The infirmary was empty when Elizabeth walked in. She didn't really know what she had expected to see and if she was truly honest with herself she didn't know if Sheppard not being there was a good thing or not.
She walked over to Beckett's office and rapped on the doorframe with a knuckle.
Beckett looked up from whatever work he was doing on the computer and ushered her in.
"You know you're missing a patient?" she said as she perched on the edge of the desk.
"I know. I let him go."
Elizabeth felt her eyebrows shoot upwards and she leant in closer, "Are you sure that's a good idea?"
Beckett leant back in his chair and crossed his arms, "His EEG was clear, as was his blood work and blood pressure. There's no medical reason to keep him here." He rubbed at his tired eyes. He'd only managed a few hours sleep here and there last night and he felt emotionally shaken by the groans and weak cries Sheppard had let out in his fitful sleep.
"We need to get him to talk to Kate," said Elizabeth picking up Beckett's stethoscope from the table and moving it between her nervous hands.
"I've already asked him. He said he wont, and I'd be inclined not to force him."
Elizabeth tapped the stethoscope down on her knee whilst she thought, "Any suggestions?"
"We let him work," said Beckett gently extricating the stethoscope from her hands and placing it around his neck, "Suffocating him isn't going to do him any good. He needs space to work this out."
"But after what he saw, what we saw-" she paused, "he cant just go on as normal."
"I'm not saying he will, but we forget he's already been through this once before and he must have dealt with it back then somehow because the Sheppard we know is reasonably well balanced."
"That's the debateable," said Elizabeth.
" If he needs to talk..I was going to offer myself as a counsellor. He opened up to me quite a bit about what happened last night."
Elizabeth nodded, "Okay," she was wringing her hands and she finally stilled them on realising something, "You think maybe we're all the ones who need the counselling?" she asked with a light smile.
Beckett stood up from behind his desk to stretch out the kinks, "Aye."
"All of it was so horrific and yet……" she breathed in, "That's war."
"You're a negotiator," said Beckett fondly, "You try to broker peace. I'm not surprised you found it all rather disturbing."
"And what about Rodney? Have you spoken to him since?"
"This morning," he said, "He seemed to be dealing with it fairly well. I think he just wants to be supportive of Sheppard," he shrugged, "Who knows what goes on anyone's heads huh."
Elizabeth nodded and stood up to join Beckett as he walked through to the infirmary, "Well if you're convinced enough that Sheppard should still be working I'm with you," she said.
-------------
Sheppard had successfully so far today managed to keep himself busy. He'd gone down to the south pier for a leisurely run after his shower, spent some time in the shooting range steam and he had finished that stack of mission reports he had been meaning to get updated with.
He still had a few appointments here and there but right now he was in the mood for letting out some of his pent up aggression.
Teyla passed him his sticks and they moved to the centre of the room.
"Are you sure you are up to this?" she asked twirling the sticks over her hands in an impressive display of skill.
"What, you saying I cant beat you?" said Sheppard with a grin.
She smiled back at him and nodded, "I only wish to make sure you are concentrating. It has always been your failing before."
Sheppard swallowed hard on the mention of failure but forced composure. He too twirled the sticks and raised an eyebrow, "Maybe I get distracted by the high cut skirts you wear," he joked.
Teyla moved forward to take her first swing and missed him, "You don't focus," she said.
As her stick swiped forward he moved back just in time for it to whistle passed his ear and he narrowed his eyes, "That was me focusing on not getting hit," he said and launched forward in his own assault.
His stick connected with hers and there was a series of clacks and gentle tapping before she finally struck his left thigh. He jumped up and down to stop the tingling sensation and took an exaggerated step back, "You know what I like about you Teyla?" he said as he moved forward and bought his left hand around to strike.
She blocked with her right and for a moment they were close, pressing the sticks together in a tight lock, "Why would that be Major?" she said bringing her foot under his leg and making him lose balance.
Sheppard twisted himself out of their lock and backed away, "Because you didn't see what was on that damn screen," he said as he twirled the sticks, "So you don't look at me with these sad eyes. Like everyone else has today."
