Fic: Too Heavy For Me Part Five
Part Four
Ridley turned up the next night to collect timesheets, which was good. Having made up his mind to talk to the caseworker, Pete wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. He handed over his paperwork and waited for Ridley to check it over, waited with his hands sweating, trying not to breathe too fast.
Ridley seemed to be in a sour mood, which wasn’t good. He probably just wanted to go home and put his feet up, not stand around listening to Pete whine. But Pete had no choice; he couldn’t wait.
“Uh,” Pete said hesitantly, “sir?”
“Yeah,” Ridley said, putting the paperwork into his briefcase. Pete didn’t answer straight away; he hadn’t quite figured out what to say and Ridley’s tone hadn’t been encouraging. “What, Guide?” Ridley demanded. “Get on with it.”
“I-” He’d had an idea of how he was going to start, but now, faced with Ridley’s irritated, impatient face, he couldn’t remember any of it. “Um... I...”
Ridley’s face went slightly red. “Do you have a point, or are you just trying to waste my time?” he snapped.
“Uh, I don’t want to... um, waste your time...”
“Well?”
Pete gave up. “It’s nothing. Sorry, sir. Never mind.”
Ridley scowled and left the apartment in a bit of a huff, and Pete felt exponentially worse. He wasn’t going to find any help that way, that was clear. He’d have to figure it out on his own.
The next day Pete passed Viv doing her medication run again, and he paused to watch. She unlocked the storage cupboard and brought out the trolley, locked the cupboard again and went on her way. Pete wondered how long doing the rounds would take her. He was pretty sure it would be at least twenty minutes. He’d only need two. He’d have more than enough time.
She’d have to give meds again in the afternoon, he knew. Four o’clock every day, on the dot. He’d be ready.
***
Pete planned out the rest of his day so that he had a reason to be around the med storage cupboard at four. He hovered in the doorway of the room opposite, where he couldn’t be seen, and pretended to fold towels until Viv walked up the corridor and unlocked the cupboard.
Pete waited until she was inside and slipped across the hallway. He glanced left and right; no one was looking at him. He took a roll of scotch tape from his pocket and stuck it firmly across the latch. He pressed the ends down, hoping that they wouldn’t catch Viv’s eye when she came out, and then walked away briskly when he heard Viv moving around inside the room.
She came out, and Pete tried to listen. Would she see the tape? Would she notice that the lock didn’t catch properly? He heard her shut the door. So far so good. She put the key in the lock. And then - nothing. Pete wanted to turn back, but he knew he couldn’t. Couldn’t do anything that might make Viv notice him.
“Jana in 220 just threw up everywhere,” Pete heard. It was Cathy, one of the younger nurses. “She needs some help to get changed.”
“Wow,” Viv said, barking a short laugh. “You’re on your own, though, I’ve got meds to give.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Cathy said, walking away.
Pete heard the keys rattle; was Viv putting them back in her pocket? Had she locked the door? He wished he could see. And then, he heard the sweet, sweet sound of the medication trolley rolling away, and wanted to weep with relief.
It took a few minutes before the hallway was clear enough to suit him. No one was paying him much attention, but he waited until the area was deserted before he went over to the storage cupboard.
The tape had held; the door opened easily at a touch. Pete checked the corridor again and slipped through the door, pulling it closed behind him. He fumbled for the light switch and blinked as the room lit up.
The shelves were a lot fuller than he’d been expecting. He picked one at random and started rifling through bottles and packets. If there was some system to the organisation, he didn’t know what it was. It seemed random to him. His heart started to race. This would take longer than he’d thought, and that meant a higher chance of being caught. He tried to go faster, but after a few seconds he realised he was only skimming the labels and not reading them properly, and had to go back in case he’d missed something.
He had missed something, as it turned out. There was a bottle of Valium that he’d only glanced at for half a second, and from the weight it was nearly full. He stuffed it into his pocket and glanced around the shelves again. He could keep looking, try to build up a bit of a stockpile, but he didn’t want to take the chance.
This was the riskiest part of the whole operation. He couldn’t see through the door, and there was a chance someone was standing just on the other side of it. He pressed an ear to the wood and listened as hard as he could. It was quiet, but that didn’t mean someone couldn’t be standing up the other end of the corridor. He had no choice, though, he couldn’t just stand there and wait for Viv to come back. He opened the door a crack and peered out.
No one was looking his way. It would have to do. He opened the door a little wider, peeled off the tape, and stepped out fast, closing it behind him in one movement. He heard the lock catch and stepped away from the door, making sure not to move too fast, not to look guilty. He glanced back when he reached the corner.
Nothing. The hallway was all but deserted. No one seemed to have noticed him. Pete tapped the bottle in his pocket to make sure it was still there, then jerked his hand away. He’d gotten away with it.
***
Jon had replied to Pete’s email.
Ryan Ross is made of elbows. And the parts of him that aren’t elbows are dick. He’s like, 60% elbows and 40% dick. Or maybe the other way around. I dunno, fuck it, let’s talk about something else.
I’m so relieved that it’s been going okay with Patrick. I mean it’s not that I was worried about him or anything, it was just good to hear from you.
It’s a nice change to be able to get back to work. Ross is the historian for his unit, which I didn’t think was something they let Sentinels do, but... well, anyway. Means I’m mostly helping him with paperwork, but at least it’s something to do. And you get a lot of inside gossip about things that are happening on base. It’s sort of fun.
What’s your news this week?
Pete wrote a reply, although he didn’t have much to say. He talked about a funny prank some of the patients had played on a new nurse, and how she’d got them back by typing up a fake menu the next day, and once he’d finished he had nothing to distract himself from the idea that he should probably email Mikey. He stared at the blinking cursor for a few minutes with no idea where to start, and eventually he closed that window and started an email to Ray instead.
Hi, Ray. I didn’t know Mikey was going to ask you to email me. I mean, I hope it’s not a problem. I’m not sure what Mikey said, but he’s probably blown everything way out of proportion. But anyway.
You play awesome guitar, I love the music you guys write. What movie did you see?
Pete
He’d just closed the window and was about to shut the computer down when he heard Patrick swear and drop something on the other side of the room. He’d been adding photos to an album, something his physiotherapist had apparently suggested he do, or so Patrick had told Pete when he’d offered to help. Pete turned around at the noise to see photos scattered across the rug.
“Fuck!” Patrick snapped, and he tossed the album across the room. Pete got the impression he would have liked to throw it through a window, but he seemed to rein himself in and instead just sent it sliding across the floor until it bumped into the wall. It made Pete jump anyway.
“Is everything okay?” Pete asked carefully when it became clear that Patrick wasn’t going to move or speak. He was slumped on the couch with his hand over his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“No,” Patrick said. He took a deep breath. “Sorry,” he added, kind of short, like he actually wanted to yell but knew he shouldn’t.
Pete wondered whether it would piss Patrick off more if he offered to help, or if he didn’t. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked, because it seemed like the safest option.
“No,” said Patrick. “No. Don’t - it’s fine. Not your problem. It’s not like you’re my therapist or something.”
