#6 Hours
Disclaimer: I own neither Without A Trace, nor the characters involved. They belong to Warner Brothers Television. I make no money from these works, they are for entertainment purposes only.
Title: "3 a.m."
Fandom: Without A Trace
Character: Martin Fitzgerald
Prompt: #6 Hours
Word Count: 8,150 (approx)
Rating: R (language)
Spoilers: Up to and including 6x14 "A Bend In The Road"
Credits: Thank you squeelated and jennukes for the beta.
Author's Notes:: Again, a delay… but life gets in the way sometimes.
3 a.m.
-- … well, I can't help but be scared of it all, sometimes, and the rain's gonna wash away, I believe it. -- Matchbox 20 "3 A.M."
They trade of at two, as planned, to give him an hour before the one he always dreads. It makes sense for him to take the graveyard, but that doesn't mean Martin has to like it. He's just the only one without a family or anyone else to go home to, and thus apparently has nothing better to do in the dark hours that are classified as morning but know damn well they're a part of the night. Viv may have taken evil glee in torturing Jack with banal magazine articles, but Martin is more thoroughly prepared to spend a night attempting to block out the sounds of a place that never truly sleeps, and the laboured breathing of a patient who can't really, either. He clips a small book-lamp to the arm of his chair and pulls out something far more substantial than People or Good Housekeeping. It's volume three of four, too, so hopefully Jack will take his cue from the hour and not ask for excerpts. Martin doesn't want to have to explain over fourteen-hundred pages of backstory to someone who shouldn't be here in the first place.
Because, now that the shock has worn off, he realises he's angry. Six years ago, he pulled a similar stupid stunt, going in alone, and Jack rang his bell for it. The man knows better. This wasn't an oversight, this was a deliberate decision not to tell anybody and not waste time with such niceties as the legal system and due process. Jack's refusal to think straight is the cause of this. If Jack had been willing to think straight, Martin wouldn't have to be sitting here, trying not to remember his own hellish experience of not too long ago. What the hell is wrong with the man that he can't learn from other peoples' mistakes? Martin can -- how the hell else do people think he got a reputation as a hot-shot? Forget not making the same mistake twice, if someone else has done it, he tries not to do it even once.
Unfortunately, what Danny - who made a million and a half excuses why he couldn't take this shift - doesn't seem to remember is that getting mad at Jack isn't going to solve anything right now. Yeah, he's an asshole and has fucked things up beyond belief, but right now, Jack is rather… beyond the efficacy of getting pissed off with him. In fact, if Martin is guessing right, that's what he wants. If people get angry with him, it justifies the martyr mode he's been in for the last who-knows-how-long. Martin's gaze drops to the man's hand, gripping the edge of the bedsheet. The scars have faded, but haven't disappeared, the remnants of a madman's stigmata. He went in alone that time, too. You'd think he'd learn.
Martin turns his eyes back to the page at the sound of what might be Jack trying to speak. "Thirsty," seems to be the word. Only half-looking, Martin fishes an ice-chip out of the cup and stands up to place it between Jack's lips.
"Come on," the words are a little clearer, now, even mumbled around frozen water.
"Nope. That's what you get. I know this, remember?" It's why now he orders his drinks without ice, preferring the possibility of lukewarm to the memory of a mouth numbed beyond feeling, save for the shooting pains in one sensitive tooth. As much as it would be tempting to pour a carafe of water down Jack's throat and see if he drowns, Martin isn't going to do it. Olczyck seems to actually like the guy, so murdering him wouldn't look so good on the old resume, even if Danny'd take the bar just to have the pleasure of defending him. He doesn't tear his eyes away from the text, either, despite the fact that he can't really see it, out of the light.
"Good book?" Even in its ravaged state, Jack's voice carries more than the requisite amount of sarcasm. It's not just the fact that Martin is semi-ignoring him, it's that none of them read the way Martin does, for the pure pleasure of entering an impossible world or even just seeing this one through someone else's eyes. Sam was appalled the first time she saw how many books he owns and the way they dominate his apartment. It was as though she'd found him harbouring a torture chamber in the basement.
"Some of us use our brains, Jack." It isn't quite the sentence he was aiming for, but it's going on 3 a.m. and dark moods are crowding out commonsense.
