Brynn knelt in front of Robert as she'd done several times by now. No, not like that. In one hand was a needle with a hose attached, freshly unwrapped from the package Robert had delivered every two weeks. The bags of fluid--three different concoctions, two of them customized and sourced in ways that Brynn could only guess--hung on the IV pole to Robert's right.
Brynn palpated the vein raised by the constriction of the blue tourniquet on Robert's upper arm. "This is getting easier," she commented. "Or I'm getting better at it."
"You ever think about death?" Robert changed the subject.
Brynn paused for a moment, then looked up at him with a smirk. "Shouldn't you be the one thinking about that, old man?"
"Hey, I'm just asking."
Brynn got the needle in without a problem, then taped it to Robert's wrist. "I'm 26, obviously I think about death all the time."
"I'm not talking about jokes," he corrected. "I mean actual death. The prospect of nothingness."
Brynn shrugged as she finished up and moved on to the IV lines to get the flow started. "I'm not religious, if that's what you mean. I'm more... spiritual? Go ahead and laugh. I just mean, I don't think there's nothing after this. I think something lives on. I don't know what it is. But I'd hate to think this is all there is. You asked for a reason, right? I doubt you were just curious."
Robert grinned. "Guess you know me pretty well, then. I got word that my old friend Sag passed away."
"Sag? I hope that's a nickname." Brynn wrinkled her nose as if the name even smelled bad.
"If he had any other name, he never told me. That's the kind of business we were in. Remember I told you about my time in Peru?"
The memory surfaced for Brynn. "Right, the guy with the coal mines and the terrorist problem."
"Yeah, Sag was part of that crew."
Brynn double-checked everything with the IV setup. All three bags were flowing at the proper rates into Robert's arm. She could tell it was having the desired effect when he took a deep breath and his eyes drooped for a moment. "Sleepy?"
"Just taking a second to adjust. Anyway, I always thought Sag would go out in a blaze of glory, taking a hail of bullets from some scumbags. Instead, pancreatic cancer got him. He was 73, so hardly a spring chicken. Somehow, I just thought he'd outlive me."
"Were you close?" Brynn probed. She pulled up a seat in front of him, prepared to listen as usual.
"I wouldn't put it that way," Robert frowned. "You could say it's a 'man thing.' The three of us--me, Sag, and Paul Rogen--we put our lives in each other's hands for a good while there. I knew their blood types, which old injuries of theirs tended to act up, and what they liked on a pizza. But passions, ambitions, dreams? Hell no. You just don't want to know too much about the guy next to you who's putting down cover fire. Makes it weird, somehow."
Brynn rolled her eyes, leaning back in her chair. "That's some toxic masculinity if I ever heard it."
"Maybe," Robert said with a deferential shrug. "It's just what it was like. I found out about Sag from his daughter, who I guess found this address in a Rolodex Sag kept. I can't believe that Aussie bastard was still using a fucking Rolodex, though I shouldn't be surprised. He was always the low-tech type. Hell, thinking about it, he didn't even like using night scopes. He thought they were 'unsporting.'"
"You guys are weird," Brynn commented. "OK, so your old pal is dead. You having feelings about it? Need a grief counselor?" Her tone was only a little flippant. She did care about the man, in her own way.
"Oh, that would go great. Laying on a couch and telling somebody about how I took fire in the Peruvian jungle and how grateful I was to have Sag at my side, giving 'em hell, and now he's gone and I'm just reminded of my own mortality again." He paused for a second. "Fuck you, by the way."
Brynn offered a self-satisfied smile. "You're just dying to open up about it, I see. Pun intended."
Robert pretended it didn't amuse him. "You know, I don't like that your sense of humor is compatible with mine. Pisses me off. We're 60 years apart. I'm supposed to be the wizened sage, dispensing homilies and koans to your eager, youthful mind."
"I'm gonna leave if you keep saying shit like that," Brynn threatened. She put on an artificial, syrupy voice, leaning toward him. "Now, tell me about your feelings."
Robert took a sharp breath. "I'm realizing I didn't know Sag had a daughter. And all this time, I knew where he was, and he knew where I was, but neither of us picked up the phone or sent a Christmas card or anything. I would have died for that man, and he for me, but once we were out of the shit it's like..." He stared off to the side for several seconds. "I don't know, Peru was a pretty bad time. Maybe I didn't want to be reminded of it, and we didn't work together before or after that, so any time I saw his face I would have been reminded of what happened down there."
