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Sergeant Al Powell might not have spent much of his career out on the streets, but he wasn’t an idiot. He knew what post-traumatic stress disorder looked like, and his new friend John McClane was a freaking billboard for the disease. Every cop knew it, but no one was saying anything, because the new kid on the block in the LAPD was functional, funny, trustworthy and respectable. No one was going to blow the whistle on a guy like that. Everybody knew that PTSD was a career-killer. But they could see it in the permanent dark circles under his eyes, the way he broke out into a sweat anytime they responded to a call in a high-rise building. He was functional, sure, but he wasn’t fine.
It was the worst when the media were involved. The brass loved the attention: Nakatomi hero joins L.A.’s finest – good press for a change, news stories that made it sound like every cop on the beat was a goddamn Rambo. A new feature article would come out, a new TV spot, and the polls would respond: trust in the police, up; respect for law enforcement, up; belief that the justice system works, up. And the brass would smile and congratulate each other and schedule another interview. And John McClane would walk, hollow-eyed and sleepless, through the precinct like a ghost, unable to rest, unable to go home and look his wife in the eyes, grim-faced and white-knuckled. And everybody kept their mouth shut.
Finally, the interest died down, and John became just another cop on the beat, doing his job, protecting the innocent, catching the bad guys. But he still had those shadows under his eyes, and everyone still watched him. It broke Al’s heart, standing on the outside looking in, seeing his friend suffer and watching everyone else observing silently. Some of the guys had sympathetic looks on their faces. A few, old-timers, even had empathetic looks on their faces. And some of them were just wary, watching, waiting for the day the man would finally break, because a cop on the edge was a dangerous man to be around. John knew he was being watched, but he just took it in stride, like he did with everything, winning over the ones he could and ignoring the rest. Day after day went by until the weeks stretched into months, and then the months turned over into a new year and Al woke up gasping for air from a terrible nightmare in which a body fell from the sky and crushed him in his car.
“Al? Honey, you okay?” a sleepy voice that did not belong in that nightmare asked, and Al opened his eyes to see his lovely wife staring down at him, hair all fuzzy around her ears, her brow furrowed in concern. “Babe?”
“Yeah,” he said, finding his voice, sitting up in bed. “Yeah, I’m okay. I just had a bad dream.” She had turned on the light, and in the pale glow he found the nightmare slipping away, replaced by the realization that it had been one year – one year today – since Nakatomi. He pushed the covers off, swinging his legs to the floor.
“Come back to bed, baby. I’ll kiss it better.” His wife was barely awake, her words a little slurred, but she had that come-on smile that said ‘wake me up and it’ll be worth your while’. Damn, a little voice in Al’s head scolded, but he shook his head.
“I gotta go, sweetheart, I’m sorry. Go back to sleep.” He brushed her hair out of her face as she snuggled back down under the covers, and switched off the light. “I love you.” She was already out again. Al spared a moment to smile down on her before sneaking off to the bathroom, clothes in hand, to change where he wouldn’t disturb her.
Twenty minutes later he was on the road, debating where to go. The precinct? John’s house? The pub down on West 12th Street? But it wasn’t really a debate, because in his heart, he knew where John would be. He repressed a shudder as he turned into the drive up, parking his car along the curb. The building was still boarded up; no one quite knew what to do with it. Nakatomi had rebuilt elsewhere, something a bit more modest, using a completely different architect, to reduce the strain of trauma on its own people. They’d sold the land back to the developer, but the developer couldn’t sell the building to save his life, so he was sitting on it because the land was worth a fortune. They wouldn’t destroy the building unless they had a buyer, and no one would buy it as is, so Nakatomi Plaza had lived in a sort of limbo as the months stretched on. Not unlike the man who was currently leaned up against a pillar at the front entrance, lighting one cigarette off of another. He glanced up, his hand automatically moving to the familiar weight of his weapon, but he relaxed immediately when he saw Al’s face peering down at him.
“Hey, partner,” John acknowledged him.
With some difficulty, Al got down on the ground beside him, stretching out his legs. “I had a nightmare,” Al told him.
“Me too.”
They sat in silence for a while, the only sound the soft exhalation of smoke coming from the man beside him. Al regarded him, not even trying to hide his observation. John had lost weight; his cheeks were sunken. His eyes were heavy with exhaustion and his hands were trembling. A faint smile crossed the man’s lips as their eyes met, and then John looked away. For a moment, Al thought about leaving it alone. He knew that after tonight it would be bad for a while again, and then it would calm down for a while again, until something else brought it all back up. He suspected that John could probably keep up the status quo for a number of years before a real breakdown happened, although he also suspected the man’s marriage wouldn’t hold up to the strain. But that was no life. It wasn’t good enough. It was time to break the silence.
“Don’t,” John’s voice interrupted him just as Al was opening his mouth to speak. Al narrowed his eyes, surprised. John’s eyes met his steadily, his gaze intense. “I know what you wanna do here, Al, and I’m telling you, don’t.” Please, said his eyes.
Al closed his eyes for a moment, gathering his strength. When he opened them again, he tried to pour every ounce of sorrow and compassion that he felt for the man into his gaze. “John,” he said softly.