"I thought you'd understand." There is hurt in the voice, now, the high priest discovering that his acolyte doesn't really care about the faith. "I mean…I didn't mean…"
"Save it." Martin shakes his head, sitting back down. The red and black of the bookjacket seem to glow eerily in the small light of his lamp, reflecting off the cheap plastic table that holds the ice-chips and his own macchiato. He might make it through this night, but it won't be drug-free. Excessive doses of caffeine might be the only thing keeping him sane.
"What…"
Martin glances up to see Jack staring at his book. Oh, God. He hopes this isn't what it seems: a near-death conversion into someone who cares. He hates it when people resolve to turn over a new leaf and become a 'better person' than they were before. Hates it, because they believe it and become so annoyingly decent that you want to smack their heads repeatedly against a window until either their skull or the glass shatters. Hates it, because it takes him so long to learn the rules of interacting with people in the first place that when they pull crap like that, he knows he has to start over from square one. "It's a series." He hopes that's enough to put the guy off.
"What's it called?" God help him, the man actually sounds interested.
"Otherland." He can't think of a way to describe it that won't make him sound more of a geek than he's already known to be, not that 'more' is an easy thing for a man wearing a shirt bearing Euler's number in as much of its irrational glory as could fit on a human chest. Jack seems to be ignoring the shirt.
"What's it about?"
"Virtual reality." That's the short answer, anyway. If Jack wants anything longer, he'll have to wait until he can sit up and read the first two books.
"Oh." Jack lapses into silence. He's probably trying to decide who is worse: Viv with her sadistic periodicals or Martin for merely bringing epic sci-fi to within a hundred feet of him. "I could use some of that."
Martin snorts. He can't help himself. Part of Jack's brain must think he already does live in VR, otherwise why would he think he's so indestructible?
There is a long pause of about two pages. "Is it good?"
He thinks it might be better without the interruptions, but bites his tongue. Patience, he has been told, is a virtue. Instead, he starts reading aloud where he's at, not bothering to explain the characters or settings.
Amazingly, Jack doesn't interrupt again. After a couple of pages, his breathing seems to slow and even out.
Unconsciously, Martin slips into story-time mode, continuing on to the end of the chapter, a natural leaving-place until 'next-time'. Only then does he look up and over at his charge who seems, just like a child, to have fallen asleep somewhere mid-text. Martin has always wondered what Jack looks like relaxed, and realises he's still going to have to wait to find out. His fingers have loosened their grip on the bedsheet, but even in sleep the man looks tense. It might be the pain; now that he's awake it's unlikely anything the doctors are willing to give will cut it completely.
He thinks back to a long-forgotten conversation with his father. He can't say nobody warned him. Victor did say Jack had a tendency to act without thinking, if you stripped the sports metaphors out of it. Not, Martin thinks, that he'll ever think that Father knows best.
He sighs and tries to go back to reading to himself, but his mind can't help but hold on to the real world, letting it screw up the fictional. Be honest, a little voice in his head tells him. He tries to ignore it, after all, it's rather hard to be dishonest when there's no one to lie to. Just himself, and that hardly counts. And it's not like he has anything to lie about. Not anything other than what the hell he's doing here. Now.
The truth is it's because no one else is. There is no formal rule saying anybody has to do this, now that Jack is back solidly in RL, or as close as he's ever been. Machines monitor his vital signs better than an untrained observer ever could. A guard could sit out in the hallway. In fact, if there was a guard, he would be out in the hallway; you didn't allow anybody to get in to the room, which would be defeated by going in yourself. He's not here now by mere default; he's here because he knows. Knows what it's like to wake up in darkness, wondering if you were wrong and if Purgatory really exists. Knows what it's like to wonder if you're not living in some hellish simulation and needing one real thing - the murmur of a familiar voice or even just a waft of remembered scent - just one thing to remind you that this is RL and you can't just drop offline for a bit. Even Sam only got a mild scare, she never lingered close enough to death for it to become the easy 'just close your eyes' option. Jack may be an unremitting screw-up, but that's something they can sort out later. It's something they can sort out later, and they came damn close to not being able to sort it out at all. The truth is, when nobody else said yes to this shift, Martin volunteered. Better, he reasoned, to be kept awake by watchfulness, than kept awake by guilt.