Teyla swung out and caught his arm.
They continued to spar again until Teyla spoke, "But I would like to know," she said as she moved away from him, ducked and swung the sticks up at him.
He blocked her and side stepped her oncoming thwack, "Its best you don't," he said as she struck him lightly on his shoulder to let him know she could have done damage with that blow, "And I like that."
Teyla smiled and stopped suddenly, "If you do wish to talk?" she tilted her head to the side, "you know where I am." She swung out the sticks he backtracked, tripped on the edge of the mat and fell onto his back.
From the floor he rolled over and said, "Yeah, you'll be kicking my butt."
She held out her hand to him and he gripped it firmly, pulling himself up into a standing position and arching his back.
---------------
Sheppard had felt himself growing more and more irritable as the day wore on and he could no longer keep up the façade that he wasn't in any kind of good mood.
People actually stepped back against the walls as he walked down one of the corridors.
He'd been working steadily through out the day, not wanting to sit down for more than a second for his mind to start tracing over events. Avoiding Mckay and Elizabeth had been easy enough.
It was only when he felt the hunger pangs in his stomach that he realised he hadn't eaten all day.
He entered the Mess hall to raucous laughter and he could see that a number of the military had gathered to have their dinner together. Some were off duty and enjoying a little drink, whilst the others just shared in the boisterous stories.
Sheppard picked up his tray and put food on to it mechanically before sitting down on the far side of the room next to the window. He was in no mood for being jovial right now and the whispers and quick glances confirmed his men knew the same.
As he forced food into his mouth he listened to the conversations of his men.
"What a year huh?" one of them was saying.
Sheppard raised his eyebrows as he listened. Certainly had been.
"Can you believe where we are?" one guy said loudly, "We're in a freaking floating city."
Somebody laughed, "It's just like a big house boat. I've got one in Cape Cod," he said.
"Yeah but this one is a bit bigger," somebody said.
Sheppard shovelled some of the potato like substance into his mouth and continued to listen.
"Think of everything that's happened, man that's a lot of shit."
"And I thought the in-laws were problematic."
"In-laws or the wraith. I know which one I'd take on," somebody shouted over their laughter.
Sheppard continued to eat, his eyes focused forward but his ears waiting for the inevitable change in topic.
"Hey Stewart, you served with Sumner didn't you?"
"Sumner man," and there it was, "Yeah he was decent."
Sheppard continued to chew but the food he was eating had lost all appeal suddenly. He dropped his fork and stared forward. He didn't want to move just yet.
"I could have done a better job than what we got stuck with." Somebody said quietly and Sheppard couldn't help but feel a sting of hurt at the words.
Sure, not everybody would like their boss and he wasn't going to get on with everyone either. Just take Bates and Kavanagh.
They were being shushed but people were sniggering, "I'd like to give it a go."
Sheppard shot up out of his seat and dumped his tray of food into the nearest bin, but it wasn't before hearing someone mutter, "Man you made him leave." There was a ripple of laughter and Sheppard stopped, took in a deep breath and turned around to them.
"Hey," he said trying to be light and casual.
"Uh hey," said the guy who had been doing most of the talking.
"Did I mention you're on sewer duty tomorrow?" He crossed his arms across his chest and the Captain stood up quickly, "Sir, what we were-"
"I get it," said Sheppard, "You wanted Sumner to be the CO," he scanned his eyes over the rest of the table where these apparently butch and manly military men were suddenly looking like reprimanded children.
"Sir," the man started.
"I'm the CO." he said.
"Yes Sir," the man in front of him said.
Sheppard turned away and it was one sentence which pushed him over the edge.
One sentence drove him to his breaking point.
It was along the lines of him having a fledging mental grip.
At that point he did, because he saw red, turned swiftly on his heel and grabbed the Captain by his shirt collar and hauled him close, "Spend a day in my shoes and you'll know what its like being me," he said.
"I'm sorry."
"You know you all bitch and moan but try being here," said Sheppard, "I didn't ask for this."