Which struck Pete as a weird thing to say, because in his experience, being a Guide was a bit like that. At least, it was if his Sentinel decided it was. ‘Or something’ could cover just about anything when it came to a Guide’s job description.
“Well, if your therapist were here, what would they say?” Pete asked lightly. “Just imagine something really wise and pretend I said it, and bam! Successful Guiding.”
That actually got Patrick to laugh a little bit, and Pete felt pretty impressed with himself. “She likes to say that anger is a secondary emotion, and there’s usually another emotion underneath it,” Patrick said. “Like fear, or disappointment, or sadness. And it would totally make sense for me to feel any of those things, but I can’t tell. I just feel angry.”
Well, it was nice that Patrick had taken him at his word and shared a bit of what he was feeling, but it still left Pete in the awkward position of not knowing what to say. “That sucks,” he said, on the theory that making reassuring noises was probably better than being silent.
“I’m never going to be able to forget,” Patrick said. “I think I’d try, if I had the option. I’d just go on with my life and pretend that none of it had ever happened. But...” He tapped his prosthesis on the table. “I’m going to be reminded every day, and that...”
“Makes you mad?”
“Guess so.” Patrick looked up at him, the wry smile on his lips melting away to a solemn expression. “Sorry about before. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“You didn’t,” Pete said automatically. Shit, he thought, Patrick had noticed that? Of course he had. Fucking Sentinels.
Patrick had that expression on his face that he wore when he was about to do something new and difficult with his prosthetic hand. “I just... I’d never hurt you. You know that, right?”
Pete just sort of gaped at him, too stunned to come up with an answer. After a second, he decided he was glad not to have replied, because what he really wanted to say was ‘I don’t believe you.’ Or, better yet, flat out call Patrick a liar. And sure he didn’t really think Patrick meant what he was saying, but he wasn’t exactly dying to put it to the test.
Patrick looked sincere, and after a few seconds puzzled, and a few seconds after that, sad. “Hey,” he said, “can you bring me that album again? I should probably try to do a bit more.”
***
In a corner of the closet, down where Pete kept his shoes, the carpet wasn’t properly tacked down, and when Pete lifted it up he realised it was because there was a gap in the floorboards there. The result was a little hole, one inch deep and two inches long. It wasn’t big enough for the pill bottle, so Pete tipped the pills into a bag and threw the bottle away in a trash can on the other side of the medical centre. He tried to use the pills sparingly. The longer he could make them last, the less likely he was to be caught.
After a few days of being able to keep the pills hidden and use them without incident, it was a very unpleasant surprise to come into the apartment one evening and find Ridley and Nagel inside, and the entire living room turned upside down.
Luis was there already, but Sharon and Linda were still out. Luis nearly pounced on him when he came through the door.
“Pete,” he muttered, looking sideways to the caseworkers.
“Inspection time?” Pete asked in an undertone. Although it looked like a bit more than a usual inspection. They’d pulled all the cushions off the couch last time, but this time they’d actually pulled the couch away from the wall.
“They said they’re looking for...”
But before Luis could finish, Ridley noticed him and walked across the room. “Pete,” he said. “Empty your pockets.”
“Why?” Pete asked without thinking. Seeing Ridley’s scowl, he quickly turned his pockets out to show they were empty, and added, “What’s going on, sir?”
Ridley seemed to accept that there was nothing in his pockets and patted Pete down. “We got a call from one of the wards,” he said. “Their medication inventory was off. Can you shed any light on that?”
Pete’s heart rate soared. Lucky the caseworkers weren’t Sentinels, or they’d instantly know what he’d done. Pete hoped his face wasn’t revealing anything. He considered saying something, but couldn’t decide what, and in the end Ridley turned away after a couple of seconds anyway, saying “Keep out of our way until we’re finished searching.”
They couldn’t really suspect him, then. They were just going through the motions of searching. Pete felt so profoundly relieved that he wanted to sink to the floor, but he couldn’t do anything as revealing as that.
Ridley pulled all the plates out of the cupboards, and Nagel ripped the sheets off the beds. At some point, Linda and Sharon came in together and Luis quietly explained what was happening. Pete didn’t take too much notice because Nagel was going through the closet, and he didn’t think he could speak without freaking out.
Nagel pulled the last hangers out of the closet, dumped them on the ground and turned away. He took a step away, stopped, frowned. Turned back. Pete wanted to be sick. Nagel knelt down on the ground and started pulling out shoes. Not that there were many - between he and Luis, there were two pairs of dress shoes and two pairs of tennis shoes, Pete had flip flops and Luis had slippers. Nagel checked inside every shoe.
Sharon made a quiet comment to Pete and he tried to grunt a reassuring reply even though he had no idea what she’d actually said. She huffed a little bit and he guessed that he’d missed the mark somewhat, but he couldn’t care about that, not when Nagel was inches away from finding his hiding place.
Nagel pulled the last shoes out of the closet. He looked around. Pete wondered whether he should say something. Something to provoke Nagel and distract him. It could backfire, though, and he couldn’t think of the right thing to say. He kept quiet.
Nagel turned away. He turned away and pushed the closet door back, although it stuck on the pile of clothes and didn’t close. Pete tried to look calm, normal. Not like he’d just had the worst scare of his entire life.
“Good evening, ladies,” he said smarmily. “I’m sure the boys have filled you in. Some medication has been stolen, and we’re doing a search. What’s in your pockets?” And he patted down Sharon, and then Linda, seeming to take a longer time over it than he really needed to.
Ridley had been searching Sharon and Linda’s room while this was going on, and came out saying: “Nothing here. Do you think we’re done?”
“Thank Christ,” Nagel said. “Let’s get out of here.” He stopped at the door and turned back to say, “If any of you hear anything about those drugs, you make sure to tell us. The hospital is very keen to know where they went.”
Once the door closed behind them, Pete couldn’t really keep up the pretence of being okay. His breath had been fast and shallow before and now accelerated almost to the point of hyperventilation. Linda patted his arm, her face concerned, and Pete both wanted to cling to her and push her hand away. She wouldn’t want to comfort him if she knew the truth. She’d be furious.
“I can’t believe this!” Sharon ranted, gesturing at the trashed apartment. “I had a long day, this is the last thing I need.” She grabbed two mugs from the kitchen table and slammed them back into the cupboard with a heavy sigh.
“It’s okay, Pete,” said Linda. “They’re gone, and I’m sure the medication will turn up somewhere else.”
“I hope they find whoever took them and... and...” Sharon said, apparently unable to think of anything bad enough. “Did you see the look that little weasel gave me when he went through my drawers? His mother should have taught him better manners.”
None of this helped Pete to calm down at all, and Linda got him to sit down on the couch, although she had to wait for Luis to retrieve a cushion first. “What’s wrong, Pete?” she asked kindly.
Pete just shook his head, and she patted his hand. “I know they’re horrible, and the apartment’s a mess, but it’s not that bad.”
“Speak for yourself, Linda,” Sharon snapped. “Cleaning this up will take hours.”
“Sharon,” Linda hissed, “I really don’t think you’re helping.” She looked back at Pete and appeared to compose herself. “They were just throwing their weight around a bit. It happens. They have to know none of us took the drugs.”
