"Well, Mr Jarrald, I'm sorry I can't shed any more light on this for you." The latest specialist - this one an Australian whose name Mark hadn't bothered to remember - stood up and held out his hand. "The neural connections are there. They should be working. My best guess is that they will, when they're ready. It would be most unusual for anyone to maintain sensation without movement."

"So I'm unusual." Mark heard the bitterness in his own tone, and made more of an effort with his second comment. "Thank you, Doctor."

"Good luck," the man told him. "And - keep yourself fit. It'll make life a lot easier, whichever way it goes."

You mean when I'm stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. Mark didn't answer out loud, just shut his eyes in exhaustion. He was starting to wonder if Chris had called in every neurospecialist on the planet. Not to mention the Rigan one. Every one had their own batch of tests to run on him. Every one had been given the same half-truth about an implantation gone wrong. None had had the slightest idea why he couldn't move his legs, or had anything other than vague optimistic noises to say about whether he'd ever be able to.

The doctors left the room and Mark sagged back into the pillows. No amount of sleep seemed to shake the all-pervading tiredness that the neurological tests left him with - and it wasn't even proper tiredness. It wasn't like he'd done anything to get tired. It was just - his life was on hold, and nobody seemed to have the slightest idea how to get it started again.

The next person to come into his room was Anderson. Years of instinct took over, and he sat bolt upright. "Chief!"

"How are you doing, Mark?" The voice was the same as ever. It felt wrong to be sitting here. For the reply to be something irrelevant, rather than a specific comment about their training, about the previous mission. And he was fairly sure he wasn't imagining Anderson's reluctance to look anywhere below the head end of the bed.

"Nothing's changed in three weeks. My legs don't work and nobody knows why. But you already knew that."

"Yes, I did." Anderson pulled a chair over to alongside the bed and sat down facing him. "Mark, I know how hard this must be for you. Chris tells me he's about out of people to ask, and there's nothing you can do but wait. I can at least offer you something to do in the meantime."

Every hair on the back of his neck stood up. "You can?"

"How would you like to take some shifts in charge of Control?"

Mark swallowed. "No, thank you."

Anderson sat forward. "This isn't some kind of sop for your feelings, Mark. We honestly think you'd be excellent at it. And the team's more than happy about the idea."

He stared. "Jason suggested this?"

"No." Mark continued to stare, and Anderson continued reluctantly. "He said you'd hate it, even if you would be darn good at it."

"He was right. I don't want to be a base controller. I don't think I ever will."

"I wish you'd try it before you make up your mind."

"I have tried it - when you had your heart problems, remember? I hated every second of it."

There was sympathy in the man's eyes. "I know you'd rather be out there yourself, Mark. This is the closest I can do."

"I don't want it."

Anderson at least knew when pushing him was a waste of time. He stood up. "If you're sure, you're sure. But please - just think about it. I know you, and I can't believe you want to sit about doing nothing. If not base control, then what are you going to do?"

He left without waiting for an answer, and Mark sat and fumed silently. If he wanted to sit in a base controller's chair, did they really think he wouldn't have suggested it himself? At least Jason had remembered how he felt about it - but really, couldn't he have put Anderson off a little more efficiently?

He could hear voices outside his room, Anderson and Chris Johnson. Could have listened in, if he'd wanted to. He didn't. It would just be more of Anderson demanding updates and insisting that something be done, Chris telling him which eminent neurologist would be coming in next. He simply didn't care any more.

It wasn't a long discussion, and then Chris was standing in his doorway. "Mark? Can we talk?"

"What about?"

"About where we go from here."

Mark snorted. "Out of bed would be good. Oh, wait. I can't walk any more."

"I wasn't talking physically."

"Maybe you should have been."

"Please, Mark." The doctor drew up a chair alongside his bed. "You're not sick any more - you're fully recovered from the operation. You can't lie in a hospital bed forever."

"I will not accept that this is all I can have. I need help, okay? I'm here. Not running away and hiding. Isn't that what you all wanted?"

