[Complete] The Beams of Our House Are Cedar (Trudy/Norm, post-canon, AU)

[Ashen Key]

TITLE: The Beams of Our House Are Cedar
RATING: R
WORDS: 2152
PAIRING: Trudy/Norm
SUMMARY: In an AU where Trudy survives the last battle, she and Norm discuss killing in combat.
DISCLAIMER: these characters are not mine, I'm just playing with them.
A/N: As stated in the summary, this is an alternate universe where Trudy lives - how, I'm still working on. This story has an enormous debt to Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's book On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, and the title is from the Song of Songs.

The Beams of Our House Are Cedar

It is not the day of the battle of the tree of souls, nor the next day, but some night not too long after. It is a night where Hell’s Gate is mostly empty and as silent as it ever gets; the generators and systems hum, the few humans left have tucked themselves away in lab, room, or bed.

Trudy and Norm are in the latter group. Behind the locked door of the small apartment they share, they are sprawled out over their bed, tangled up in sheets and bathed in the bars of blue light from Polyphemus. He has one knee propped up; she is curled up facing him, head resting against that knee. They had been talking, but now there is silence. A silence that isn’t quite silent, not with the faint whirrings of the machines that are keeping them alive, but it’s the only silence they’ve really known. It is also their own kind of silence; or rather, the comfort she carries around with her that doesn’t mind the silence he often falls into.

It’s silent until Norm breaks it, until he says, “I killed people. At the battle.”

Trudy frowns, slightly, but doesn’t move. “Okay.”

He’s studying the ceiling, aware of her but not looking– maybe unable to look – at her. He can feel the warmth of her, the movement of her chest as she breathes in and out. She’s alive, which is why he says, “I thought you were dead.”

It’s all he’s ever really said about the battle in these past few, crazy days, so she says, “I know, baby.” And then she says, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I mean, uh, I mean you’re not, which…I’m glad about. Really glad. But-”

Silence again, this time heavy with the strain of him trying to sort out the words, find which ones to say.

Softly, Trudy says, “Is that why you killed? Because you thought I was dead?”

“Yes. No. I’d…I’d shot some before that. Three, maybe four I know. But it was different, after. I don’t, um.”

“Tell me.”

Now he looks at her. “What if I can’t?”

“Then you can’t. But you know, of the two us, I got no room not listenin’, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I killed them.”

“I’ve been a professional soldier since I was eighteen, Norm. I’ve seen a lot of bad sh*t. I’ve done a lot of bad sh*t. I’m…” She stops, rubs her mouth. “I’m not gonna pack my things and go, no matter what you say. Not gonna judge.”

“You’ve killed.” It’s not really a question. Her smile is fleeting, but very wry.

“Hell yeah,” she says softly.

“How…how do you deal with it?” In those words is a depth of guilt, of confusion and pain that is very familiar to her. That soft, wry smile comes back, and she leans forward slightly to curl her fingers around his hand.

“I rationalize. That’s all you can ever do. I just…I accept that I did what I did, that I did what I had to do under the circumstances.”

“You just accept?”

“No. Yes. I’m getting better at it. When I was a kid…sh*t, when I was kid, first time, I was really bad at it. Then I got better, then I got sent on mid-deployment break, and…God, I was tempted to run down to Peru and live with my Da rather than go back.”

He’s heard about her father, her book-bound father who lives in the past; he’s heard fondness in her voice when she’s talked about him, but also a kind of resigned contempt.

“Why didn’t you?”

Trudy snorts slightly. “Hell. Couldn’t let my mates down, now, could I? Couldn’t just leave ‘em. So I stopped cryin’, went back.”

“Just like that?”

“Once I made the decision, I made it.” She takes a deep breath and then adds, “But I’ve been very well trained in killing. You haven’t. Surprised you managed to, actually. Most folk wouldn’t.”

She doesn’t say it as a good thing, she doesn’t say it as a bad, she just says it as is. It’s enough to get his curiosity.

“Don’t tell me they’ve done studies.”

“Oh, you bet they’ve done studies. Up to and including the Second World War, fifteen to twenty percent only will fire, under….the old way of trainin’. I’m guessin’ that’s just who naturally can pull the trigger, because sure as hell the old ways of trainin’ weren’t much good at actually getting folk to kill. Old Marshall worked that one out. His methods weren’t all ship-shape and scientific, but other studies have backed it up since.” She shifts slightly, rubbing her cheek against his knee almost like a cat. “So, various armies changed the way they trained their grunts. By Korean War in the nineteen-fifties, they got a firin’ rate of fifty percent. By the time of the clusterf**k of Vietnam, it was over ninety percent. Now days…it’s pretty much close to a hundred.”

Norm nods, slowly. He’s back to studying the ceiling, but instead of mentally withdrawing, his thoughts are here and now and on her words. And on what her words mean.

“But not a complete hundred percent.”

“No.”

“Okay.”

Her eyes narrow slightly – even in the blue light, he can see that much. “Y’know the seven stages of grief?”

“Useful as a base for understanding, but not as a list to hand people, ye-es?”

“There’s one for killing.”

He goes still, and then he sits up, moving slightly away from her in the process. Unsure if that was deliberate or not, Trudy also sits up properly, her hands resting on her thighs.

“Only, the killing response table’s got five main sections, from beforehand right through t’after,” she continues. “Concern about being able to kill, the killing circumstance, the exhilaration from killing, remorse and nausea from killing, then the rationalization and acceptance process.” She takes a breath, tries to gage his reaction. But he just has that faint frown, and she can’t tell. “If…if y’get fixated in any of those, and the acceptance fails, then…you get post-traumatic stress disorder, basically. But-”

“Exhilaration?”

“…yeah. That…rush y’get. That satisfaction.” Trudy is bilingual, with other bits and pieces of other languages floating around her skull, but she can’t find the right word. Rush, satisfaction; killing could be a high that could also, on occasion, be damn near orgasmic.

Sometimes.

(those were the times where, afterwards, she would stumble to the nearest spare toilet or patch of ground, and start to heave)

“You’ve felt it.”

“Yeah. I have. I do. Not always, but I do.”

“And that’s normal?”

“Yes.”

“I felt that,” Norm says, slowly. “It was like a computer game at first, ride in and fire and they fell. I was the only one firing a gun, so I know it-it was me. But it didn’t seem quite real. Bang, bang, the pixels fall down.” He’s not looking at her; he’s studying his hands. She remembers him looking at her hands after he watched her butcher a hexapede, running his fingers over hers. She remembers watching his expression: yes, these are the same hands that guide her Samson with such subtlety and joy; yes, these are the same hands with which she draws and creates; yes, these are the same hands that she uses to make him gasp and moan; yes, these are also a killer’s hands.

He has a similar expression now, but one tinged with far more uncertainty. His large hands could be so graceful, and normally were so precise and careful; now, these were hands that had held a rifle and killed.

Carefully, Trudy edges closer on the bed, and reaches out to cup his hands in hers. She has an artist’s long fingers, but even so, her hands are noticeably smaller. This doesn’t change the protective way her hands cradle his. “And then?” Trudy asks, softly.