He tries to find a comfortable spot in his chair, but between his hip and the fact that it's a piece of industrial furniture not meant for use for long periods of time, he fails miserably. He glances over at Jack again and wonders what happens now. Is the man going to change, or six months or if they're lucky six years from now, are they going to be going through this again? This didn't have to happen. Why the hell didn't you trust us? That, he thinks, is what hurts the most. Danny asserts that it's the fact that Jack sets different rules for himself than for everyone else, but that's not quite it. It's the fact that he doesn't have faith in them, anymore. He used to, but over the last few years he's distanced himself to the point that what used to be his team might as well be strangers. It's like Year One all over again, and Jack keeping that phone call secret so as to preserve Martin's innocence on the stand. I thought we had that conversation. This is worse, though. This isn't somebody twisting out of a conviction and they'll have to get him later, this was damn near Jack's life.
Jesus Christ. If I'm willing to commit perjury… hell, all you had to say was you had a tip. One of us would have gone with you, and then we wouldn't be here. He understands why Jack didn't trust him then: he was new, and nobody knew just what side he was really on. Now, Jack should have known better. Okay, maybe Danny's been pissed at him for a while, maybe Elena's still too new, Sam's condition too delicate and Viv too officially in charge for Jack to pull that shit on her, but what the fuck? If he'd had another gun there, he might not have ended up damn near being a body.
He sips his drink, letting the coffee calm him. Damn Jack, anyway. I can't even go for a run, thanks to you. The farthest he can go is down the hall to replenish the melting ice, or grab a crappy vending-machine replacement for his own drink. And all for what? Some son-of-a-bitch so ungrateful that he'll claim to have been protecting them, to cover up for his own need to be a hero?
"What the hell did we ever do to you, Jack?" He doesn't realise he's spoken aloud until he's at the end of the sentence. He could stop, but he doesn't. "Seriously. I mean, why don't we rate? I mean, I understand why Danny's pissed, and I get why you stopped him - hell, I would have too - but what about the rest of us? What the hell did we do to deserve you walking out on us?" If he's honest, that's what this feels like, like his seventh birthday when Victor was a no-show until late at night and Martin finally realised he'd always rank a distant second to the job, if even that. He thought Jack gave a crap about the team, enough to temper his own obsessions, and it sucks to be proven wrong.
He sighs. What does it matter, anyway? Danny's right. Jack's gonna do what he's gonna do. This isn't going to change him. He'll be out of here before the doctors even think it's wise, ready to sacrifice himself for some useless cause. People who think Martin has the inside line in the Bureau don't have a clue. The shit Olczyck lets Jack get away with? If Martin had pulled a stunt like this, he'd be waking up to his walking papers, courtesy of the old man himself. What happened to him was just oversight, not being well enough prepared for contingencies. If he'd been running a maverick operation like Jack… Dad might cover for a lot, but even he draws the line somewhere.
He's not sure what leaves a worse taste in his mouth, the fact that Jack is going to get away with it again, or the fact that Viv is going to end up taking the fall. Again. The FBI really is an old-boys club, and she's not one of the boys. She barely even had time to sit in the chair before Olzcyck pulled her out of it and reinstalled Jack. Not, Martin has to admit, that he was disappointed when it happened. That really burns. She's worked hard, she deserves it more than most - more than Jack - but that idiot Fitzgerald couldn't cooperate.
He winces, remembering something Dr. Harris called him once. Jack Malone in training. That is a very scary thought, right now. If Jack were merely self-destructive, that would be one thing, but they're all caught up in his wake and going down with him. Danny's never been so close to snapping, Elena hasn't been around long enough to risk getting caught up in the politics and tangled emotions surrounding all of this, and Sam? The only thing saving her is her distraction over impending motherhood.