He let him go and gave him a shove back so hard his butt landed on the table and he knocked over his drink, "I'm sorry Sir, we were just talking."
Sheppard tried to will himself to uncurl his fists and calm down. "Just talking," he said.
Sheppard nodded and took a step back.
Control, he needed to be in control.
The rumour mill would be going into over drive now and there was only one thing to blame.
-----------
As Sheppard walked to the chair room his mind wandered over to yesterdays events. The last time he had walked down this corridor he had barely even known he was there. Beckett had been guiding him forward, tugging his elbow here and there to get him to go in the right direction, but it was like he hadn't really been there.
The worst thing in all of this was that he had closed this specific door. He had put it all away and dealt with the various repercussions as best he could.
Reopening this door would be more damaging for his friends than it was for him.
He really did know that in War friendly fire was a common mistake and as a result of that some soldiers couldn't take the strain and resorted to extreme measures to rid themselves of the bad dreams and memories.
Sheppard had been lucky because he had come through it alive.
He had never said to anyone he was a hero and he thought the black mark on his file pretty much spelt that out to anyone who had the misfortune to read it. There was no need to talk about it, burden others with his bad memories and make them feel that misplaced sense of guilt they could never comprehend. There was no need to go over it all again to try and think how things could have been different.
He reconciled it in his own mind by vowing every year since Davey died he would stop and think about the man and his family.
Sheppard finally walked into the chair room and as the lights flashed on, he walked over to the chair and shook his head, "And I thought you were an easy chair," he muttered to himself.
He paced around it, rubbing his chin and lightly skimming over the back of the chair when he passed it.
Sometimes the Ancients seemed too clever for their own good.
Sheppard stopped finally. He felt eerily calm.
The chair was his enemy and he had come to destroy it. It was that simple.
He pulled out his gun from his calf holster and aimed it at the screen.
This screen was responsible for showing his friends the horrors of his memories in graphic, bloody detail.
Beckett was a Doctor, so he was no stranger to the efficacy of a bullet to the head, but he was sensitive and cared deeply about his patients. For him watching Davey's slow mental decline would only have reminded him that medical science could only go so far.
Elizabeth, she was innocent. Not so innocent that she didn't know this kind of thing happened in war, but innocent enough not to have to see bloodied bodies.
And lastly Mckay. Mckay should never have had to see what he did. Not for the second time in his life. Gaul had been too much and Sheppard was angry that he hadn't been able to turn the damn machine off or at least edit his own memories.
Perhaps he could understand why Sheppard had been reluctant to talk about the scientist's death and reluctant to show empathy.
He shook his head and in a single shot the screen broke and glass fell to the chair base.
Next he shot the chair controls a couple of times and for good measure shot out the main console at the base of the chair and pulled out its vital control crystals.
After that he was running. His legs were pumping as fast they could, lungs burning with the assault of oxygen and cold air, hands gripping the control crystals so hard that they had cut into his hands.
When he finally stopped he was in an area he knew nobody came, or if they did, he didn't know about it.
It was an area of the city which had been damaged by the storm so areas of it were unstable.
Sheppard wasn't going to stay long. He looked at the control crystal stained with his blood and laughed at the irony of it all.
He had jumped out of the chair to get away from the images and in doing so he had forced himself to confront them again.
He laughed and pulled his arm back as hard as he could and threw the crystals out to the body of water under the city.
He examined his hands and wiped them on his trousers before turning around and starting for the door and out to the more populated corridors.
He took a step forward and floor below him creaked.
He managed an 'Oh shi-' before the floor gave way.
He dropped hard, his ribs caught on the edge of the hole and then he continued his decent. He was stopped by a hard surface which he guessed was a floor and felt pain in his shoulder flare up.
The one which held the scar.
He activated his earpiece and coughed as dust floated down from above. As he lay on his back he waited for the inevitable chatter from the gateroom and he said quietly, "Yeah, I'm gonna need some help," and continued to lie there, still and panting hard.
TBC
I'm going somewhere with all of this and have a definite plot which explains a bit more of his back story, so keep reading please. I will update steadily now and even over Christmas.