A/N: What with all the comment reading I did, per the military guys in the YT comment section: apparently the USS Enterprise's aircon was notorious for not working properly.
It bears repeating: ANGST WARNING

"Some mistakes I guess we never stop paying for."
-Roy Hobbs, The Natural (1984)

It was much later, after Merlin had managed to convince Slider to get on his own bunk and sleep when he was clearly tired himself. He was now seated in the chair that Wolfman had vacated when he'd relieved him from nightmare duty. Merlin glanced up at the bunk where Wolf and Hollywood were now sleeping, wondering if they'd co-slept like that before. It sure seemed like they had.

Merlin checked first on Mav, who was mumbling unintelligibly in his sleep but seemed otherwise fine for the moment, and then looked over at Ice, and then yawned and returned his attention to the book Hollywood had been reading, which turned out to be The Natural by Bernard Malamud. It made sense, of course... when recovering from something bad, read about baseball.

The hatch to their quarters opened as quietly as a door on an aircraft carrier could, and Marlin glanced up to find Commander Jardian standing there, a medical corpsman at his shoulder. "Sir?"

"...fire or clear..." Maverick muttered, and Stinger frowned at him, while Merlin turned his full attention to the sleeping man, ready to wake him again. "...come on, Ice. Fire or clear..." He twitched, stilled. "...come off high and right... holy ****..." Mav twitched again. "Can't... can't... control... you have to punch us out... eject! Eject!" And then he screamed and Merlin wasted no time in attempting to wake him, aware that their CO was watching.

"Mav!" Merlin shook his shoulder and was very nearly punched when Maverick came to, hyperventilating, with Nick's call sign on his lips. Maverick, breathing heavily, stared up at him with unfocused eyes so full of pain that Merlin wanted to pull him into a hug, but didn't dare. "Hey. You with us?"

Slider, apparently a light sleeper, came awake right then to confusion, only to watch, dumbfounded as Mav stared to sob into his pillow and ignore them all. "What the hell?"

"Do the words 'fire or clear' sound familiar to you?" Merlin asked, Jardian's presence nearly forgotten.

Slider paused, noticing who else was in here. "Commander?"

"At ease, Lieutenant," Jardian told him. "Answer the question."

"The training accident, sir," Slider admitted, voice strained as he moved to jump down from his bunk, but the Corpsman glared at him, so he froze and stayed where he was.

Jardian nodded, then tapped Merlin on the shoulder. "Has that been happening all evening?"

"On and off, sir," Merlin told him without looking up. The training accident... no wonder. "Come on, Mav. Come back to us now." Maverick startled him by grabbing one of his hands and looking straight at him, using it like a lifeline. "Hey there."

Mav's breathing slowed down and he looked at him with recognition, blinking in confusion. "Sam?"

"Right here, Pete. Right here." Merlin blinked when Mav's breathing evened out and he was asleep again, a pained expression on his face. He sat back, but Mav was still holding his hand tightly. That answered the question of how tired he was, right there.

"Lieutenants?" Jardian prompted, and nodded to Corpsman at his side who had watched the entire incident with a clinical expression. "This is Corpsman Turner. I'm relieving you, Wells, so you can get some sleep." He glanced at Slider, who was looking back at him with incredulity. "Commander Metcalf advised me in writing when you arrived that this might happen."

"Oh." Slider followed Jardian's gaze to Hollywood and Wolfman. "They were too jittery to sleep alone, sir."

"Took some convincing to get them to try sleeping," Merlin added as worked to get Maverick to let go of his hand and stood up to look at the corpsman, who motioned for the book in his other hand that he'd forgotten he was still holding.

"I'll bet it did," Jardian muttered.

"Don't lose Wood's place. Do you like baseball, Corpsman?"

"As much as anyone," Turner told him, and then promptly sat down in the chair that Merlin had vacated, book in hand. "And I will leave the bookmarked page as it is." He nodded to Maverick. "History, please."

Merlin paused, glanced at Jardian, who nodded for him to spill. "He crashed an hour or so after debrief, and he's been either dead to the world, or we have to wake him out of nightmares ever since. Doesn't make much sense for a minute or so, then goes right back to sleep." Turner nodded, then looked pointedly at Slider and the other three occupants of the room. "Trouble sleeping," pointing to Hollywood and Wolfman. "Sleeping, but also having nightmares." Ice. "Was talked into sleeping after lots of Solitaire and more than one round of Go Fish, but Mav woke him up." Slider.

"Yeah," Slider concurred, and looked over at Ice. "Actually, I'm surprised that Mav didn't also wake him."

Merlin met Jardian's steady gaze. "Ice said he saw Mav sleep at least once on the transport, but wasn't sure when he'd slept last before that. And then there were the MiGs, and the Jet Wash. Apparently again, sir."

Jardian nodded. "Which is why he and you were back up, Wells. I wasn't going to send him out if I didn't have to."

Merlin's respect for the Commander grew a little right then. He'd known upon seeing Maverick again that something was off, but not the what. There had been no time to ask questions, and then the briefing, where he'd seen the active concern radiating off of Ice to the point where he'd almost been able to taste it, and Wolfman, for whatever reason, hadn't let Mav out of his sight until he'd had to. All of that made sense now, but... "Oh."

"None of you are on duty tomorrow," Jardian told him, then turned to look at Turner.

"Oh, I've got this, sir. Go get some shuteye before I report you for exhaustion," Turner said, and Jardian nodded and left the bunk room without another word.

"We didn't need a Corpsman," Slider said, and Turner looked at him funny. "What?"

"Commander Jardian begged to differ," Turner told him as Merlin sat down heavily on his own bunk beneath Slider. "What I just witnessed from this one," he motioned to Maverick. "Tells me that he should still have been on Medical Leave following the accident two weeks ago. But if the Navy made sense in it's orders, I'd be a millionaire."

"You're really going to stand watch?" Merlin wondered, and found himself yawning again despite himself.

"Really. You had a wild day, too."

Merlin snorted in agreement, then motioned to Maverick. "Flies like a maniac."

"So I gather."

"But he's our maniac."

Turner met Slider's incredulous gaze with a smirk. "True."

Eventually, Merlin and Slider relaxed enough to drift off to sleep themselves.