But himself? Lisa's right, he's got all of the symptoms, right down to a tendency to brood, alone. Give him a few years and it could be Martin feeling a need to save the world or die trying, and not really caring which. The only thing separating them is an NA group that Martin doesn't share too much with, anyway. Oh, sure, that violates the principle of the thing, but he's never gotten the 'plays well with others' comment. Danny would be pissed if he knew how slip-shod Martin is about actually working the twelve steps, but turning things over to a higher power has never been a talent of his, either. His moral inventory needs government-sized archive space but most of the documents are 'eyes only', and while God may know without being told, the only human being he's confessed to is four years dead. Oh, he feeds Ed a few tidbits every now and then, to keep the guy convinced that Martin really can cooperate, but nobody, and he means nobody knows the bulk of it. And maybe that's the wrong way to be, maybe he's setting himself up for failure or he's just a selfish little bastard (both on that inventory list), but it's easier for him to beat the addiction habit than change that.
Thinking of, how crazy is this? Alone in a room with an unconscious man getting pumped full of painkillers and enough brains to figure out some way of getting those drugs into his own system, if he wanted. Is everybody else nuts? What the hell are they doing, trusting him with this? Lead me not into temptation, I can find it for myself. He wonders, briefly, what is holding him back. The absurdity of it all? Most likely; ridicule has always been his greatest weapon. That's one big difference between him and the man in that bed. Jack's good at mocking what he doesn't understand, but he's never been one to appreciate the sheer ridiculousness of life. It's one thing Martin's stats-loving brain can prize: things don't have to happen for a reason. Sometimes life just randomly hands out shit. That's how, he realises, he can fake the whole 'hand over to God' thing. It's nobody's plan, it's just… odds. Give any random-number generator enough time, and it can spit out that one special number out of five-hundred-million. It might even do it on the first try; just because the odds are five-hundred-million to one against means that there are still odds of one in five-hundred-million. But how do you explain to someone that talks to some bearded guy in the sky that your higher power is composed of numbers? That you'd rather accept the purposelessness of things than the helplessness of being a pawn in someone else's game?
He shifts in his chair. This is not good. He suspects that boredom is half the reason he got hooked in the first place. His normal cure for that is to get out and do something, but for a while he couldn't do anything. While he loves to read, there is also only so much sitting still he can manage at a time. So… pop another pill and if you can't get going, at least get to sleep. That was the problem: it had worked. Drugged, he was better rested and more relaxed than he'd ever been in his life. It was just the unfortunate fact that in the intervals between, he was more stressed-out, twitchy, bloody-minded, and generally all around dangerous.
A sudden thought occurs. If he's Jack-in-Training, and if he ended up hooked after his bout of solid-metal infiltration (nobody uses lead anymore, which is a shame, because it was such a good euphemism), does it follow that… Oh, dear God, please, no. The man is bad enough without sticking him into recovery. Danny, Martin can handle. Jack… He'll either screw it up or be reborn in the movement. Either one is bad news. He wonders what his chances might be in the private sector. Run away! Run away! The thought of a twelve-stepping Jack is scarier than any Killer Rabbit - even a Holy Hand-grenade might not be enough.
And now for something completely different… He forces his thoughts away from that possibly impending nightmare. Why risk it becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, after all? There are too many variables to construct any decent probability, anyway. Admittedly, they've got the family background in common, but that might be all, and might not be enough. After all, Jack's not going through another painful detox right now, at least not as bad as Martin's was. Yes, I admit. I have a problem. I cannot give it up at any time I feel like, and right now I feel like some more. So, as long as I'm heading out, is there anything the rest of you want? You know it's bad when the office shrink comes to visit and sneaks in a cappuccino for the patient. Martin shakes his head. And then she seemed surprised when he got hooked on something else? Your coffee, or your life. He thinks it might be one hell of a debate. After all, without coffee, would the resulting life be worth it? The painkillers were one thing. The elixir of life is quite another.