The reactions Pete had been holding in couldn’t be contained anymore, and he jerked. He hoped that Linda hadn’t noticed, but when he chanced a look at her face he could tell she had.
“Oh, Pete,” said Linda sadly.
“What?” Sharon asked, coming over to the couch. “What? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”
“What is it?” Luis asked. “What’s happened?”
“Where are they?” Sharon demanded. “Pete, you’ll tell me right now if you don’t want my foot right up your...”
“Sharon, let me handle this,” said Linda. Sharon subsided, much to Pete’s relief, and Linda took Pete’s chin in a grasp that was firm but not tight.
“Where are they hidden?” she asked, meeting Pete’s eyes and not letting him look away. Maybe she wasn’t the softer option after all.
Sharon retrieved the pills from the closet when Pete pointed out the hiding spot. She flushed them immediately, and the only reason Pete didn’t protest and beg her not to was that he was preoccupied by shaking and trying to breathe.
“Are there any more?” Linda asked, and Pete shook his head. “Do you mean it, Pete, because this really isn’t something any of us need to go through again.”
“No,” Pete gasped. “No, n-not any more. Sorry. Sorry about...”
“Okay. Just take a breath, relax,” said Linda, patting his arm. Pete did his best, but his shaking was out of control. “You’ve got to calm down, Pete. How do you normally deal with this?”
Pete didn’t bother to answer that, just gave Linda a withering look. She seemed to interpret it correctly and her shoulders slumped. “God. What a mess.”
***
After that, Pete knew beyond a doubt he’d be getting no sleep that night. He wasn’t wrong. At eleven pm, he didn’t feel tired in the slightest. At half-past midnight, his eyes felt sore and scratchy, but closing them took a force of will and lying down made his skin feel like it was going to itch off.
Linda sat up with him. Pete thought he’d have liked to kiss her, if he’d liked girls. They sat on the couch and watched reruns of MASH. Linda dozed a couple of times, made cocoa, and refolded everything Nagel had tipped out of her dresser.
“I’m sorry,” Pete repeated for the sixteenth time.
“No one blames you, Pete.”
Pete wasn’t sure about that. “It’s my fault. The apartment. And Nagel searching everyone. I was only thinking about myself, not anyone else.”
“That you think that’s the worst part of this whole screwed up situation just goes to show how messed up you are,” said Linda.
“But Nagel...”
“You think that’s the first time a G-TAC worker felt me up?” Linda asked. “Nagel did that because he’s an asshole. Nothing to do with you, Pete.” Linda’s voice was closed off and Pete was glad to let the subject drop.
He slept after a while, or at least he woke up from a nightmare. It wasn’t as bad as some of them had been, but it was disorienting. Linda made more cocoa and sat with him until just after four, when she went to bed to squeeze in a few hours of sleep, and Sharon came out.
“Have you slept at all?” she asked, clucking her tongue when Pete shrugged. She made coffee and fried eggs while Pete buttered toast.
Pete was being very quiet around Sharon because, whatever Linda had said, Pete didn’t really believe she wasn’t harbouring any anger towards him. She was surprisingly kind, though, and made him a second cup of coffee without even asking first.
“Do you need any help with your Sentinels today?” she asked.
“I dunno...” said Pete.
“Because we can get Luis to help you. He’s young, he’ll have the energy.”
Pete couldn’t help laughing. Sharon attributed a great many qualities to youth, boundless energy being one of the foremost.
“I don’t know,” he said again. The thought of the day’s work ahead of him on barely any sleep tied his stomach in knots, but the possibility of G-TAC finding out he wasn’t keeping up with his workload was no less disconcerting. He couldn’t decide how to answer Sharon, and tapped with his fingers on the edge of the table.
“Well, just let us know if you do,” Sharon said.
Pete nodded. Decision delayed, good. “Sure.”
He went to work. Joseph needed help washing. Alice needed breakfast made, a challenging task when she couldn’t tolerate anything with a hint of flavour. He sat with Mr Stillman for dialysis, which was a nice chance to sit still, but gave him too much time to think about all the work he had still to do and how long it would take. And how many things he could possibly screw up.
Patrick had physio after that, and it was a tough session. Dr Samuels had come up with a different prosthesis for him - well, really, it was more like a casting sock with a guitar pick stuck to the end of it. Pete could appreciate Patrick’s problem. It was his best option for playing guitar, but it made his stump look like nothing so much as, well - a stump.
Aaron tried to get him to try it on; Patrick refused. Aaron pushed him through a series of other, more challenging exercises. Pete tried to keep Patrick’s spirits up, but his heart wasn’t in it and Patrick had never really responded well to that sort of thing anyway.
Aaron ended the session a little bit early; perhaps he’d taken note of Patrick’s barely contained frustration.
“Keep an eye on him,” Aaron said to Pete. “His mood is very low. It would make a big difference to his recovery if we can bring him out of it a little.”
Pete went to one of his other Sentinels, feeling even more burdened. It was worse, now that he’d come to care about Patrick. He wanted Patrick to feel better, but he couldn’t give Patrick what would make him happy - no one could. He didn’t want to sit by helplessly and watch Patrick fade away.
He wouldn’t have the opportunity to do that anyway, Pete realised. Patrick wouldn’t be staying at Walter Reed forever. Not unless he got a lot worse. He’d be discharged and waste away in his home, watched over by a Guide assigned by G-TAC. The idea made Pete scowl. Or, maybe, Patrick would need to stay. Need treatment for mental health, or have some unforeseen problem with his arm. And then G-TAC would realise what a poor job Pete had been doing here, and they’d pull him and give him some other, worse task.
How could he possibly make Patrick happier? Pete was so inadequate to this task it wasn’t even funny.
At five he left the hospital ward like he usually did, and went to quickly check up on the Sentinels living in the apartments before he went to spend the bulk of the evening with Patrick. At least, that was the plan.
Alice was having sensory spikes, and it took Pete over an hour to figure out that she’d just had a refill on her medication, and the pharmacist had given her a generic instead of the brand she’d been prescribed. He couldn’t leave her to go and pick up the replacement she needed, and he had to wait for someone to bring it over. He sat with Alice where she was huddled over the toilet in the bathroom, and tried to get her to dial her sense of taste down. It was a problem, because the combined taste of puke and minty toothpaste seemed to have her in some kind of infinite vomit loop. It was incredibly disgusting, but Pete still thought he would have handled it okay if she hadn’t been overwhelmed by everything and started to cry.
Pete didn’t really know what to do. This had never been an issue with Trent; when he’d been sick or uncomfortable he’d tended to yell or throw things. He patted Alice on the shoulder. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay. I’m here.” Yeah, and useless. He had no idea what to do, and to his horror his breathing was becoming a little agitated and his eyes were prickling. This was fucking Guiding 101; if the Guide started to panic the Sentinel would panic. He tried to take some deep breaths, but the bathroom didn’t smell so great and he regretted it. Pete coughed and Alice was crying so hard it made her vomit again.
