Being stuck on a huge spaceship and being in pain and other problems tend to annoy the Lieutenant Noel Allison. And one of those days was happening just as he was finally sent out with Cloud team in his first Ranger flight. Being a Fleet pilot has always been his best decision and he knew enough piloting starting choppers all the way up to military shit and now spacecraft in ten million forms, shapes and designs.
For some awfully shitty to understand level Noel had no freking way to know how he was always getting this good at stuff in such speed.
Well for one, he kept going back to his early days when he was stuck in a dark place among other kids of barely age to recognize letters. They got very fierce and bone deep military and otherwise intensive and very wide training. So basically by the time you got out you were trained as hard as possible to survive the worst you possibly could and still come out unscathed.
Noel knew Nate wasn't like him in this. That guy took in rather differently and also never let the past fully return. But he did.
In ways that usually were known only to him he managed to pull up those involuntary training kicks when situations became dire and always won over. Unlike Nate who mostly trusted his own street instincts and reactions he never knew where came from. He was also different in a way and just Noel knew what that meant. It was something he was born with and he witnessed it long enough to tell there gotta be a pattern.
But there used to be the other boy who was the same.
But they couldn't really remember him all that well. He always hid in shadows even more than Nate. But the other boy had a talent their group noticed when they were older to actually understand it to a level.
He was really talented in things and remarkably similar to Nate. It made Noel suspicious however it kinda went away when they met Samara and some other part of life began. And naturally Noel put it aside and swept it under the carpet until recently.
A blip notified the pilot he was called out to his duty. So he downed his meds and rubbed his face over and walked his way to the docks. Time to show off.
This was in a way pretty usual occurrence for somebody like Neal ponder over the usually most exciting thing in his professional life despite everything. And for people like Peter most worrisome time of their career.
What made it so excruciatingly strange was that Neal never actually showed his old excitement nor any of his usual signs of being happy to visit the event full of stuff that once used to be his only life. Therefore it left Peter off kilter.
He noticed others from the original team saw the same and used every moment to watch Neal for any signs of something wrong.
Honestly Peter too was worried and indeed noticed signs of something absolutely wrong with his friend.
It's never been like this and even when things went all ways crazy with Kate's death and Neal's struggle with all that and everything else it still was different.
Now all they could openly see was the certain sadness in the cerulean blue orbs and occasional shakiness in his soft voice or nimble fingers. And if that was all they could catch it only meant inside the man it was ranging dark beast of emotional turmoil and all the other crap they were left to imagine.
Not that they didn't try to show the man any care or friendly shoulder. Actually Peter knew Neal knew they still cared for him just the man was his usual self. Or maybe he was just the opposite?
The thought of pure sudden realization struck the FBI agent from all angles at once and he shivered in the shadow he stood next to the entrance of the park they were sort of observing. And while he maintained the task at hand he couldn't just shake off the revelation that came so sudden and unexpected it stole his breath.
As the last of the crew scattered inside the station and docked Noel took a deep breath that almost choked the man on the way. The task was done and following day they'll get the analytics back to see their score. This was just another serious training task all of them had to do to earn their place on the ranks for the upcoming big space mission. They were planning to skip out to another galaxy somewhere far enough and do the exploring of planet circle and test it's climate and location for possible transport of humanity. As it seemed the fleet was being under impression humans needed to be on every stray planet and trying to live there for generations to come. Spreading their race further into space for survival guarantees. At least more than they once had on Earth.
For Noel it was irrelevant mission as he planned to slowly step aside the whole stuff. No he wasn't that old yet. And no he still loved flying.
The real reason was his health. While still relatively young chap and still in shape there came severe aftermath from his even younger days. The injury that never left and forever hang a ticking clock above his head.
While he could walk there always were possibility that one moment his legs would fall senseless and he'd fall down and become paralyzed.
There never were any guarantee that he's out of that and no doctor ever even dared to make it light. He's forever marked and that was his own fault. So deep and so scarred he would never be free of all this guilt and pain from all that happened one day. Because the only thing Noel ever blamed for everything that went wrong all those years ago was himself.
He lived with it for years and years. Decades of all the dark pain and pity he put onto himself and never let go. It was another deal that his health suffered from. All these bottled up emotions and self hatred had damaged Noel's mental stability and pretty much his whole sanity. He once had severe mental breakdown that basically led the man to few weeks in mental hospital and later therapy sessions that never led to anything than him loosing patience and tearing the place apart. And because he had this super tough training nobody was able to really do anything. Because when his psychosis happened there was only ruins left so they couldn't do a thing.
But for some reason he was allowed to live on the Enterprise ship and take part in the fleet. Despite his insanity and unpredictable nature. And among other physical stuff he was suffering from.
But he wasn't the man to look into gifted horse mouth. Mildly alcoholic and slightly drugged he was allowed to do the piloting stuff and excel in more ways that was logical to explain.
Which was what made Noel feel it was finally the time to maybe step back from that life. Maybe take up some less crazy job to pass the days. Maybe eventually reunite with Nate and try to do better for both of them.
