Psychological Study
By K Hanna Korossy
Soldiers can't rest easy without someone to watch their back.
I never set out to be an expert in military psychology, two fields I've had little use for and an even lower opinion of. The military's never given me anything but grief--a sudden trip to Siberia comes to mind-and psychology...who really cares what's going on inside somebody else's head?
That was before an Air Force major managed to become my friend, and suddenly it mattered a lot what somebody besides me was thinking and feeling.
So one of the things I'd learned over the last few months, between the Ancient research I was deciphering and the ZedPM studies Radek and I continued to run, was a crash course on the psychology of soldiers, one soldier in particular. And that included the little nugget that soldiers needed someone to watch their back before they would rest.
Why does this come to mind just now, you ask?
John Sheppard groans yet again in the bed in front of me, a truly horrible sound. The hand that isn't attached to an IV board fumbles for something, also again. Even though he is what Carson euphemistically calls "sleeping," he's still restless, hounded in his sleep by pain and unease. The pain I could do little about, as much as I would have loved to, but the unease...
I slide my hand into his, grasping it firmly, letting it grasp me. I'm not sure even he knew what he was searching for, but he's apparently found it, settling back into sleep and nightmares with a quiet sigh. I'm not so vain as to think it's me that calms him so much as the unspoken promise: you're not alone, you're safe, I'll watch your back. The fact that an out-of-shape scientist who's about as far from military as it got could make him that promise still boggles my mind.
He sleeps on, and I go back to waiting.
A few months ago, a disastrous mission ended with a bug the size of a autoclave latched onto Sheppard's throat, sucking the life out of him by slow, agonizing degrees. In fact, we had to kill the major to free him, a scene I will never forget as long as I live, and in the hours that followed before he woke and started getting better, I found myself drawn back to the infirmary again and again, not knowing why, not understanding his similar restlessness. It wasn't until a casual comment, slipped into an otherwise pointless conversation, that I realized what had lain under that restlessness.
You never let your guard down unless someone's watching your back, McKay.
That explained his agitation. I wasn't sure yet about mine.
It was simple, almost matter-of-fact. He needed to rest. And so, I was there to watch his back.
I flex stiff fingers in his hard grip, but he only hangs on tighter.
Ironically, it was watching my back that got us here in the first place, him hanging on to life, me hanging on to him...or vice-versa, I'm not sure anymore. Anyway, the planet we'd been on was seismically stable. The buildings, as it turned out, were less so.
I'd been doing my job, looking for a ZedPM or some other power source or equipment we could use against the looming threat of the Wraith. Sheppard and Ford were doing theirs, making sure no irritated natives or starving wildlife wandered by to see what we were up to. Teyla had gone out to check one of the neighboring buildings to determine if it was worth my investigation, too.
All the warning I'd had things were going to Hell on the Express was a loud creak when I opened a door. The next thing I knew, Ford was yelling, pieces of debris larger and harder than my head were falling all around, and I was being tackled to the floor by a major who'd watched his football video one too many times. We landed hard, him on top of me. And debris on top of him.
He was barely breathing by the time we got him back to Atlantis.
Glassy eyes open, not really seeing me, and even though I know that, I paste on a syrupy grin. "Nice of you to join us, Major." Only he hasn't. The feverish gaze sweeps right past me, pauses on a blank wall that's apparently more fascinating than I am, then fades back into sleep. I drop the fake, stiff smile. One of these times he will respond, but that makes seven times now he hasn't, and my act is wearing a little thin. But I won't give up, and with a sigh, I prop my book against the edge of his bed and continue pretending to read.
Soldiers don't give up on their people.
I know he'd gotten into trouble before for living by that credo, and a year ago I might have agreed with his superiors. Why throw good after bad, a living person after one who might already be dead? Made sense to me.
Then I'd been at the other end of that equation, held hostage by a ruthless killer in a Genii uniform. And for all my "just leave me here" bravado, I was terrified I really would be abandoned to that torturer's twisted little fantasies.
That was before John Sheppard turned into a killing machine, saving not just Elizabeth and I, but the whole city.
We didn't talk about it much, me about the torture and fear, him about the killing and weight of responsibility, but I saw the struggle in him as much as he did in me. I did finally face him with it one night, we managed to talk a few things out without, you know, talking, and then we got drunk and made some sweeping promises of loyalty and not dying on each other and left it at that. Except, I meant mine. And I'd be damned before I'd let him break his.
Sheppard gasps in his sleep, mumbles something, and subsides again. More red flows out of the tube that disappears under the blankets, I hadn't looked where. Carson said there was still some sluggish internal bleeding and if it didn't quit in a few hours, they'd have to go in a second time. Considering Sheppard's heart had stopped on the table the first, it wasn't a scenario we were anxious to see happen. Feeling increasingly helpless, I do the only thing I know to do.
"If you think you're leaving me here after all this to deal with the Wraith and the lack of coffee and excess of Kavanaugh, I am personally going to follow you into the afterlife and drag you back by that shag rug you call hair. What happened to leaving no man behind, Major? Doesn't that count here?"