By the time the pharmacy tech arrived with Alice’s medication, they were both in a terrible state. Pete had actually begun to wish Alice would just zone so he could have a moment to collect himself, but of course he wasn’t that lucky. The poor tech had to stick around for twenty minutes until they’d both calmed down and Alice had managed to keep down the anti-nausea medication and drunk a glass of water. Pete felt horribly guilty about leaving Alice after that, but she seemed much better and not interested in doing anything but going to bed. He made sure she had aspirin and water within reach, that her white noise generator was playing and the curtains were closed, and went to Patrick’s room.
It was nearly nine o’clock. He was so late, and Patrick was going to be so mad. That almost made him want to go back and hide in his own room. It wasn’t that he was afraid of what Patrick would do, it was just that he didn’t want Patrick to be disappointed, and he was kind of angry at himself for giving another person that kind of power over him again. But he had to go, or G-TAC would have something to say about it.
Patrick didn’t answer his knock straight away, and Pete spent five anxious minutes knocking and calling out and wondering whether or not to let himself in. Patrick finally opened the door, to Pete’s relief. The kitchen was a mess, with pasta scattered over the floor and a tomato sort of eviscerated on the counter.
Patrick didn’t say anything or even really look at Pete when he opened the door. He made his way back to the couch and slumped down on it like his body had suddenly become too heavy to hold up.
“Hey. Um. What happened here?” Pete asked, although he regretted it instantly, because he knew the answer was ‘you were late and left me to fend for myself when I needed you more than ever and you suck.’
It took Patrick a long time to reply. “Tried to make dinner,” he said. He looked down and sighed. “Fucked it up.”
God, he sounded so much like Pete, which was horrible because Patrick was awesome and didn’t deserve to feel like that. “I’m sorry,” Pete said. “I should have been here to help.”
“But you weren’t, and so what? I don’t need you.” His voice held so much anger and frustration. Pete kind of cringed away from him. He was way too tired for this, he didn’t have the energy to comfort Patrick who was now digging his fingers into his knee and muttering, “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” over and over.
He should go over to Patrick anyway. He should do his damn job, go to Patrick and pat his shoulder. Say something soothing. But he couldn’t move. He thought that was just melodramatic self-pity, but then he tried to take a step and wobbled on his feet and had to lean against the wall. His hands were shaking and he could feel a hysterical sound bubbling up in his throat, so he stuck some fingers in his mouth and bit down.
He must still be making some noise, or Patrick was more alert than he appeared, because he looked over and regarded Pete for a minute or so.
“Pete?” he asked. “Pete? What’s wrong?”
Pete pulled his hand away and tried to say ‘I’m fine.’ He needed to convince Patrick he was fine. He needed to be fine, goddamn. He just had to pull himself together. But instead he sobbed and clutched the wall and slumped down to the floor because his legs wouldn’t hold him up anymore.
Patrick got up from the couch and walked over to Pete. “Did something happen?” he asked, and his voice was losing the flat quality it had had before. He was sounding more concerned, and he sat down next to Pete on the floor.
Nothing had happened. It had just been a normal day. Pete had absolutely no reason to be so upset, but he couldn’t calm down. His panic was overlaid by white hot fury at himself for not being able to deal better.
Patrick said, “Uh...” and put his hand on Pete’s shoulder. “Should I...?” Patrick asked, but he didn’t finish the question and Pete wouldn’t have been able to answer it anyway. He leaned into Patrick who awkwardly put his arm around Pete’s shoulders and patted his back. “Okay,” he said. “It’s okay.” He didn’t sound at all convinced that it was. Pete thought that it was just like earlier, with Alice, but with the roles reversed. His Sentinel wasn’t supposed to have to do that for him. No, Patrick wasn’t even his. But he just didn’t care.
“Do you know why I’ve been so down?” Patrick asked, much later when Pete had stopped shaking and was slumped against Patrick’s side too exhausted to move. He shook his head. “I got my discharge papers today.”
Pete mumbled, “Uh-huh?”
“I’m officially a civilian now. Medical discharge, with full pension.” Patrick was staring fixedly at the spot where the counter met the floor. Pete nudged him, tried to get him to focus.
“That’s not... bad? Is it?” Pete asked uncertainly.
Patrick shrugged. “No,” he said. “But it means... I have to figure out who I am now. And I don’t think I like me very much.”
“You’re still you,” Pete said, touching two fingers to Patrick’s prosthetic hand. Patrick frowned and moved the prosthesis away.
“I’m not talking about that,” he said. “It’s... there’s plenty of soldiers with artificial limbs, I could have... that wasn’t the main reason for the discharge. It was the PTSD.”
“Oh,” Pete said. He wasn’t sure what to say, because he knew he was in no position to give Patrick a pep talk about managing his mental health.
“Do you know - see, they thought I might be dangerous,” Patrick said, and before Pete could be all outraged on his behalf, he added in a rush, “well, I mean, because... before I came here. I had this friend, and in a flashback, I attacked him. Tried to strangle him.”
Pete must have looked more horrified than he’d intended to, because Patrick quickly added, “He’s fine now! He still sends letters. But they decided I was too much of a liability or whatever. You can’t blame them. So I’m just saying that... I’ve turned into this other person. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to do things for myself. And sometimes I don’t even know what I’m doing. I’ve turned into this stranger who hurts people and can’t pull his own weight. I don’t like it and I can’t change it.”
Pete opened his mouth and closed it again. When Patrick stated his feelings flat out like that, there was little enough Pete could say to change his mind. And then Patrick said, “You’ve seen me at my worst, Pete. Whatever you tell me, I won’t laugh or say it doesn’t matter.”
Oh. “It’s nothing,” Pete said, more out of habit than because he actually thought Patrick would believe him.
“It was a hell of a panic attack you had just now,” Patrick said. Pete would have been embarrassed to have that pointed out, but he supposed it was true, what Patrick had said. He shrugged. Patrick had seen what he’d seen.
“Do you take anything for them?” Patrick asked.
“Nah.”
“Maybe... you should?” Patrick suggested gently. Pete didn’t mean to, but a snort burst out of him which he tried to cover up.
“What?” Patrick asked.
“Nothing,” Pete said. “Nothing. No, that’s good. A good idea. I’ll. Yeah.” He couldn’t promise to look into it. Not truthfully.
Patrick looked more concerned, though, not less. “What aren’t you telling me?” he asked. “If you don’t want to take medication for it, you could still look into some other therapy. Couldn’t you?” he asked, when Pete didn’t answer straight away.
“Yeah,” said Pete. “With G-TAC’s say-so.”
“Well, yeah,” said Patrick. He looked at Pete. “Would that be a problem? Do you think they’d - I dunno, not let you seek treatment?”
“They might,” Pete allowed. “But maybe they wouldn’t. They might... they’d decide what treatment, and whether it was working or not and whether to continue with it. And afterwards...” He remembered who he was talking to, and clammed up.
Patrick gave him a look. “Once they knew, they’d always know, and always be thinking about that when they decided anything to do with you.”
“Yeah, exactly,” Pete said, relieved that Patrick understood. Of course he did.
“But then...” Patrick said slowly, “what are you going to do?”
