Small Steps  - 2002 Rewrite
by elfin
 

A slight hissing noise, followed by a myriad of alarms sounding throughout MedLab.

Blood splattered the grey and white quilt, marking a fast path across the soft material from left to right.

Three nurses ran into the IC unit, followed closely by Franklin.

Stephen stopped in his tracks when he laid eyes on his patient.  Stephen shook his head.

“I can’t believe he’s done it again….  How many times is this?”

Nurse Marl’Ne’Lea smiled gently and leaned over their patient, John Sheridan, to take up the IV valve lying on the quilt.  The tiny hole in Sheridan’s hand was bleeding a little.

She set the valve again, this time into the back of his left hand, and placed a small plaster over the wound in his right.

“Maybe a longer tube?” she suggested.

Stephen chuckled. 

Sheridan kept doing this, turning over onto his side in his sleep and yanking the IV line out.  Not that John had noticed.  He just continued to sleep, his body finally finding some peace as the worst of his injuries began to heal.

Once the nurse had finished, Stephen stepped up.  He routinely checked John’s temperature and blood pressure.  He took samples of his patient’s blood and urine for analysis.  Then, for a short time, he just sat at John’s side and watched him sleep.

*

President.

Stephen watched Delenn’s retreating back as she walked happily out of MedLab 1.

The new Interstellar Alliance had voted John Sheridan to be its president.

Stephen glanced over at where John was sleeping restlessly.  It looked as if yet another nightmare was about to disturb his hard-won sleep.

He didn’t look like he’d be taking up his new role anytime soon.  Stephen wasn’t sure that John would ever be ready. 

A sudden anger flared through him.  Why wouldn’t everyone just leave Sheridan alone?  Why wouldn’t the universe give him a break and just let him rest?  Let him live….

The anger vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

The nightmare took hold.


“John….  It’s okay.”

Stephen tried to calm his patient but Sheridan’s breathing was becoming harsher, faster and deeper.  His movements became more erratic, his struggle against his imaginary enemy more desperate.

“John!”  Reaching down, Stephen pinched a little of skin on the back of John’s hand between two finger nails, hoping to rouse him.

What might or might not have been a “no” issued from John’s throat before he woke, sitting up, once again ripping the tubes from the IV valve, at least leaving the body of the valve in his hand this time.

Stephen perched on the edge of the bed, taking a firm but gentle hold of Sheridan’s shoulders.

“John, ssh.  It’s okay, you’re okay.  It’s just a nightmare.”

John’s hands came to rest on Stephen’s arms.  The sides of his hands gripped those arms, his fingers all but useless at the moment as they healed. 

Franklin had managed to rebuild five of the six damaged digits, but one – the third finger of his left hand – was too badly shattered.  Stephen had left it in a small, narrow brace, the pieces of bone pinned together.  The nerves through and around the finger were dead already, it wasn’t causing John any further pain.

“Breathe slowly,” Stephen instructed.  “Relax.”

Sheridan seemed to respond, following Stephen’s suggestion.

“That’s it.”  Franklin took up the dripping IV line and carefully plugged it back into the valve, taking care not to startle his patient any further.  “Don’t suppose you want to tell me what you were dreaming about, um?”

He knew John wouldn’t respond.  The treatments for the burns at the back of John’s throat and down his oesophagus had worked minor miracles but still John hadn’t spoken to them properly.  He simply watched the doctor, the nurses, any visitors he was allowed, with large, distrusting grey eyes.

“Okay, well, how about I tell you where you are?”  Stephen had been doing this – holding these conversations with himself – since John had regained consciousness.  “You’re aboard Babylon 5.  Michael got you out of that prison.  Now, I know you don’t believe that Michael would have come to your rescue,” he picked up the pad from bedside table and started to write on it, recording Sheridan’s condition.  “But he did, and now I’m looking after you, see?”  He angled the pad so that Sheridan could see what he was writing.

In one unexpected and violent move, John backhanded the pad and sent it spinning gracefully through the air to crack when it hit the far wall. 

Surprised, Stephen stepped forward, a questioning frown on his face.

Sheridan shrank back, lowering his head, glancing up once then averting his eyes, wincing as if expecting a strike in retaliation.

Horror filled Stephen as he realised John still imagined himself to be a captive.  Even now.  After two weeks. 

“Captain, John, I am Doctor Franklin.  You are on Babylon 5.” 

Slowly, he sat down on the edge of the bed, sliding his hands down John’s trembling arms, feeling the tension in the weak body as he lightly took his patient’s hands into his own.

“You were rescued, John.  Try to remember.  Michael Garibaldi got you out.  He put you on board a Centauri ship that brought you here.  That was thirteen days ago.  You’ve been here, in MedLab, ever since.”

John was watching him with a new expression, eyes now and again glancing away to take in his surroundings.  Stephen hoped he was getting through.