Maybe he responds to the irritation in my voice or maybe it's the fact that I'm impossible to ignore, but his eyes flutter open.
"Major?" I falter, hoping stupidly this would be the time he'd answer.
The hand in mine will leave nail marks; in his own way he is fighting and hanging on. But there's no response in his eyes. I'm almost glad when they slide shut again.
Carson comes in to check on his patient, and that in itself tells me how serious things are. Usually he sends nurses to do his dirty work. Now, as I watch him change an IV and study the equipment with puckered forehead, I can't help but fear the worst.
"He hasn't woken up yet."
"Aye, I'm not surprised."
"You said after the anesthesia wore off--"
"I said he wouldn't wake before the anesthesia wore off--I didna say he'd wake immediately after, Rodney. His body's had a severe shock--it could be days before we see any sign of awareness."
"So what do you call this?" I lift our conjoined hands.
"Reflex," he says gently, and patting my shoulder in that condescending method of comfort all doctors seem to use, he leaves us alone again.
"Reflex," I mutter to two sets of ears, both not hearing me. "I didn't see any reflex when he was working on you."
It had taken Ford and Teyla digging above and me trying to squirm out from below for us to be unearthed. My ankle had been twisted in that misbegotten tackle and I could already feel the bruises forming all over, but that didn't matter when I realized Sheppard was bleeding on me and not moving. Even as the room continued to groan around us, we kept digging him out; no man left behind. At that moment, I couldn't imagine why anybody, including the US Air Force, could have even imagined anything else.
We finally got him free. By virtue of my injury, I carried his pack and mine while Ford and Teyla carried the major back between them to the thankfully close gate. He didn't move the whole trip except for this horrible wheezing breathing; I was watching. Still didn't move when they set him down just inside the gate and Carson and his team went to work. Didn't respond at all, in fact, until he'd taken hold of my hand and held on like it was the only guide he had back to the world of the living. It should've made me relieved, or proud, or something. But I was just too busy being terrified.
"No one left behind, Major," I said quietly but fiercely. "That includes me."
Soldiers and battles forge the closest friendships.
Sheppard and I were stuck on a planet not too long ago with The Wraith That Wouldn't Die. I had just lost two of my men, one killing himself a few feet away from me. John had already been hit in the arm once and was tiring out fighting the Wraith. It was not one of our better days. Any sane person would have run very far away and hidden until the cavalry arrived. What did I do?
Ran out to face the Wraith with a single handgun. I emptied the gun, reloaded, emptied it a second time. That white-haired horror movie-reject just kept coming after me. If not for the timely arrival of the rest of our team and the major's intervention, I would've been dinner. Tell me you're not gonna care about someone you've put yourself on the line for like that, or who risked himself to save you in return?
Yeah, didn't think so.
The thing of it is, it's not what happened on the planet that day that made him my best friend, or the two dozen similar situations beforehand. It's what happens after, the way we didn't have to talk in the jumper on the way home because we both knew what the other was thinking, the way he went with me to tell to Gaul's and Abrams' friends what happened, even the way he didn't make fun of me when I choked up at the memorial service. It's an old cliché from a hundred war movies, but it's true: there's nothing like facing death together to show you what another person's like under all the military trappings and wisecracks and ridiculous hair. And to bring you closer to that person than anyone else you've ever known.
I come back from an unavoidable bathroom break rubbing my unshaved chin, limping, blinking grit from eyes. Seeing John feverishly reaching out makes me forget all that, and I almost fall in my haste to get back to my post. I'm head scientist and genius on an expedition to an alien planet in a mostly unexplored city, and my most important role is being the rope one for one battered soldier to hang onto.
I don't mind. I just wish he'd wake up.
I guess we're communicating in our own way, though--story of my life as John Sheppard's friend--because this time I hear the mumble clearly: "McKay?"
"Tell me you're awake and not just going through your short list of people who worry more about you than about the circulation in their hand." It's hard to keep my voice level because, yes, pitifully, I am that excited. But he's already asleep, or unconscious, again, if he was even aware to begin with. I sigh, trying to be encouraged he actually said something that made sense...and that even if he was just going down that list, I was at the top.
We waited a long time while Sheppard was in surgery, Teyla and Ford and I sitting in one of the empty infirmary rooms in the absence of an actual waiting room. Elizabeth came to join us as she had time, and others stopped by to see if there was any news: Bates, some of the other soldiers, even Radek. I'm not usually one for sharing my space, but it was...good to have them near when Carson came out to tell us about the whole heart-stopped-beating thing and the barely encouraging prognosis. In different ways, all of us have grown closer by going through everything we have together in the last six months. Kate had some long Freudian name for it I don't remember, but the gist is I used to think friends were the people you met with once a month to discuss quantum theory and particle dynamics over pizza. Now, it's the people you'd willingly die for. My list is still short, but I have more than one name on it now, and that's new. Who would have guessed soldiers made such good friends, especially for an extremely non-soldier scientist like me?