"So, what did happen down there?" Brynn pressed.
Robert shook his head. "Nope, that's not what I'm going to get into right now. Let's keep it more immediate. His funeral is in two days. I could make it down to Sydney and put in an appearance, but I wouldn't know anyone there except the guy in the box, and he won't be very chatty."
"You could tell his daughter what he meant to you. Funerals are for the living, after all. He isn't going to know you were there. But anyone who cared about him might be glad to know about other people he touched."
"That's sickeningly sentimental," Robert snorted. "Nobody wants a scarred old soldier showing up at their dad's/brother's/cousin's/coworker's funeral."
"If it feels weird, just leave," Brynn suggested. "You aren't obligated to say for some length of time. Besides, you're not going to have trouble fitting this into your busy schedule or anything. Maybe you could use a trip."
"To some other crummy part of Earth? I've been to the edge of the universe, beyond the bounds of any time and space you could comprehend, and you're saying I could use a vacation where I'm just pounding vegemite and Feral Hog."
Brynn blinked. "You're doing what with a feral hog?"
"Brynn, that's a beer."
"Oh. Of course."
Robert shook his head, looking past Brynn for a few moments again. Then he started shaking his finger in the air. "You know, I'm a fucking moron for bringing this up to you. You've actually got me thinking about going down there and saying hi to his kid. No idea what I'd tell her that wouldn't be six kinds of horrifying, but--"
"Just tell her her father was important to you, for crying out loud!"
"He was important but we didn't talk for 30 years? That's gonna be hard to believe."
"You're just looking for reasons not to go," she accused. "You brought this up. You're clearly having mixed feelings about not staying in touch with him all this time. Well, here's your chance to actually do something about it. Go tell his daughter he was a good man."
"What if she tells me he wasn't?"
Brynn pointedly sighed, glowering at him. "How do I know more about how people handle death than you do? If she hated the man, there's no reason she would have contacted you. She's looking for connection. She wants some piece of her father to hold onto. She wants to learn more about him. You may know about a chapter of his life that's been completely hidden from her. It could mean a lot to her to learn about that."
"I hate it when you're smart. OK, let's say I'm convinced. What do I tell her?"
"How should I know? Just think of some good times you had with him and talk about those. Just knowing what I know about you, you'll be able to spin some crazy stories to anyone who will listen. Even if they think you're making it up, it'll be memorable."
"To be honest, I never gave you the full scoop on Peru because I was afraid you wouldn't believe it."
"I'm sorry, is it somehow less believable than all the 'beyond space and time' shit?"
"Yeah, fair point. But it's also weird and personal and involves parts of my life I don't want to get into yet."
"You're such an odd motherfucker," Brynn blurted. "You'll tell me about your bizarre exploits across time and space or whatever, but you won't tell me about something that happened on Earth, 30 years ago, because it's 'too personal.'"
"Truly, I contain multitudes," he evaded.
"You just need a therapist," Brynn said flatly. "I'm not even joking. But I've probably said that to every man I've ever met--or at least thought it."
"That one of those things they taught you in women's studies?"
Brynn narrowed her eyes. "No, there I learned about how patriarchal structures simultaneously elevate and demean men and women through the enforcement of restrictive frameworks that impose tightly limited roles that must be performed in order to be deemed socially obedient, and that deviance from those norms is swiftly punished. Among other things. You don't think it's 'manly' to share your feelings, and that's fine. You're hardly alone in that. I think you're just doing yourself a disservice. Plus, I would like to hear the stories that get to the heart of who you are, and not just all the strange places you've been."
"What's there to get at, Brynn? I don't think you'd want to know all the things I haven't told you. I started off talking about death, and I guess I was thinking of literal death at first, but there's also such a thing as figurative death. There's the image of me you have in your head, which I could kill by telling you too much about who I really am. Not sure which of us that would hurt more, but it would definitely hurt somebody."
"I think it would only hurt you by making you vulnerable. If half the things you've told me are true, I have to accept you're already admitting responsibility for something like trillions of deaths or potential deaths through timeline destruction. I don't think there's a moral framework in existence designed to grapple with that kind of scale, so I'm not going to sit here in judgment."
Robert stewed in silence for a while. "Well, I'm still not telling you about Peru right now."
"Are you going to the fucking funeral then?" Brynn snapped.
"Yes," he said as he shrunk away slightly.