and girlish. The kind that made Cruz feel like she was missing something. Some sort of secret understanding that other girls had. That she lacked.
Even when men paid for her company. When she kept her nails long. Her makeup carefully applied at all times. She felt that she was missing something that made her understand how to be like every other girl.
She tilts the contents to one side and carefully rips the envelope open.
It starts with “Dear Cruz.” She can almost hear Aaliyah’s sweet voice as she reads along.
When she gets to the end, Aaliyah’s name is signed in beautiful cursive.
Cruz smiles. She might never be the type of girl that could write in flowy, girlish letters, but she could be the kind of girl that could keep her safe.
With those thoughts, Cruz looks at the paper again. “The betrayal of American troops by its closest allies” is plastered across the front page. The picture beneath is one she didn’t notice Kamal take. It was when they were up on the roof, after she launched a grenade into the building where all the shooting was coming from.
It might be one of the last pictures of her and her friends that exist.
It makes her sad.
She wonders if their families have this picture. If they have already released the names of the marines that wouldn’t make it back.
Cruz wonders if the feeling of guilt for being the one that got to live, will ever go away.
She knows it won’t.
She’s been through this before.
But it’s so much worse when the boys were her responsibility.
Cruz blinks away at the feeling of sadness that is tight against her chest. That makes her want to cry.
She reads through the article.
Just like Aaliyah’s letter said, the story was about her, but it’s not about her. It’s about her friends, while being bigger than them.
It’s a condemnation on Pakistani army intelligence and a bit on her own chain of command. For sending them in without proper support.
Cruz laughs. Aaliyah doesn’t even know the half of it.
As if she had heard Cruz’s thoughts calling to her, Aaliyah is suddenly there. Knocking at her door.
“Hey.” Aaliyah greets her. Smiling softly while carrying a vase full of red roses.
Cruz is nervous. She’s never gotten flowers.
“Hi.” She answers and waves Aaliyah in.