Part Six
Ridley turned up the next night to collect timesheets, which was good. Having made up his mind to talk to the caseworker, Pete wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. He handed over his paperwork and waited for Ridley to check it over, waited with his hands sweating, trying not to breathe too fast.
Ridley seemed to be in a sour mood, which wasn’t good. He probably just wanted to go home and put his feet up, not stand around listening to Pete whine. But Pete had no choice; he couldn’t wait.
“Uh,” Pete said hesitantly, “sir?”
“Yeah,” Ridley said, putting the paperwork into his briefcase. Pete didn’t answer straight away; he hadn’t quite figured out what to say and Ridley’s tone hadn’t been encouraging. “What, Guide?” Ridley demanded. “Get on with it.”
“I-” He’d had an idea of how he was going to start, but now, faced with Ridley’s irritated, impatient face, he couldn’t remember any of it. “Um... I...”
Ridley’s face went slightly red. “Do you have a point, or are you just trying to waste my time?” he snapped.
“Uh, I don’t want to... um, waste your time...”
“Well?”
Pete gave up. “It’s nothing. Sorry, sir. Never mind.”
Ridley scowled and left the apartment in a bit of a huff, and Pete felt exponentially worse. He wasn’t going to find any help that way, that was clear. He’d have to figure it out on his own.
The next day Pete passed Viv doing her medication run again, and he paused to watch. She unlocked the storage cupboard and brought out the trolley, locked the cupboard again and went on her way. Pete wondered how long doing the rounds would take her. He was pretty sure it would be at least twenty minutes. He’d only need two. He’d have more than enough time.
She’d have to give meds again in the afternoon, he knew. Four o’clock every day, on the dot. He’d be ready.
***
Pete planned out the rest of his day so that he had a reason to be around the med storage cupboard at four. He hovered in the doorway of the room opposite, where he couldn’t be seen, and pretended to fold towels until Viv walked up the corridor and unlocked the cupboard.
Pete waited until she was inside and slipped across the hallway. He glanced left and right; no one was looking at him. He took a roll of scotch tape from his pocket and stuck it firmly across the latch. He pressed the ends down, hoping that they wouldn’t catch Viv’s eye when she came out, and then walked away briskly when he heard Viv moving around inside the room.
She came out, and Pete tried to listen. Would she see the tape? Would she notice that the lock didn’t catch properly? He heard her shut the door. So far so good. She put the key in the lock. And then - nothing. Pete wanted to turn back, but he knew he couldn’t. Couldn’t do anything that might make Viv notice him.
“Jana in 220 just threw up everywhere,” Pete heard. It was Cathy, one of the younger nurses. “She needs some help to get changed.”
“Wow,” Viv said, barking a short laugh. “You’re on your own, though, I’ve got meds to give.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Cathy said, walking away.
Pete heard the keys rattle; was Viv putting them back in her pocket? Had she locked the door? He wished he could see. And then, he heard the sweet, sweet sound of the medication trolley rolling away, and wanted to weep with relief.
It took a few minutes before the hallway was clear enough to suit him. No one was paying him much attention, but he waited until the area was deserted before he went over to the storage cupboard.
The tape had held; the door opened easily at a touch. Pete checked the corridor again and slipped through the door, pulling it closed behind him. He fumbled for the light switch and blinked as the room lit up.
The shelves were a lot fuller than he’d been expecting. He picked one at random and started rifling through bottles and packets. If there was some system to the organisation, he didn’t know what it was. It seemed random to him. His heart started to race. This would take longer than he’d thought, and that meant a higher chance of being caught. He tried to go faster, but after a few seconds he realised he was only skimming the labels and not reading them properly, and had to go back in case he’d missed something.
He had missed something, as it turned out. There was a bottle of Valium that he’d only glanced at for half a second, and from the weight it was nearly full. He stuffed it into his pocket and glanced around the shelves again. He could keep looking, try to build up a bit of a stockpile, but he didn’t want to take the chance.
This was the riskiest part of the whole operation. He couldn’t see through the door, and there was a chance someone was standing just on the other side of it. He pressed an ear to the wood and listened as hard as he could. It was quiet, but that didn’t mean someone couldn’t be standing up the other end of the corridor. He had no choice, though, he couldn’t just stand there and wait for Viv to come back. He opened the door a crack and peered out.
No one was looking his way. It would have to do. He opened the door a little wider, peeled off the tape, and stepped out fast, closing it behind him in one movement. He heard the lock catch and stepped away from the door, making sure not to move too fast, not to look guilty. He glanced back when he reached the corner.
Nothing. The hallway was all but deserted. No one seemed to have noticed him. Pete tapped the bottle in his pocket to make sure it was still there, then jerked his hand away. He’d gotten away with it.
***
Jon had replied to Pete’s email.
Ryan Ross is made of elbows. And the parts of him that aren’t elbows are dick. He’s like, 60% elbows and 40% dick. Or maybe the other way around. I dunno, fuck it, let’s talk about something else.
I’m so relieved that it’s been going okay with Patrick. I mean it’s not that I was worried about him or anything, it was just good to hear from you.
It’s a nice change to be able to get back to work. Ross is the historian for his unit, which I didn’t think was something they let Sentinels do, but... well, anyway. Means I’m mostly helping him with paperwork, but at least it’s something to do. And you get a lot of inside gossip about things that are happening on base. It’s sort of fun.
What’s your news this week?
Pete wrote a reply, although he didn’t have much to say. He talked about a funny prank some of the patients had played on a new nurse, and how she’d got them back by typing up a fake menu the next day, and once he’d finished he had nothing to distract himself from the idea that he should probably email Mikey. He stared at the blinking cursor for a few minutes with no idea where to start, and eventually he closed that window and started an email to Ray instead.
Hi, Ray. I didn’t know Mikey was going to ask you to email me. I mean, I hope it’s not a problem. I’m not sure what Mikey said, but he’s probably blown everything way out of proportion. But anyway.
You play awesome guitar, I love the music you guys write. What movie did you see?
Pete
He’d just closed the window and was about to shut the computer down when he heard Patrick swear and drop something on the other side of the room. He’d been adding photos to an album, something his physiotherapist had apparently suggested he do, or so Patrick had told Pete when he’d offered to help. Pete turned around at the noise to see photos scattered across the rug.
“Fuck!” Patrick snapped, and he tossed the album across the room. Pete got the impression he would have liked to throw it through a window, but he seemed to rein himself in and instead just sent it sliding across the floor until it bumped into the wall. It made Pete jump anyway.
“Is everything okay?” Pete asked carefully when it became clear that Patrick wasn’t going to move or speak. He was slumped on the couch with his hand over his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“No,” Patrick said. He took a deep breath. “Sorry,” he added, kind of short, like he actually wanted to yell but knew he shouldn’t.
Pete wondered whether it would piss Patrick off more if he offered to help, or if he didn’t. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked, because it seemed like the safest option.
“No,” said Patrick. “No. Don’t - it’s fine. Not your problem. It’s not like you’re my therapist or something.”