"But you're not showing any interest in trying to help yourself. You should be in rehab, not lying here. Dr West raised some concerns with me, and considering everything I've seen I think he's right."

"Right about what?"

"He thinks you may be clinically depressed, and it can't be helping your recovery. I know how you feel about drugs, but I'd really like for you to consider it. I'm sure Dr Samuels can give you something which will help. A lot."

Mark shut his eyes and lay back, fighting the desire to break down completely. Not only his body failing him, now his mind was too? A wheelchair, and antidepressants to make him like it?

"No."

He heard Chris sit forward, could imagine the earnest, sympathetic expression on the man's face. "Dr Samuels will be coming in tomorrow afternoon, Mark. Nothing would make me happier than for him to tell me you're fine mentally. It's time you either got a grip on yourself or accepted that you need help to do it. Now, I'm going to leave you to consider it. I'd really like for you to call the Chief and tell him you've changed your mind about base control."

The door shut behind the doctor, and he opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling. Time to leave Medical. Rehab. Or therapy and drugs which he didn't need.

Didn't need? Or wouldn't admit that he did need? Was he genuinely clinically depressed, or just miserable? And would sitting in base control listening to the team go out without him really help?

No. Of that, at least, he was sure. The rest - less so. He hated his situation, but was he really at the point where he needed his brain chemistry altered to cope with it? Or could he handle it, if he decided to do so? Was this why the team had all but stopped coming by - not because he was coping, but because he'd become a self-indulgent mess who did nothing but wail about his own situation? For the first time in three weeks, Mark took a good long look at how he'd been behaving - the sulks, the yelling, the whining, the complete lack of interest in anything anyone else had said to him - heck, he couldn't even remember whether the team had been called out since he'd been in here! He certainly hadn't asked. Who was this self-pitying waste of space he'd become? No wonder nobody wanted to talk to him any more.

He could at least try to put things right. Get out of here and explain to the team why he didn't want to be their base controller. He certainly didn't want to be having that conversation in here, where things between him and the team had been stilted at best. The familiarity was gone, and he'd never known how much he prized it until he'd lost it. But - maybe it would be better outside Medical, in the relaxed setting of the ready room? The wheelchair was right alongside the bed, and while he'd not been anywhere in it alone, it couldn't be that hard. He hated the idea of needing it even more than he hated being in bed - at least people in hospital beds were there because they were sick and recovering. But, just temporarily, maybe he should try. On his own terms. Because Anderson did have one point. Mark absolutely loathed sitting about doing nothing.

The wheelchair sat at the foot of the bed, in easy reach if he just shuffled down a bit. Which he was perfectly capable of doing. And while he'd been essentially manhandled into it every time he'd been talked into sitting in it, he was pretty sure that if he put his mind to it, he could get into it unaided. People did this all the time, didn't they? People who were genuinely sick, permanently crippled. If they could manage, so could he.

Mark stripped the covers off the bed and dropped them over the far side to give himself a clear field of operations, and made a long arm to grab the back of the chair and pull it up to alongside the head of the bed. Here he had various solid supports to hang onto, and the chair was at least prevented from rolling backwards any further by the wall. He suspected he really should be doing this with the brakes on, but there was no way for him to apply them until he was actually in the chair. He'd just have to be careful. He took a deep breath, felt for a solid handhold on the head of the bed and another on the sideframe, and lifted himself over the edge.

"Mark!" Chris looked genuinely pleased to see him as he wheeled the chair carefully out of the sideroom. "I'm glad to see you out of bed. Did you want to go outside?"

"I thought I'd go see the team."

Chris grimaced. "Sorry, Mark. They're away on Arcturus. They may not be back for several days."

"Oh." Loneliness washed over him, and was replaced with self-loathing. What did he expect - for G-Force to put saving the galaxy on hold because their ex-commander might finally fancy a chat?

"Will you bite my head off if I suggest a trip to the rehab guys?"

