****
MONDAY
Got some good news today – the nerve gas has cleared my system! So, no more threat hanging over me, wondering if the next time I breathe too deep will push me over the edge, no more tingling itch deep inside that I can never scratch. No reason not to go back to being my good old carefree self again...
The guys were pleased for me, but nowhere near as glad as I was to hear Adam's all clear. Perhaps now I can let it go, stop worrying about how I'll react the next time I have to take someone at face value. Stop seeing Gaumont and Sophia in my dreams, re-living their final instant of agony before they simply ceased to be.
The past few days have been a bit of a nightmare, one way or another. After my various disappearing stunts – both the voluntary and the inadvertent – Adam made sure I stayed close to home where he or one of the others could keep an eye on me. Not that I really felt much like going anywhere – too tired, and too much on my mind for that. But it at least gave me plenty of time to think, to try and get a handle on what happened.
I'm not angry any more. Well, most of the time. It's only occasionally, when I'm looking around for someone other than myself to blame, that the resentment bubbles up inside and re-ignites the rage. But rationally I know there's no point to it, so I just put the stopper back in and bottle it away.
I hate my rational side, sometimes. It would be so much easier to let emotion and instinct take over, like Shal does. React to situations as they're happening, get angry, sad, whatever you need so you can deal with them quickly and then move on, instead of analysing them to death before, during and afterwards. Exactly as I've been doing, picking through the debris of that whole 24 hours in my mind, wondering what I'd have done differently if I'd had the chance again.
Like staying in Sanctuary and not having gone there at all?
Adam hasn't actually bawled me out for that. But he's made it clear in other ways that he's disappointed in me for doing it. For playing into Gaumont's hands, putting us all at risk. He doesn't seem to want to see that I had no choice. That the others were at risk as soon as he sent them in there without me. That if I hadn't gone willingly - even if it was without a clue as to his real intentions – Gaumont would have used them openly to bring me to him. I just saved him the trouble.
Emma was wrong when she said it was brave, though. I don't think I had anything remotely heroic in mind when I went in. It was mostly frustration that drove me out of Sanctuary in the first place – at being sidelined on a 'maybe', at being kept from doing my job as effectively as I knew I could, at knowing my friends were cut off, in trouble, and not being able to do anything directly to help them.
And Adam's reaction only made it worse, made me even keener to prove him wrong, show him I knew what I was doing. Which, based on what we understood to be the situation there right then, I did. I really did, whatever he thinks. I got the job done; got the Xiraxium out, prevented a core meltdown. Given a few minutes to get my breath back, I could have gotten it safely out of the building as well – or at least hidden it where Gaumont couldn't find it. But someone forgot to tell us the ground rules had changed – that I had to find out the hard way.
But I guess I should be used to failing to live up to Adam's expectations. I wonder sometimes what the hell I have to do to get anything more than censure and restriction out of him these days. I know he cares, worries about me as he does all of us, but I can't seem to make him realise that isn't enough any more. He only seems to notice when I do something he doesn't approve of, and I just wish he'd give me some of the unconditional encouragement he seems able to bestow on the others. Even Gaumont managed to give me a backhanded compliment, acknowledged the risk I took as a positive rather than something to be frowned on. But I can feel Adam doing just that, even though he hasn't said in so many words.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I *was* wrong to do it. Or maybe I just shouldn't get myself all hung up about a few words of praise when I know that in the end what I did made a difference. *The* difference.
One thing's for certain, though. Gaumont got it right when he said that I was too dangerous to let live. But he'll have eternity to regret that mistake, won't he...?
****
MONDAY
Got some good news today – the nerve gas has cleared my system! So, no more threat hanging over me, wondering if the next time I breathe too deep will push me over the edge, no more tingling itch deep inside that I can never scratch. No reason not to go back to being my good old carefree self again...
The guys were pleased for me, but nowhere near as glad as I was to hear Adam's all clear. Perhaps now I can let it go, stop worrying about how I'll react the next time I have to take someone at face value. Stop seeing Gaumont and Sophia in my dreams, re-living their final instant of agony before they simply ceased to be.
The past few days have been a bit of a nightmare, one way or another. After my various disappearing stunts – both the voluntary and the inadvertent – Adam made sure I stayed close to home where he or one of the others could keep an eye on me. Not that I really felt much like going anywhere – too tired, and too much on my mind for that. But it at least gave me plenty of time to think, to try and get a handle on what happened.
I'm not angry any more. Well, most of the time. It's only occasionally, when I'm looking around for someone other than myself to blame, that the resentment bubbles up inside and re-ignites the rage. But rationally I know there's no point to it, so I just put the stopper back in and bottle it away.
I hate my rational side, sometimes. It would be so much easier to let emotion and instinct take over, like Shal does. React to situations as they're happening, get angry, sad, whatever you need so you can deal with them quickly and then move on, instead of analysing them to death before, during and afterwards. Exactly as I've been doing, picking through the debris of that whole 24 hours in my mind, wondering what I'd have done differently if I'd had the chance again.
Like staying in Sanctuary and not having gone there at all?
Adam hasn't actually bawled me out for that. But he's made it clear in other ways that he's disappointed in me for doing it. For playing into Gaumont's hands, putting us all at risk. He doesn't seem to want to see that I had no choice. That the others were at risk as soon as he sent them in there without me. That if I hadn't gone willingly - even if it was without a clue as to his real intentions – Gaumont would have used them openly to bring me to him. I just saved him the trouble.
Emma was wrong when she said it was brave, though. I don't think I had anything remotely heroic in mind when I went in. It was mostly frustration that drove me out of Sanctuary in the first place – at being sidelined on a 'maybe', at being kept from doing my job as effectively as I knew I could, at knowing my friends were cut off, in trouble, and not being able to do anything directly to help them.
And Adam's reaction only made it worse, made me even keener to prove him wrong, show him I knew what I was doing. Which, based on what we understood to be the situation there right then, I did. I really did, whatever he thinks. I got the job done; got the Xiraxium out, prevented a core meltdown. Given a few minutes to get my breath back, I could have gotten it safely out of the building as well – or at least hidden it where Gaumont couldn't find it. But someone forgot to tell us the ground rules had changed – that I had to find out the hard way.
But I guess I should be used to failing to live up to Adam's expectations. I wonder sometimes what the hell I have to do to get anything more than censure and restriction out of him these days. I know he cares, worries about me as he does all of us, but I can't seem to make him realise that isn't enough any more. He only seems to notice when I do something he doesn't approve of, and I just wish he'd give me some of the unconditional encouragement he seems able to bestow on the others. Even Gaumont managed to give me a backhanded compliment, acknowledged the risk I took as a positive rather than something to be frowned on. But I can feel Adam doing just that, even though he hasn't said in so many words.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I *was* wrong to do it. Or maybe I just shouldn't get myself all hung up about a few words of praise when I know that in the end what I did made a difference. *The* difference.
One thing's for certain, though. Gaumont got it right when he said that I was too dangerous to let live. But he'll have eternity to regret that mistake, won't he...?
****