trans_9 | Road to Recovery [R for Cussing] [Open]

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Road to Recovery [R for Cussing] [Open]

Sam sat on his bed in the medbay with a pad of paper resting on a tray and a pen gripped in his hand. He didn't know where she had found it, but Dr. Grey had given them to him--along with a set of cards with a series of shapes drawn on them--and told Sam to trace the shapes onto the paper. It was an effort to rebuild his hand-eye coordination, just one of the many of the things, along with his memory and balance, that had been damaged when the bullet entered his brain.

His brow was knitted together as he focused on the image of the black triangle on the card that was visible through the paper. He pressed the tip of the pen against the paper and carefully forced his hand to move a long the lines of the triangle. Almost instantly, his hand shook with slight tremors, pushing the pen off course, which forced him to correct. This, in turn, would often result in an over-correction which sent the pen drifting off in the opposite direction and thus creating a wavy line with 'mountains' and 'valleys' instead of one that was crisp, clean and straight.

He felt like a toddler, again, trying to color within the lines.

"God DAMN it!" he cursed when his hand jerked, sending the pen off in a perpendicular direction to the one he wanted it to go. "I can't do this!"

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Sam sighed. He already knew where this was going. He got a 174 on his LSAT's, he knew a loaded, leading question when he saw it. "Look, I already know what you're going to say. Baby-steps. I know, I get it. It's just...I used to be able to do this and now I can't...and it's just frustrating."

"Don't think you know what I'm going to tell you." Chief's firm, but not exactly unkind about it. "Though you were close," he admits. "Think about why you're here. You're alive, and you can function. You can heal, and that's more than you'd have if you were just a little bit less lucky."

"You're not doing something you used to be able to do. Forget that. You're earning it for the first time. And your body is going to fight you every inch of the way back."

"When I was an infant," says Brainiac 5, "I had an intellect very similar to what it is now. I knew what walking was. I could speak in full sentences. I determined my own proofs to the mathmatical theorem known on Earth as Fermat's Last Theorem when I was two month of age. I knew the mechanisms responsible for walking, but was unable to get my body to function in the manner necessary to achieve my first steps until after a considerable number of attempts. It was immensely frustrating, knowing how to do what I wanted, but not knowing how to do what I wanted."

There's a light kzzack of some sort of electrical probe he's messing with.

"Think of it as simply knowing of writing." He goes on, "And be grateful you're alive to be frustrated."

Sam shakes his head. He doesn't know whose bedside manner sucks more, Chielf's, Brainy's, Dean's or that guy Sawyer's--whose been bunking two beds down. And lucky for Sam, he gets to see three of them on a regular basis.

"Yeah, I know I'm lucky, and I am grateful. Believe me, I am," he replied. "Jesus, what's it take to get a 'Damn, that sucks' out of you guys?"

Shaking his head, he starts to scrawl his name at the top of the page. It's not awful, just not what his signature normally looked like. This was gonna get old real fast.

"So how's everybody else?" he asked, referring to the other crew members that had been lucky enough to have Yeerks in their brains. He needed to distract his mind from this damn triangle or he was going to start going crazy.

"We actually seem to be making some progress, now that everyone is free of their infestations. We've decided on command structure, there are now security patrols so we aren't surprised by any on-ship threats, and a team has been selected to make progress on our escape."

"Yes it sucks," the Chief says, though it's evident he doesn't say "sucks" much just by the slightly awkward use of the word. "Just don't expect much in the way of sympathy out of me yet. I had to go through that once, and this is cake compared to when you first start walking again. Just... trust me on that."

"That pretty much covers it," he nods to Brainy about the changes. "Cybil named me second in command, Lyta and Nathan are both third. The infested all seem to be doing alright, bad memories all around but I think everybody's getting over it fine.

Sam nodded as Brainy and Chief explained in more detail the newest developments on the ship and he felt--though he knew he shouldn't--a strong sense of uselessness wash over him. All this stuff was going on, they were finally organizing, looking for ways to get back home, and preparing for what might come at them next, and he couldn't be a part of it. He was stuck in the medbay to recover, left out of the loop except for what information he could glean out of the few people who actually came into medbay now that things had calmed down again.