Mark winced. "To do what? Basket-weaving?"

"Only if you want to." Chris's glance, was, quite unmistakeably, uncertain as to whether he dared risk a joke or not. One more person for whom the easy familiarity had gone. "I thought you might want to do something more physical. Dr West was correct - it will make things easier for you if you stay fit. Not just because of getting in and out of the chair, but because physical activity produces the sort of neural stimulation we think your system needs. And you'd feel better if you got properly, physically tired once in a while."

"Maybe."

"Shall I call them and let them know we're coming?"

Mark shook his head as a realisation of just what it was that he was missing swept over him. "You can let them know I'm coming. Give me the room number and I'll take myself down there." Tell me I need help to do even that and so help me, I am going to explode.

Chris didn't. Instead he picked up the phone and dialed. "Is Tariq there?"

#

The world was very different from four feet above the floor, Mark decided as he approached the ISO rehab centre with a deep feeling of relief. Not that he'd had any problems he could put his finger on - the ISO building might be vast and sprawling these days, but he hadn't had to go outside. He'd managed to avoid running anyone's foot over, or indeed ramming them behind the knees. And the building itself was easy. ISO, a modern, progressive organisation well aware that it would be held up to criticism for the slightest thing, made very sure its elevator buttons were at a reachable height for wheelchair users and that its doors opened automatically. And, in a military organisation which prided itself on looking after its own, the facilities weren't just there for show. There were plenty of wheelchair users around.

Mark had never really taken any notice of them, and that was pretty much what was happening to him now. It was a bizarre sensation. His expectation had been shock and solicitude, and instead the people around him - security team members, Academy students, admin staff - all, thankfully, strangers, had reacted as though his being in a wheelchair was entirely normal.

It wasn't normal. He would never, ever accept it as normal. He wanted it to trigger shock and disbelief, dammit. Wanted people to react with horror and ask him when he would be back on his feet. The chair wasn't part of who he was. He fully intended that it never would be.

Rehab, unsurprisingly, also had automatic doors, and Mark wheeled right up to the reception desk, grateful for the lack of any queue. The young woman behind the desk smiled winningly at him, displaying perfect white teeth, and Mark resisted the urge to do more than maintain a polite expression. She was, after all, paid to smile at people who were feeling bad about themselves.

"I'm Mark Jarrald. I've come to see Tariq?"

"I'm Tariq." The young man who unfolded himself from the armchair in the corner was mid-twenties, somewhat under six feet tall, and had the features and complexion to match his name. "Come this way and we can talk in private."

Talking wasn't exactly what Mark had in mind, but he guessed it had to be done first. He had a deep, horrible suspicion that this was going to involve some spiel about what a fulfilling life he could still have, how he needed to make the chair part of himself...and he still had a nagging concern about basket-weaving being involved somewhere.

He hadn't anticipated Tariq saying, as the door to what looked like a seriously well-equipped weight room closed behind him, "Since Chris Johnson tells me that suggesting you'll get used to the chair will probably make you want to get out of it and slug me, I thought we'd give that side of rehab a miss. What do you want to do?"

"Anything at all that'll get me out of it." Isn't that obvious?

"Mark, it doesn't work that way when you have no movement at all." Tariq perched on the edge of a sloping bench next to a weights machine. "There may not be all that much I can do to help directly. What we can do here is get you fit enough that when the nerves start working properly it won't be such a long road back."

"When?"

"If you want me to use 'if', I will. Your doctors think it will be 'when'."

"I don't need help to use a gym." This was starting to sound less and less like something that was any real use, and more like something Chris thought would make him feel good about himself. Like that was going to happen any time soon.

Tariq nodded, as though he'd expected this. "That's fine. Chris said you might want to work on your own. The equipment's here - I can check you out on it now if that's what you want." Mark couldn't contain his affronted expression, and Tariq continued, " I appreciate you know what you're doing already, but it's different when you can't brace with your legs."

Resisting the urge to ask just what else Chris had told him, Mark nodded slowly. "Okay. Show me."