His gaze is drawn back to the pitiful figure on the bed. No, if he's going to be honest - and when calculating odds, honesty really is the best policy - Jack is not a changed man, which is why Martin vows not to be the least bit surprised when they get a call from the hospital, asking the team to do what they do best. He vows not to get angry, like Danny, frustrated like Viv, or even plain worried, like Sam will. Jack is no more capable of being rational than phi. Random shit. If and when that call comes, they can either assign it to him under the mistaken impression that he really cares about saving the guy, or they can put him on something else, and it'll really make no difference. It's not a step forward into some sort of enlightened acceptance of things, however, but a regression to the 'I don't give a shit' Seattle days when nobody made that much of an impression on him. Nice one, Jack. A year, hell, even a month ago, it would have been different. He would have been worried, sitting here, but now? Oh, he'll sign the obligatory card and toss five bucks into a collection, but only because it's easier than not doing so. When Jack comes back, he'll smile all the right smiles, say all the right phrases and maybe even give him a hearty clap on the back, but it's going to mean what all those things meant for most of his life: nothing. He'll do his job and ignore everything else, all the pleas for understanding and the irrational demands; if Jack wants to bust him for insubordination, let him try. That's the great thing about passive-aggression: it's so damn hard to prove.
"You brought this on yourself, Jack." He speaks aloud again, getting in his disclaimer. Jack's the great psychologist. Did he forget what kind of a personality he was dealing with? Probably doesn't care, but Martin is used to that, in fact it's half the reason he has this personality to start with. The difference between now and back in Seattle (or back as a kid, for that matter) is that this time Martin actually knows what he's doing on the job. He doesn't need to ask questions or favours. He can look after himself.
Not like Jack at all.
Title: "3 a.m."
Fandom: Without A Trace
Character: Martin Fitzgerald
Prompt: #6 Hours
Word Count: 8,150 (approx)
Rating: R (language)
Spoilers: Up to and including 6x14 "A Bend In The Road"
Credits: Thank you squeelated and jennukes for the beta.
Author's Notes:: Again, a delay… but life gets in the way sometimes.
3 a.m.
-- … well, I can't help but be scared of it all, sometimes, and the rain's gonna wash away, I believe it. -- Matchbox 20 "3 A.M."
They trade of at two, as planned, to give him an hour before the one he always dreads. It makes sense for him to take the graveyard, but that doesn't mean Martin has to like it. He's just the only one without a family or anyone else to go home to, and thus apparently has nothing better to do in the dark hours that are classified as morning but know damn well they're a part of the night. Viv may have taken evil glee in torturing Jack with banal magazine articles, but Martin is more thoroughly prepared to spend a night attempting to block out the sounds of a place that never truly sleeps, and the laboured breathing of a patient who can't really, either. He clips a small book-lamp to the arm of his chair and pulls out something far more substantial than People or Good Housekeeping. It's volume three of four, too, so hopefully Jack will take his cue from the hour and not ask for excerpts. Martin doesn't want to have to explain over fourteen-hundred pages of backstory to someone who shouldn't be here in the first place.
Because, now that the shock has worn off, he realises he's angry. Six years ago, he pulled a similar stupid stunt, going in alone, and Jack rang his bell for it. The man knows better. This wasn't an oversight, this was a deliberate decision not to tell anybody and not waste time with such niceties as the legal system and due process. Jack's refusal to think straight is the cause of this. If Jack had been willing to think straight, Martin wouldn't have to be sitting here, trying not to remember his own hellish experience of not too long ago. What the hell is wrong with the man that he can't learn from other peoples' mistakes? Martin can -- how the hell else do people think he got a reputation as a hot-shot? Forget not making the same mistake twice, if someone else has done it, he tries not to do it even once.
Unfortunately, what Danny - who made a million and a half excuses why he couldn't take this shift - doesn't seem to remember is that getting mad at Jack isn't going to solve anything right now. Yeah, he's an asshole and has fucked things up beyond belief, but right now, Jack is rather… beyond the efficacy of getting pissed off with him. In fact, if Martin is guessing right, that's what he wants. If people get angry with him, it justifies the martyr mode he's been in for the last who-knows-how-long. Martin's gaze drops to the man's hand, gripping the edge of the bedsheet. The scars have faded, but haven't disappeared, the remnants of a madman's stigmata. He went in alone that time, too. You'd think he'd learn.
Martin turns his eyes back to the page at the sound of what might be Jack trying to speak. "Thirsty," seems to be the word. Only half-looking, Martin fishes an ice-chip out of the cup and stands up to place it between Jack's lips.
"Come on," the words are a little clearer, now, even mumbled around frozen water.