Which struck Pete as a weird thing to say, because in his experience, being a Guide was a bit like that. At least, it was if his Sentinel decided it was. ‘Or something’ could cover just about anything when it came to a Guide’s job description.
“Well, if your therapist were here, what would they say?” Pete asked lightly. “Just imagine something really wise and pretend I said it, and bam! Successful Guiding.”
That actually got Patrick to laugh a little bit, and Pete felt pretty impressed with himself. “She likes to say that anger is a secondary emotion, and there’s usually another emotion underneath it,” Patrick said. “Like fear, or disappointment, or sadness. And it would totally make sense for me to feel any of those things, but I can’t tell. I just feel angry.”
Well, it was nice that Patrick had taken him at his word and shared a bit of what he was feeling, but it still left Pete in the awkward position of not knowing what to say. “That sucks,” he said, on the theory that making reassuring noises was probably better than being silent.
“I’m never going to be able to forget,” Patrick said. “I think I’d try, if I had the option. I’d just go on with my life and pretend that none of it had ever happened. But...” He tapped his prosthesis on the table. “I’m going to be reminded every day, and that...”
“Makes you mad?”
“Guess so.” Patrick looked up at him, the wry smile on his lips melting away to a solemn expression. “Sorry about before. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“You didn’t,” Pete said automatically. Shit, he thought, Patrick had noticed that? Of course he had. Fucking Sentinels.
Patrick had that expression on his face that he wore when he was about to do something new and difficult with his prosthetic hand. “I just... I’d never hurt you. You know that, right?”
Pete just sort of gaped at him, too stunned to come up with an answer. After a second, he decided he was glad not to have replied, because what he really wanted to say was ‘I don’t believe you.’ Or, better yet, flat out call Patrick a liar. And sure he didn’t really think Patrick meant what he was saying, but he wasn’t exactly dying to put it to the test.
Patrick looked sincere, and after a few seconds puzzled, and a few seconds after that, sad. “Hey,” he said, “can you bring me that album again? I should probably try to do a bit more.”
***
In a corner of the closet, down where Pete kept his shoes, the carpet wasn’t properly tacked down, and when Pete lifted it up he realised it was because there was a gap in the floorboards there. The result was a little hole, one inch deep and two inches long. It wasn’t big enough for the pill bottle, so Pete tipped the pills into a bag and threw the bottle away in a trash can on the other side of the medical centre. He tried to use the pills sparingly. The longer he could make them last, the less likely he was to be caught.
After a few days of being able to keep the pills hidden and use them without incident, it was a very unpleasant surprise to come into the apartment one evening and find Ridley and Nagel inside, and the entire living room turned upside down.
Luis was there already, but Sharon and Linda were still out. Luis nearly pounced on him when he came through the door.
“Pete,” he muttered, looking sideways to the caseworkers.
“Inspection time?” Pete asked in an undertone. Although it looked like a bit more than a usual inspection. They’d pulled all the cushions off the couch last time, but this time they’d actually pulled the couch away from the wall.
“They said they’re looking for...”
But before Luis could finish, Ridley noticed him and walked across the room. “Pete,” he said. “Empty your pockets.”
“Why?” Pete asked without thinking. Seeing Ridley’s scowl, he quickly turned his pockets out to show they were empty, and added, “What’s going on, sir?”
Ridley seemed to accept that there was nothing in his pockets and patted Pete down. “We got a call from one of the wards,” he said. “Their medication inventory was off. Can you shed any light on that?”
Pete’s heart rate soared. Lucky the caseworkers weren’t Sentinels, or they’d instantly know what he’d done. Pete hoped his face wasn’t revealing anything. He considered saying something, but couldn’t decide what, and in the end Ridley turned away after a couple of seconds anyway, saying “Keep out of our way until we’re finished searching.”
They couldn’t really suspect him, then. They were just going through the motions of searching. Pete felt so profoundly relieved that he wanted to sink to the floor, but he couldn’t do anything as revealing as that.
Ridley pulled all the plates out of the cupboards, and Nagel ripped the sheets off the beds. At some point, Linda and Sharon came in together and Luis quietly explained what was happening. Pete didn’t take too much notice because Nagel was going through the closet, and he didn’t think he could speak without freaking out.
Nagel pulled the last hangers out of the closet, dumped them on the ground and turned away. He took a step away, stopped, frowned. Turned back. Pete wanted to be sick. Nagel knelt down on the ground and started pulling out shoes. Not that there were many - between he and Luis, there were two pairs of dress shoes and two pairs of tennis shoes, Pete had flip flops and Luis had slippers. Nagel checked inside every shoe.
Sharon made a quiet comment to Pete and he tried to grunt a reassuring reply even though he had no idea what she’d actually said. She huffed a little bit and he guessed that he’d missed the mark somewhat, but he couldn’t care about that, not when Nagel was inches away from finding his hiding place.
Nagel pulled the last shoes out of the closet. He looked around. Pete wondered whether he should say something. Something to provoke Nagel and distract him. It could backfire, though, and he couldn’t think of the right thing to say. He kept quiet.
Nagel turned away. He turned away and pushed the closet door back, although it stuck on the pile of clothes and didn’t close. Pete tried to look calm, normal. Not like he’d just had the worst scare of his entire life.
“Good evening, ladies,” he said smarmily. “I’m sure the boys have filled you in. Some medication has been stolen, and we’re doing a search. What’s in your pockets?” And he patted down Sharon, and then Linda, seeming to take a longer time over it than he really needed to.
Ridley had been searching Sharon and Linda’s room while this was going on, and came out saying: “Nothing here. Do you think we’re done?”
“Thank Christ,” Nagel said. “Let’s get out of here.” He stopped at the door and turned back to say, “If any of you hear anything about those drugs, you make sure to tell us. The hospital is very keen to know where they went.”
Once the door closed behind them, Pete couldn’t really keep up the pretence of being okay. His breath had been fast and shallow before and now accelerated almost to the point of hyperventilation. Linda patted his arm, her face concerned, and Pete both wanted to cling to her and push her hand away. She wouldn’t want to comfort him if she knew the truth. She’d be furious.
“I can’t believe this!” Sharon ranted, gesturing at the trashed apartment. “I had a long day, this is the last thing I need.” She grabbed two mugs from the kitchen table and slammed them back into the cupboard with a heavy sigh.
“It’s okay, Pete,” said Linda. “They’re gone, and I’m sure the medication will turn up somewhere else.”
“I hope they find whoever took them and... and...” Sharon said, apparently unable to think of anything bad enough. “Did you see the look that little weasel gave me when he went through my drawers? His mother should have taught him better manners.”
None of this helped Pete to calm down at all, and Linda got him to sit down on the couch, although she had to wait for Luis to retrieve a cushion first. “What’s wrong, Pete?” she asked kindly.
Pete just shook his head, and she patted his hand. “I know they’re horrible, and the apartment’s a mess, but it’s not that bad.”
“Speak for yourself, Linda,” Sharon snapped. “Cleaning this up will take hours.”
“Sharon,” Linda hissed, “I really don’t think you’re helping.” She looked back at Pete and appeared to compose herself. “They were just throwing their weight around a bit. It happens. They have to know none of us took the drugs.”