#

Tariq was right - it was different. And astonishingly tiring. Mark was struggling inside ten minutes, even though his eyes told him the weights involved were pitifully small. Tariq at least knew when not to make encouraging noises, though. The man had sense. And obviously knew what he was talking about. And Mark knew from past experience just how lonely and boring rehab could be when done alone. He was starting to reconsider his statement that he didn't want help.

"I think that will do for today," Tariq said after a while.

"I can do more," Mark told him. Not much more, it was true - but he wasn't done yet. Five repetitions with a bar with next to no weight on the end at all was, well, pathetic.

"You still have to get yourself back," Tariq replied calmly. "It's obvious you're not used to the chair yet, and it's harder work than you'd expect. And I have a couple of suggestions for you to consider, whether or not you're going to go it alone from here."

Mark eased the weight bar back into position and sat up on the bench. "If you tell me to think positive, I really might take a swing at you."

"No, not that. One, I wasn't entirely honest about not being able to help you out of the chair. There are some things we can do which may help. Two, you need a better chair. One that fits you. And three, you need to find yourself a job, or a hobby. Doesn't matter if it's basket-weaving, writing poetry, running a killer role-playing game, or filing - but you need to be spending a fair bit of time thinking about something other than how bad you want your legs to start working."

Mark nodded slowly. "You're not the first to say that."

"Do you have anything in mind? Because if not, I'd recommend you try to find something with a timetable that you have to stick to - it makes it much easier if there's external motivation. You were Team Seven, right? I can have a word with your old C.O. if you like."

"I'll ask him myself," Mark said. Team Seven wasn't the highest powered group in ISO by a long way - and it really would be filing, he was quite sure of it. But it would be something he could do, something useful to the war effort, something which didn't involve sitting and listening as other people did the job he'd loved. And it would be with people who remembered him the way he had been. People who didn't think of him as a useless cripple. The only other place he could have that would be inside black section, and that was just too close to everything that mattered to him.

"Okay. Now, do you want me to help you, or to work on your own? Or we can take it as it comes."

"What did you have in mind? I'll be blunt. I've seen fifteen experts in the last three weeks and none of them has had any particular suggestions. You're a physio."

"Chris told me that, too. Not much fun for anyone." Tariq indicated the other side of the room, a set of parallel bars some three feet from the floor. "What I'd suggest is that you try to stand and put some weight on your feet. I know you've no movement at all. But it will be good upper body exercise, and just maybe being vertical will trigger something. No guarantees. But I could help you try it. If you like, we can start tomorrow."

He could stand on his pride. He could go back to his hospital bed. Or he could stop believing there was a doctor out there with all the answers, and start doing something for himself. He'd walked away before, but only because there was nothing at all he could do, and he knew he was a liability. Out here, away from black section, he could be useful. And not being treated as helpless was a particularly attractive idea.

Team Seven was very much further away than he'd anticipated, especially after the gym workout he'd just had. Maybe Tariq had a point about the chair. Mark rolled to a halt outside Commander Nykinnen's office, rubbing his sore hands together, and only then wondered exactly what he was going to ask and how he was going to ask it.

He'd just decided to go away and come back tomorrow, once he'd figured out what to say, when the door opened.

"Mark! Were you looking for me?"

There wasn't much he could say to that apart from 'yes', and Nykinnen ushered him into his office.

"I'm very glad to see you - I had heard things hadn't gone so well. I'm sorry. But - what can I do for you?"

Mark gulped, pulling the shreds of his self-confidence together. "I'm looking for a job."

"A job?" Nykinnen might have years of life experience on Mark, but he didn't have anything like the experience of staring down the enemy, knowing that you had no plan B and only half a plan A. Nykinnen's shock was wide open on his face. "Mark, I don't think -"

"I can do it, Commander. My legs don't work at the moment, but there's nothing wrong with my brain."