As a thought it wasn't all that bad however if only he could bring the subject up to his Admiral. That was a thing he avoided like plague and while he rarely even saw the man he knew there could arise issues anyway. So while he sat around and moped about the miserable feelings he was having and tried to drink himself dead before the Gala he also made more mental notes on how useless he was. Which he made sure to purr down to the never ending list of troubles he had to the assigned fleet psychiatrist as a part of the deal they had. It was one of the rules applied to Noel's position.
In order to be allowed to fly anything including operating cleaning robot he was proposed the deal that included regular psychiatric evaluations and therapy sessions and medications to help his situation.
So that was the only reason he made sure he followed all the rules onboard so he could fly the ships which was the sole thing he lived for. Okay that and his friend. He suffered through regulations for the only man he secretly admitted loving ever since and only person that was so close to the real Noel Allison.
Neal was sitting on the side of his cot and plucked at stray strand of fabric. He was gazing out of the small window out to the city below and around the building he was in. It was dark already but all the lights made it glow softly so he still could see the crafts zipping past the buildings and shooting upwards to higher levels of traffic. He saw the lower levels buzzing on with their lives and even folks walking on the streets at the lowest level. Ground level was mostly exceptional for certain tasks and the poor folks. And outcasts.
Most society moved on the higher levels and the most novelty the very top ones.
It was basically a way to place society into place according to their desired and accomplished hierarchy. Like medieval times just a touch more soulless and possibly even more dangerous.
And the ex-con knew from experience that accidentally falling victim to failing craft wasn't experience to be happy about.
That was unfortunate event and also relatively painful.
It was during one of the arrests Peter was making after Neal helped to unveil art and jewelry ring that was trying to scramble off with huge amount of pure gold made into fancy painting frames.
They happened to be original stuff but other half was just for fools so they could complete cargo shipment and nobody at the harbor would look sideways at the weight limits since it wasn't that heavy cargo.
Neal was revealing the signature of the plan and seeing what was going on but upon approaching of the force they made out on the crafts on the rooftop and that was one thing Neal recognized his skills lacking so he had left the place in hopes to catch grounded vehicle to try and follow.
And if the young man was being truly honest with himself he did suffer from terrible phobias that miraculously included fear from heights and claustrophobia. But that was only small amount of that list.
So not thinking about anything he happened to witness simple failure of the said craft and it plummeting down from top level right onto Neal.
One thing was that the poor con-man only became aware of that when it was already too late to escape so what happened was that he tried to step aside but failed miserably and was completely knocked down by the crashing craft.
The fact that the thing was slow and small didn't change the pain or injury he suffered when he became a squishie for the bloody thing. And while it wasn't terrible he still required some hospital visit after all.
It was like two weeks ago and there still was merely a week till the Gala and Neal was so stressed he almost fainted every two seconds. Yet since the latest incident with craft he was considered relatively fine. However the man dreaded the whole deal to the dangerous level.
His blue eyes drifted over to the bandaged hand and up towards his shoulder still in sling. He felt the stitches on his throat and side. The stiffness of the chest wrap reminded him of the one time he fell down the wall of some Scandinavian castle and broke so many parts of his body Mozzie located him only after one week. All that time he'd been laying at the side of the hill deep in some ditch and so deeply unconscious he had no idea what happened once he did wake up.
That time was complete bust and while he remained free and still had the stolen brooch it felt entirely unreal. But still he remembered the recovery and Mozzie's mumbling about being reckless and stupid. And there was same stiff bandage that held his ribs together and some other stiffness that held his neck and head motionless and another board-like piece supporting his back. It was possibly a miracle he survived but also it barely even left a print on his body. Maybe because scars were never part of his life. They made him remarkable and he couldn't risk being noticed and recognized.
Neal did everything to keep his body unmarred. Also he rarely did stuff haphazardly.
But somehow Mozzie knew what he was risking there. To some extent he was willing to take Neal to hospital and try the old tourists going for an outdoors adventure and getting lost in woods and one of them misstepping some rock. It always kinda worked. However Neal stepped on it and Mozzie allowed him his way.
And while most times the old injury didn't hurt he still felt the reminder of all times including that one he failed to be his usual grace.
His head had been hurting less from where the craft blew him into ground but then again even after being knocked out by Keller when he tried to fix the whole Nazi galore going rampant and get El back to Peter in one piece.
Yes the following day he felt not only guilt crushing him into million pieces but also the bruised ribs and mild concussion.
Even after whole shit-hitting-the-fan blowup with Fowler when Neal did enter room by hanging from a drapery and going through window left him sore the next day.
And then the nightmare material of white navy uniforms and him being only millimeters away from the arrow going through. He somehow had felt something deep inside resonate with that event that left several nightmare filled nights of dark tunnels and odd training grounds that also spotted the bows and arrows just not that fancy type.
A shiver ran down his abused body and suddenly his battered ankle that also held the tracking system, they had to add for some technical reason Neal could care less, felt really heavy. And with that his heart too.
Part of him was planning a way how to avoid the Gala event and part of him simply wanted to jump out his window or rooftop since window probably was escape safe.