“God, don’t.” John looked away, and now his whole body was trembling.
“You can’t pretend it’s okay,” Al pushed. “You can’t pretend you don’t wake up in the middle of the night gasping for air and thinking you’re about to die. And I can’t keep my mouth shut and watch you hurting like this. I just can’t.”
“Leave it alone.”
“It’s not going to heal that way, John. It’s just going to fester.”
“It’s the best I can do.” John’s voice had risen slightly, thick with emotion. Al slid a little closer to him, raised a cautious hand to the other man’s neck. John thrashed at the touch, gasping, but Al was expecting this and he just rode out the reaction, reaching his arm around the other man’s shoulders and bringing him closer, in a sort of embrace. He knew it was too much, but that was the point, wasn’t it? Better a breakdown here, in the middle of the night, with no one else watching, then at the precinct, or in the middle of an incident, or at home in front of his kids. John fought against Al’s arm, angrily trying to thrust it away, but Al held on tight, until all of sudden something seemed to uncoil inside the other man and he shoved with all his might, pushing Al to the ground and scuttling away from him, screaming, “Jesus Christ, get off me!” as he clambered to his feet and backed away until he hit the boarded up door of the building. Al picked himself up off the ground and watched as John’s body jerked from the impact, his limbs reacting in a way that was beyond his conscious control. He watched the fury wash over the other man’s face as he realized his own helplessness, and then John whirled around and started punching and kicking at the wooden boards for all he was worth, screaming wordlessly. Al watched and waited as the rage wore itself out. Eventually, John sank to the ground, gasping for air, burying his head in his hands.
Cautiously, Al moved closer. He knelt down beside his friend, only a foot away, and waited. John looked up at him, agony written across his features, tears on his cheeks. “It’s okay, partner. I’ve got you.” Al told him quietly, but he didn’t move. John shuddered and looked away. Unbidden, Al suddenly remembered the mandatory counseling he’d had to attend – they’d all had to attend – immediately after Nakatomi. ‘You were his lifeline while he was in danger,’ the counselor had said. ‘That must have been a very heavy responsibility to bear.’ No, Al thought now. It wasn’t heavy. Not at all. Al had never had any brothers, but he knew without a doubt that this was what brotherhood felt like. “I’ve got you,” he said again, quietly, almost to himself. He sat down on the cement and made himself comfortable, listening to the snuffling and the hitched breaths coming from the man beside him as John shed the first tears Al had seem him cry since that night when they’d embraced, both amazed that John was alive, total strangers who had bonded over a radio.
Eventually John stopped crying, wiping his face with one ragged sleeve. “You know,” he said, “there’s a hundred different versions. Sometimes I fall down the elevator shaft. Sometimes I don’t get out the door on my cut up feet and Karl shoots me in the face. Sometimes I can’t get Hans’ hand off my wife’s wrist and he takes her down with him. Sometimes I’m still on the roof when the charges go off. But you know what I never, ever dream? I never dream that you don’t get your gun up fast enough when Karl jumps up out of nowhere with me and my wife in his sights. I never dream that.”
Al reached out, knowing it was okay now. He drew his friend in and hugged him tightly. “I dream about that all the time,” he admitted. John hugged him back and they sat there for a moment. Then, Al became aware of how cold the cement was, how his knee was cramped. John pulled back, muttering about his butt going numb, fishing in his pocket for another cigarette. Al found his feet first, reached down, and hauled his friend up. “Holly’s probably freaking out by now,” he said.
John shook his head. “Holly’s at her mother’s with the kids,” he replied. “It’s Christmas Eve, Al.”
Al shook his head ruefully. How could he have forgotten that? “Well, then you’ll come stay with me tonight,” he decided. John looked off into the distance, like he hadn’t heard.
“I told her to go ahead without me,” he replied, as though Al had asked him a question. “I just couldn’t stand it anymore. She wakes up screaming and crying all the time, Al. She thrashes around in bed, and she wakes up the kids, and I have to sit there and hold her and calm her down and stroke her hair and tell the kids that everything’s fine, mommy just had a bad dream, and in the meantime, every time I close my eyes I see one of these variations – I die, she dies, everybody dies – but I gotta sit there and hold her. And I hate her for it, Al. I hate her for it because it’s not fucking fair.” He ground out the cigarette, blowing out one last lungful of smoke. “So what does that say about me?”
Al shook his head, taking his friend by the arm and leading him toward the car. “Not a damn thing,” he replied. “It doesn’t say anything about you, John. It has nothing to do with the kind of person you are, the kind of husband you are.” He looked up at the building, sensing John following his gaze. “All it says was that you went through hell, both of you. You don’t just get over it overnight.”
John nodded, dropping his eyes. That was it, Al decided. The man had had enough. They didn’t need any big heart to heart. He opened his car door and climbed in, reaching over to unlock the passenger side. John slid into the seat and fastened his seatbelt, then leaned back against the head rest and closed his eyes. Within moments he was sleeping, head lolling, breathe soft and even. Sleeping peacefully. Al started the car, backed up slowly. He’d done this a million times with his infant, it seemed – drove around all night, the child lulled to sleep by the motion. He could drive around all night for John if he had to. It was no burden at all.