He continued nodding, his hand drawing to a halt midway through the second line of the triangle as his eyes drifted around the room, eventually landing on Brainy. With Jean's help, Sam had already begun to get most of his memories organized. There were still time when things were still blurry and chaotic but, for the most part, he seemed to have a handle on them. And what Sam remembered, disturbed. He, honestly, wondered if it was the same for the rest of them. But since none of them--save for Brainy--came into the medbay, he never had chance to ask.

"That's good," Sam finally spoke, "That they're getting over it, that is. I know a lot of us did some pretty fucked up shit. Shit we would've stopped if we could've." ~~Gee, Sam, to whom and what could you be referring?~~

"None of you had remotely any control over the actions of the parasites that took control of your bodies," Brainy corrects. "The only reason I did was because of my unique physiology, which differentiates myself even from most other Coluans, and even then, it was a significant struggle. No one blames any of you for your actions--they were not, in fact, your actions."

Pfft.

"This isn't the first instance I've dealt with team-mates being controlled by an alien entity. Guilt is natural--just misplaced."

Edited 2009-04-11 09:29 (UTC)

"I've never seen anything that can take control of someone without making obvious changes to the body. The Flood kill whoever they infest and reanimate them into a mutated tentacle zombie. There's no recovering from that." Well, except Sergeant Johnson, but Sergeant Johnson was a special case.

"Have you met any of the new crew, or heard much?" The Chief asks Sam, continuing on the goal of filling him in. He can't speed the healing process but he can help him get a better idea of what's happening.

Sam nodded as Brainy excused his actions and those of the other infested crew. It was logical. None of them had been in control but, still, it did nothing to diminish the guilt that Sam felt for what the Yeerk that had been possessing him had done. He'd been 'awake' for much of it. He'd watched as the Yeerk used Sam to lure in Xander, and later Nathan, so that it could have him infested, too. He'd felt the rage the Yeerk felt when it tossed a tied-up Brainy into the pool and the satisfaction it gleaned from the idea of watching the kid drown.

"No, not really," Sam answered Chief. "Other than Jean, Dr. McCoy, and that guy that sleeps over there--" He motioned to Sawyer's bed. "--not many of the crew have been in here."

"Sawyer." Chief has a legitimate reason for saying it, to offer the name, but there's just a hint of exasperation in his voice. He moves on. "Alright, then I'll tell you what I can. Let's see... there's two new kids, literally kids. Teenage boys. There's a bunch of more normal people from different centuries all around, and a handful of new superheroes. Superman I think I'd heard of before." Some things, it seems, endure far into the future. Chief's pretty culture blind even in his own world and barely even catches it, but remembers being compared to "%$#!ing Superman!" once or twice.

"The big thing is the wolves. Two of 'em, one red and one grey. They're werewolves. Be careful if you run into either of them, the grey one especially has a hair trigger."

"Werewolves?" Sam echoed, a curious look on his face while at the same time trying not to think of Madison. He, of course, knows about his brother's enthusiasm for killing werewolves.

"Did anyone tell Dean?"

"If he was at the meeting he probably saw them. There was a lot going on, so I don't know." The Chief shrugs. "Danny had to freeze one of them to the ground to get it to stop fighting when they first woke up, they're usually wolves but they can turn into these giant wolf monsters if they get pissed. I figure we stand less chance of infighting if everybody knows."

"Werewolves," Brainy scoffs, as he works. "Next, we'll be getting pixies."

He thinks of Will.

"More pixies. Than we have."

"Yeah, well, if she starts recruiting unicorns and leprechauns, I'm quitting," Sam said, agreeing--somewhat--with Brainy. "You can just drop me off on the next planet."

"I don't like it much, but you work with what you have. If we've got werewolves and unicorns and leprechauns on our side then I'll take whatever advantage we can get out of that."

He looks at Sam, slightly amused. "Who knows, that planet could be even worse. I'll be sticking with the ship until we can get it to put me back where I belong."

Whether or not he goes to his own death, the Chief doesn't know. It's his duty to go back either way.

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Road to Recovery [R for Cussing] [Open]

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