"Good grief, Mark, it's not that I don't think you're up to it!" Nykinnen sat forward in his chair, wearing that calming, steadying expression which he used to such good effect in turning brash eighteen-year-olds into responsible security officers. "It's a waste of your experience. Surely black section -"

"Anderson has offered me a job as a base controller, and I don't want it."

There. It was said, and Nykinnen gave him a long, understanding look. "I can offer you something with a little more distance from the front line, and goodness knows I'd be only too delighted to have you. But it's nothing but paperwork."

"Paperwork's about what I'm up to at the moment." He was having to fight to hold his voice steady - talking about this was much harder than he'd expected.

"Well, in that case..." Nykinnen reached into his desk and pulled out an advertisement, the sort of unofficial document that was passed around internally to try to tempt candidates from one team to another. He passed it across. "This hasn't gone out yet. If you want it, it's yours."

Six months ago, he and Jason would have teased one another about applying for something like this. Executive officer for Team Seven, in charge of training schedules. It was, despite the fact that it was administrative, a military position, which would have him ranked above any of the team's security officers. Which could be a problem.

"Err - officially, I don't meet the requirements for this."

"You don't?" Nykinnen turned his attention to his computer screen. "Darn. I guess I'll just have to get you a promotion." He looked uncertainly at Mark. "I will have to push the sympathy angle to get it through, I'm afraid. You know, and I know, that that isn't why it's being done."

"Promotion?"

"To Lieutenant Commander." He smiled, still a little unsure of Mark's reaction. "I confess, it will make my life much easier to not have to remember to call you Lieutenant."

Mark didn't respond - although the thought that he would be called Commander was more attractive than he'd expected. He went back to reading the advert.

"Training schedules? For everyone?"

"I was wondering how to handle the team members who, shall we say, have a certain amount of creativity applied to the list of courses they've completed. I'd thought I'd have them invent something nobody else would want to do and authorise it directly myself, but it would be much easier if they appeared to be doing something more standard."

Mark nodded. At present that would be Jason, Rick, he suspected Dimitri, and he'd heard they had a new jump-pilot, in such desperate need of experience that they'd broken their own rule and left him in Team Seven while he was getting used to the implants. "So, it's figuring out who gets which course, making sure nobody's overloaded, nobody's slacking, and taking account of their aptitude as well as their ambitions?"

"Exactly."

He took a deep breath. "I'll do it. I'll start whenever you want. Tomorrow."

He'd always had the impression that Nykinnen could tell exactly what it was that people weren't saying. The blond man looked him up and down for several seconds before replying.

"Are you trying to get out of there?"

"Yes," he admitted.

"Then - do you have quarters? It would be unremarkable if I arranged for you to have somewhere temporary to stay."

He'd been in Medical ever since his return. He hadn't even thought of where he was going to live - but black section wasn't going to be it. Not least because he wanted out so badly it hurt, but because his old quarters were in the roof of the old building, on the corridor he'd lived on since he'd first come to ISO USA. Back then, the old building had been all there was on this site. Now, it was at the back of a huge, sprawling modern complex, but it was still an old building. The five steps from the level of the elevator to the level of his room might as well have been a thousand.

He swallowed hard. "I don't have anywhere. But you don't have to -"

"I have a whole pack of new officers who will benefit from the experience of a couple of hours dealing with ISO Personnel. Let them do the hard work. And - if you don't mind me saying so - you look wiped. If you really do plan to come in tomorrow, you should go and get some rest."

Mark smiled. That hadn't been said as if Nykinnen thought he was useless, just that he looked tired. Which he was. Genuinely physically tired, with good reason, for the first time in weeks if not months. He'd go back to Medical now, before Chris decided to send out a search party. Tomorrow he'd come down here early - and he'd not go back. There was no real need for him to be in Medical, nothing they could do for him. And no need for him to argue with anyone over it. He was still the same person who'd commanded G-Force, he didn't need their permission, and he sure as hell didn't need their anti-depression drugs. He'd tell them tomorrow that he'd sorted his own life out.