The reactions Pete had been holding in couldn’t be contained anymore, and he jerked. He hoped that Linda hadn’t noticed, but when he chanced a look at her face he could tell she had.
“Oh, Pete,” said Linda sadly.
“What?” Sharon asked, coming over to the couch. “What? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”
“What is it?” Luis asked. “What’s happened?”
“Where are they?” Sharon demanded. “Pete, you’ll tell me right now if you don’t want my foot right up your...”
“Sharon, let me handle this,” said Linda. Sharon subsided, much to Pete’s relief, and Linda took Pete’s chin in a grasp that was firm but not tight.
“Where are they hidden?” she asked, meeting Pete’s eyes and not letting him look away. Maybe she wasn’t the softer option after all.
Sharon retrieved the pills from the closet when Pete pointed out the hiding spot. She flushed them immediately, and the only reason Pete didn’t protest and beg her not to was that he was preoccupied by shaking and trying to breathe.
“Are there any more?” Linda asked, and Pete shook his head. “Do you mean it, Pete, because this really isn’t something any of us need to go through again.”
“No,” Pete gasped. “No, n-not any more. Sorry. Sorry about...”
“Okay. Just take a breath, relax,” said Linda, patting his arm. Pete did his best, but his shaking was out of control. “You’ve got to calm down, Pete. How do you normally deal with this?”
Pete didn’t bother to answer that, just gave Linda a withering look. She seemed to interpret it correctly and her shoulders slumped. “God. What a mess.”
***
After that, Pete knew beyond a doubt he’d be getting no sleep that night. He wasn’t wrong. At eleven pm, he didn’t feel tired in the slightest. At half-past midnight, his eyes felt sore and scratchy, but closing them took a force of will and lying down made his skin feel like it was going to itch off.
Linda sat up with him. Pete thought he’d have liked to kiss her, if he’d liked girls. They sat on the couch and watched reruns of MASH. Linda dozed a couple of times, made cocoa, and refolded everything Nagel had tipped out of her dresser.
“I’m sorry,” Pete repeated for the sixteenth time.
“No one blames you, Pete.”
Pete wasn’t sure about that. “It’s my fault. The apartment. And Nagel searching everyone. I was only thinking about myself, not anyone else.”
“That you think that’s the worst part of this whole screwed up situation just goes to show how messed up you are,” said Linda.
“But Nagel...”
“You think that’s the first time a G-TAC worker felt me up?” Linda asked. “Nagel did that because he’s an asshole. Nothing to do with you, Pete.” Linda’s voice was closed off and Pete was glad to let the subject drop.
He slept after a while, or at least he woke up from a nightmare. It wasn’t as bad as some of them had been, but it was disorienting. Linda made more cocoa and sat with him until just after four, when she went to bed to squeeze in a few hours of sleep, and Sharon came out.
“Have you slept at all?” she asked, clucking her tongue when Pete shrugged. She made coffee and fried eggs while Pete buttered toast.
Pete was being very quiet around Sharon because, whatever Linda had said, Pete didn’t really believe she wasn’t harbouring any anger towards him. She was surprisingly kind, though, and made him a second cup of coffee without even asking first.
“Do you need any help with your Sentinels today?” she asked.
“I dunno...” said Pete.
“Because we can get Luis to help you. He’s young, he’ll have the energy.”
Pete couldn’t help laughing. Sharon attributed a great many qualities to youth, boundless energy being one of the foremost.
“I don’t know,” he said again. The thought of the day’s work ahead of him on barely any sleep tied his stomach in knots, but the possibility of G-TAC finding out he wasn’t keeping up with his workload was no less disconcerting. He couldn’t decide how to answer Sharon, and tapped with his fingers on the edge of the table.
“Well, just let us know if you do,” Sharon said.
Pete nodded. Decision delayed, good. “Sure.”
He went to work. Joseph needed help washing. Alice needed breakfast made, a challenging task when she couldn’t tolerate anything with a hint of flavour. He sat with Mr Stillman for dialysis, which was a nice chance to sit still, but gave him too much time to think about all the work he had still to do and how long it would take. And how many things he could possibly screw up.
Patrick had physio after that, and it was a tough session. Dr Samuels had come up with a different prosthesis for him - well, really, it was more like a casting sock with a guitar pick stuck to the end of it. Pete could appreciate Patrick’s problem. It was his best option for playing guitar, but it made his stump look like nothing so much as, well - a stump.
Aaron tried to get him to try it on; Patrick refused. Aaron pushed him through a series of other, more challenging exercises. Pete tried to keep Patrick’s spirits up, but his heart wasn’t in it and Patrick had never really responded well to that sort of thing anyway.
Aaron ended the session a little bit early; perhaps he’d taken note of Patrick’s barely contained frustration.
“Keep an eye on him,” Aaron said to Pete. “His mood is very low. It would make a big difference to his recovery if we can bring him out of it a little.”
Pete went to one of his other Sentinels, feeling even more burdened. It was worse, now that he’d come to care about Patrick. He wanted Patrick to feel better, but he couldn’t give Patrick what would make him happy - no one could. He didn’t want to sit by helplessly and watch Patrick fade away.
He wouldn’t have the opportunity to do that anyway, Pete realised. Patrick wouldn’t be staying at Walter Reed forever. Not unless he got a lot worse. He’d be discharged and waste away in his home, watched over by a Guide assigned by G-TAC. The idea made Pete scowl. Or, maybe, Patrick would need to stay. Need treatment for mental health, or have some unforeseen problem with his arm. And then G-TAC would realise what a poor job Pete had been doing here, and they’d pull him and give him some other, worse task.
How could he possibly make Patrick happier? Pete was so inadequate to this task it wasn’t even funny.
At five he left the hospital ward like he usually did, and went to quickly check up on the Sentinels living in the apartments before he went to spend the bulk of the evening with Patrick. At least, that was the plan.
Alice was having sensory spikes, and it took Pete over an hour to figure out that she’d just had a refill on her medication, and the pharmacist had given her a generic instead of the brand she’d been prescribed. He couldn’t leave her to go and pick up the replacement she needed, and he had to wait for someone to bring it over. He sat with Alice where she was huddled over the toilet in the bathroom, and tried to get her to dial her sense of taste down. It was a problem, because the combined taste of puke and minty toothpaste seemed to have her in some kind of infinite vomit loop. It was incredibly disgusting, but Pete still thought he would have handled it okay if she hadn’t been overwhelmed by everything and started to cry.
Pete didn’t really know what to do. This had never been an issue with Trent; when he’d been sick or uncomfortable he’d tended to yell or throw things. He patted Alice on the shoulder. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay. I’m here.” Yeah, and useless. He had no idea what to do, and to his horror his breathing was becoming a little agitated and his eyes were prickling. This was fucking Guiding 101; if the Guide started to panic the Sentinel would panic. He tried to take some deep breaths, but the bathroom didn’t smell so great and he regretted it. Pete coughed and Alice was crying so hard it made her vomit again.