“I know they messed with your mind, John.  I know they made you believe that you were free when you weren’t.  But… those scenes can’t have lasted long, and… there must have been things about them that you questioned?” 

John nodded once.  Quickly, as if unsure what the correct answer was or even if he was supposed to answer.

“You’ve been here almost two weeks.  Not even Clarke’s best people could keep that going without making some mistake, without losing you in the charade.”

Franklin watched carefully, looking out for signs that Sheridan was starting to accept that this was real.

“Do you remember Jack being here?”

It was as if a light had come on in John’s eyes.  Another quick nod.

“He’s here, aboard Babylon 5.  He’ll be here later.  He’s worried about you, like everyone else.”

John pulled his left hand from Stephen’s loose grip.  The doctor let him go immediately.

“I wish there was something I could do to convince you this was all real.”

Sighing softly, he satisfied himself with just sitting for a while, watching John staring out into medlab, maybe trying to work everything out in his confused and hurting mind. 

An idea struck him.  He held up his finger, “One minute,” and got up.


When he returned, he was carrying a bowl of warm water and a bottle of shaving foam.

“You want to sit up for me?  I’ll prove you’re safe.”  The ghost of a smile broke through the fear for a fraction of a moment, but John allowed himself to be helped into half-sitting, half lying against the pillows that Stephen stacked up behind him.

The doctor was infinitely gentle, applying the shaving foam and removing it and a month’s worth of beard growth in short strokes.  John remained motionless, but the fear was starting to fade from his eyes, and the quick glances up at Stephen’s face were getting longer and braver each time.

It took a long half-hour.  When he was finished, the whiskers were gone.  John was so still he might have been asleep.  But he wasn’t.

Stephen got rid of the bowl and razor before sitting himself back on the edge of the bed.  Very gently, he took John’s right hand and lifted it, touching it to John’s smooth right cheek.

“How’s that for proof?” he murmured, keeping his own touch light and unthreatening.

John drew in a shaking breath, and in a moment his eyes filled with tears.

Stephen lowered John’s hand again and held it within his own.  And he sat in silence, letting John weep.

*

The corners of Jack’s lips came up into a small smile. 

He’d searched everywhere for Michael, finally finding him in the observation bay staring out into space.

Knowing he was intruding, Jack stepped up to Michael’s side, looking out at the stars.

They stood in silence together for some time, until Michael turned his head.

“How is he?”

Jack was only slightly surprised.  “He’s….  There are small steps, according to Stephen, and he’s making them.”  He tilted his head to study the other man.  “You rescued him.”

Michael nodded.  He didn’t speak.

“Can I ask you something painful?”

Another nod.

“What did he do to make you hate him so much?”

Michael actually chuckled.  Then he sighed.  And he told his story.  All of it, making sure he missed nothing because he had a feeling that this man would be vitally important in getting close to Sheridan again.  If that could ever be possible.

Jack listened in silence until Michael finished.

“I’m sorry.  No one deserves that.”

Garibaldi looked properly at Jack Maynard, perhaps for the first time.

“You believe me?”

It was Jack’s turn to smile.  “John’s got a well-honed sense of character judgement.  He once told me that he trusted you more than anyone he’d ever met, anywhere he’d ever been.”

Michael looked away.

“That wasn’t accusation.”

“I know.”  Garibaldi sighed and turned, sitting down on the seating that ran the length of the 180 degree window out into space.

Jack copied his move, seating himself, one arm across the back, letting his gaze wonder over the magnificent sight of the Cortez.  His ship docked at the station indefinitely.  Long enough for some loved ones to travel from Earth to Babylon 5.  It had been too long since his crew had seen their families and friends.

“You’re blaming yourself, despite knowing it wasn’t your fault.”

Michael nodded, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, face in his hands. 

“All Bester did was… alter characteristics that were already there.”  He pressed his fingers into his eyes.  “It terrifies me, that I had it within me to do that… to John.”

“You wouldn’t have done it without their intervention.”

Michael snorted, turned his head.  “You don’t know me.”

Jack hesitated.  “John used to… send messages sometimes.  Data crystals that he’d recorded late at night when he’d had too much on his mind to sleep.  He’d just sit and talk at me.  And I’d listen to them when I had difficulty sleeping.”  He smiled to himself.  “He was always happy to be able to send me to sleep, whatever else was happening.”

Jack sighed softly.  That had been a long time ago, when the universe had at least appeared sane. 

“He told me all that he could in those messages.  He couldn’t talk much about… work.  So he told me about his friends.  About Susan and Stephen, Marcus, the great G’Kar and Londo double-act.  About you.”

Michael lifted his head.

“He loved you, Michael.”

He sighed, and nodded.  “I know.  I just wish that I feel I deserve that love.”  Shrugging, he stood and with a little smile, he left Jack sitting there.

 

fin
elfin