I may be imagining it but it seems like there's less blood draining now. He's still feverish, the hand in mine hot enough to almost be unpleasant, but Carson said to expect that. At least he's resting easy now, limp and breathing without that unhealthy wheezing from the planet. All except his hand, which doesn't relax. Interesting, in a kind of masochistic, overthinking kind of way. Then again, I sigh, that seems to be the kind of mood I'm in today.
Ford and Teyla would have stayed longer but Ford has the patience of a hungry two-month-old and Teyla had some kind of Athosian thing she had to tend to, but they've been coming by regularly. Teyla sticks her head in now for an update.
"I think he's doing better," I say cheerfully, as we both stare at him. "Less...white and clammy, don't you think?"
"I am not sure I see a difference, but I am glad you do," she responds, ever gracious even when she's telling me I'm imagining things. I don't take offense. It is, sadly, very possible.
"I'm just gonna stay here a little longer," I say, trying to sound offhanded, as if Sheppard and I didn't have an obvious death-grip on each other. "I, uh, don't have anything else to do right now, anyway, and..." Great, I can't even put a decent lie together today.
Teyla's smile says she already knew the truth, which doesn't bother me as much as I think it should. "Do not forget to eat, Doctor McKay. I do not wish to be visiting you both here."
"Actually, Ford brought me a sandwich earlier." And two different drinks and one of every dessert and an assortment of power bars, just to make sure I got something I liked. I'm starting to see potential in the young lieutenant. I suppose it's what Sheppard saw in each of us when he chose us for his team. Not that my assets weren't obvious, but the military hasn't always been so observant. Or, okay, admittedly, so patient.
Teyla nods, rests her hand for a moment on the major's shoulder like she does each time she comes in, then smiles at me. As she turns away, she says, "It is good he knows he is not alone."
Do you really think he does?, I almost ask her, but bite my tongue. My right hand is almost numb and will probably never be the same again, and that's enough of an answer. She leaves, and I sit back down.
Soldiers are a lot more complicated than I've given them credit for. But John Sheppard is one of a kind.
He's a born pilot, apparently the best one we have, but after the air, he's happiest in the water: surfing, diving, skiing. Everything but the land we're supposed to be created for. His hair looks like a punk rocker's, but he's a die-hard fan of Johnny Cash. He loves numbers, chess, skateboards, ferris wheels, and guns. After I got us home when that bug was attached to his neck, he gave me a bag of jellybeans as a thank-you. He tossed a coin to see if he should come on the greatest expedition mankind has ever known, for God's sake. I've learned a lot about soldiers in the last few months, but Sheppard is a puzzle I often still don't understand.
But I'm trying because, well, he's my friend. Providing I haven't run out of time.
"McKay?"
I can barely hear the whisper; his head is turned away and I can't even see if his eyes are open yet. But I stand and lean over him to look, my hand unconsciously gripping his tighter.
He squeezes back.
His eyes are open, but I've learned the disappointing way that doesn't mean anything. Still, I smile my cracked smile once more and answer as if he knew who he was calling for. Again. "I'm here. But I really think we should be on a first-name basis by now, don't you think? John? Wait, that doesn't sound right, does it. Never mind, Major is good. And McKay, Rodney, whatever." It helps fill the silence.
Except, it's not silent. He's answering.
I only understand a few of the slurred words--talk, much--but it's enough to know I should be offended. The first sign of awareness and he's insulting me. But there's a ghost of a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth, all he probably has strength for, to show he doesn't mean it. As if I'm in the mood to be holding grudges. This isn't just randomly pulling a name out of his mental files; he's awake, and knows it's me there with him.
My throat is a little tight, my voice choked, but my smile is real now as I also make the effort. "You're going to be fine, Major. You're safe. One of us will stay here with you." A hundred glib and sarcastic answers on the tip of my tongue, but he doesn't look like he's going to understand anything but the basics and so I keep it simple. Honest.
He squeezes my hand again in understanding, already fading, just enough light behind the eyes to promise me a hard time once he's up for it. I snort, but I'm not letting go.
He teased me on the planet, too, as we'd walked to the building where this whole mess had started. I'd been complaining about the terrain which, as usual, was rocky and uphill instead of a nice level path. And, as usual, he wasn't even breathing hard as he climbed.
You know, McKay, somebody would think you don't like being in the service.
I didn't. I'm not a soldier. I wouldn't want to be. And no matter how much he tortured and tweaked and trained me, I'll never become one, either. But I get it now, I really do. It doesn't mean I'm going to stop complaining or criticizing--please! You might as well ask me to stop being brilliant. And I still don't really understand how someone like Sheppard and someone like me clicked in the first place, battlefield friendships or no. I just get the whole soldier thing: wanting someone at your back, wanting to be at theirs, ready even to die for them and knowing they'd do the same for you. It's actually a pretty good lesson.
John Sheppard, however... I sit down again, pull my book out, and lean it against our meshed hands. All that soldier stuff is just a starting point for our major, the surface layer. I'm just beginning to learn what's beneath it and, thank God, it now looks like he'll stick around for it. It's fascinating and frightening all at once, and I am never going to disparage psychology again.
Whatever else it is, one thing's for sure: it's going to be interesting.