By the time the pharmacy tech arrived with Alice’s medication, they were both in a terrible state. Pete had actually begun to wish Alice would just zone so he could have a moment to collect himself, but of course he wasn’t that lucky. The poor tech had to stick around for twenty minutes until they’d both calmed down and Alice had managed to keep down the anti-nausea medication and drunk a glass of water. Pete felt horribly guilty about leaving Alice after that, but she seemed much better and not interested in doing anything but going to bed. He made sure she had aspirin and water within reach, that her white noise generator was playing and the curtains were closed, and went to Patrick’s room.
It was nearly nine o’clock. He was so late, and Patrick was going to be so mad. That almost made him want to go back and hide in his own room. It wasn’t that he was afraid of what Patrick would do, it was just that he didn’t want Patrick to be disappointed, and he was kind of angry at himself for giving another person that kind of power over him again. But he had to go, or G-TAC would have something to say about it.
Patrick didn’t answer his knock straight away, and Pete spent five anxious minutes knocking and calling out and wondering whether or not to let himself in. Patrick finally opened the door, to Pete’s relief. The kitchen was a mess, with pasta scattered over the floor and a tomato sort of eviscerated on the counter.
Patrick didn’t say anything or even really look at Pete when he opened the door. He made his way back to the couch and slumped down on it like his body had suddenly become too heavy to hold up.
“Hey. Um. What happened here?” Pete asked, although he regretted it instantly, because he knew the answer was ‘you were late and left me to fend for myself when I needed you more than ever and you suck.’
It took Patrick a long time to reply. “Tried to make dinner,” he said. He looked down and sighed. “Fucked it up.”
God, he sounded so much like Pete, which was horrible because Patrick was awesome and didn’t deserve to feel like that. “I’m sorry,” Pete said. “I should have been here to help.”
“But you weren’t, and so what? I don’t need you.” His voice held so much anger and frustration. Pete kind of cringed away from him. He was way too tired for this, he didn’t have the energy to comfort Patrick who was now digging his fingers into his knee and muttering, “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” over and over.
He should go over to Patrick anyway. He should do his damn job, go to Patrick and pat his shoulder. Say something soothing. But he couldn’t move. He thought that was just melodramatic self-pity, but then he tried to take a step and wobbled on his feet and had to lean against the wall. His hands were shaking and he could feel a hysterical sound bubbling up in his throat, so he stuck some fingers in his mouth and bit down.
He must still be making some noise, or Patrick was more alert than he appeared, because he looked over and regarded Pete for a minute or so.
“Pete?” he asked. “Pete? What’s wrong?”
Pete pulled his hand away and tried to say ‘I’m fine.’ He needed to convince Patrick he was fine. He needed to be fine, goddamn. He just had to pull himself together. But instead he sobbed and clutched the wall and slumped down to the floor because his legs wouldn’t hold him up anymore.
Patrick got up from the couch and walked over to Pete. “Did something happen?” he asked, and his voice was losing the flat quality it had had before. He was sounding more concerned, and he sat down next to Pete on the floor.
Nothing had happened. It had just been a normal day. Pete had absolutely no reason to be so upset, but he couldn’t calm down. His panic was overlaid by white hot fury at himself for not being able to deal better.
Patrick said, “Uh...” and put his hand on Pete’s shoulder. “Should I...?” Patrick asked, but he didn’t finish the question and Pete wouldn’t have been able to answer it anyway. He leaned into Patrick who awkwardly put his arm around Pete’s shoulders and patted his back. “Okay,” he said. “It’s okay.” He didn’t sound at all convinced that it was. Pete thought that it was just like earlier, with Alice, but with the roles reversed. His Sentinel wasn’t supposed to have to do that for him. No, Patrick wasn’t even his. But he just didn’t care.
“Do you know why I’ve been so down?” Patrick asked, much later when Pete had stopped shaking and was slumped against Patrick’s side too exhausted to move. He shook his head. “I got my discharge papers today.”
Pete mumbled, “Uh-huh?”
“I’m officially a civilian now. Medical discharge, with full pension.” Patrick was staring fixedly at the spot where the counter met the floor. Pete nudged him, tried to get him to focus.
“That’s not... bad? Is it?” Pete asked uncertainly.
Patrick shrugged. “No,” he said. “But it means... I have to figure out who I am now. And I don’t think I like me very much.”
“You’re still you,” Pete said, touching two fingers to Patrick’s prosthetic hand. Patrick frowned and moved the prosthesis away.
“I’m not talking about that,” he said. “It’s... there’s plenty of soldiers with artificial limbs, I could have... that wasn’t the main reason for the discharge. It was the PTSD.”
“Oh,” Pete said. He wasn’t sure what to say, because he knew he was in no position to give Patrick a pep talk about managing his mental health.
“Do you know - see, they thought I might be dangerous,” Patrick said, and before Pete could be all outraged on his behalf, he added in a rush, “well, I mean, because... before I came here. I had this friend, and in a flashback, I attacked him. Tried to strangle him.”
Pete must have looked more horrified than he’d intended to, because Patrick quickly added, “He’s fine now! He still sends letters. But they decided I was too much of a liability or whatever. You can’t blame them. So I’m just saying that... I’ve turned into this other person. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to do things for myself. And sometimes I don’t even know what I’m doing. I’ve turned into this stranger who hurts people and can’t pull his own weight. I don’t like it and I can’t change it.”
Pete opened his mouth and closed it again. When Patrick stated his feelings flat out like that, there was little enough Pete could say to change his mind. And then Patrick said, “You’ve seen me at my worst, Pete. Whatever you tell me, I won’t laugh or say it doesn’t matter.”
Oh. “It’s nothing,” Pete said, more out of habit than because he actually thought Patrick would believe him.
“It was a hell of a panic attack you had just now,” Patrick said. Pete would have been embarrassed to have that pointed out, but he supposed it was true, what Patrick had said. He shrugged. Patrick had seen what he’d seen.
“Do you take anything for them?” Patrick asked.
“Nah.”
“Maybe... you should?” Patrick suggested gently. Pete didn’t mean to, but a snort burst out of him which he tried to cover up.
“What?” Patrick asked.
“Nothing,” Pete said. “Nothing. No, that’s good. A good idea. I’ll. Yeah.” He couldn’t promise to look into it. Not truthfully.
Patrick looked more concerned, though, not less. “What aren’t you telling me?” he asked. “If you don’t want to take medication for it, you could still look into some other therapy. Couldn’t you?” he asked, when Pete didn’t answer straight away.
“Yeah,” said Pete. “With G-TAC’s say-so.”
“Well, yeah,” said Patrick. He looked at Pete. “Would that be a problem? Do you think they’d - I dunno, not let you seek treatment?”
“They might,” Pete allowed. “But maybe they wouldn’t. They might... they’d decide what treatment, and whether it was working or not and whether to continue with it. And afterwards...” He remembered who he was talking to, and clammed up.
Patrick gave him a look. “Once they knew, they’d always know, and always be thinking about that when they decided anything to do with you.”
“Yeah, exactly,” Pete said, relieved that Patrick understood. Of course he did.
“But then...” Patrick said slowly, “what are you going to do?”
Part Six