"Nope. That's what you get. I know this, remember?" It's why now he orders his drinks without ice, preferring the possibility of lukewarm to the memory of a mouth numbed beyond feeling, save for the shooting pains in one sensitive tooth. As much as it would be tempting to pour a carafe of water down Jack's throat and see if he drowns, Martin isn't going to do it. Olczyck seems to actually like the guy, so murdering him wouldn't look so good on the old resume, even if Danny'd take the bar just to have the pleasure of defending him. He doesn't tear his eyes away from the text, either, despite the fact that he can't really see it, out of the light.
"Good book?" Even in its ravaged state, Jack's voice carries more than the requisite amount of sarcasm. It's not just the fact that Martin is semi-ignoring him, it's that none of them read the way Martin does, for the pure pleasure of entering an impossible world or even just seeing this one through someone else's eyes. Sam was appalled the first time she saw how many books he owns and the way they dominate his apartment. It was as though she'd found him harbouring a torture chamber in the basement.
"Some of us use our brains, Jack." It isn't quite the sentence he was aiming for, but it's going on 3 a.m. and dark moods are crowding out commonsense.
"I thought you'd understand." There is hurt in the voice, now, the high priest discovering that his acolyte doesn't really care about the faith. "I mean…I didn't mean…"
"Save it." Martin shakes his head, sitting back down. The red and black of the bookjacket seem to glow eerily in the small light of his lamp, reflecting off the cheap plastic table that holds the ice-chips and his own macchiato. He might make it through this night, but it won't be drug-free. Excessive doses of caffeine might be the only thing keeping him sane.
"What…"
Martin glances up to see Jack staring at his book. Oh, God. He hopes this isn't what it seems: a near-death conversion into someone who cares. He hates it when people resolve to turn over a new leaf and become a 'better person' than they were before. Hates it, because they believe it and become so annoyingly decent that you want to smack their heads repeatedly against a window until either their skull or the glass shatters. Hates it, because it takes him so long to learn the rules of interacting with people in the first place that when they pull crap like that, he knows he has to start over from square one. "It's a series." He hopes that's enough to put the guy off.
"What's it called?" God help him, the man actually sounds interested.
"Otherland." He can't think of a way to describe it that won't make him sound more of a geek than he's already known to be, not that 'more' is an easy thing for a man wearing a shirt bearing Euler's number in as much of its irrational glory as could fit on a human chest. Jack seems to be ignoring the shirt.
"What's it about?"
"Virtual reality." That's the short answer, anyway. If Jack wants anything longer, he'll have to wait until he can sit up and read the first two books.
"Oh." Jack lapses into silence. He's probably trying to decide who is worse: Viv with her sadistic periodicals or Martin for merely bringing epic sci-fi to within a hundred feet of him. "I could use some of that."
Martin snorts. He can't help himself. Part of Jack's brain must think he already does live in VR, otherwise why would he think he's so indestructible?
There is a long pause of about two pages. "Is it good?"
He thinks it might be better without the interruptions, but bites his tongue. Patience, he has been told, is a virtue. Instead, he starts reading aloud where he's at, not bothering to explain the characters or settings.
Amazingly, Jack doesn't interrupt again. After a couple of pages, his breathing seems to slow and even out.
Unconsciously, Martin slips into story-time mode, continuing on to the end of the chapter, a natural leaving-place until 'next-time'. Only then does he look up and over at his charge who seems, just like a child, to have fallen asleep somewhere mid-text. Martin has always wondered what Jack looks like relaxed, and realises he's still going to have to wait to find out. His fingers have loosened their grip on the bedsheet, but even in sleep the man looks tense. It might be the pain; now that he's awake it's unlikely anything the doctors are willing to give will cut it completely.
He thinks back to a long-forgotten conversation with his father. He can't say nobody warned him. Victor did say Jack had a tendency to act without thinking, if you stripped the sports metaphors out of it. Not, Martin thinks, that he'll ever think that Father knows best.
He sighs and tries to go back to reading to himself, but his mind can't help but hold on to the real world, letting it screw up the fictional. Be honest, a little voice in his head tells him. He tries to ignore it, after all, it's rather hard to be dishonest when there's no one to lie to. Just himself, and that hardly counts. And it's not like he has anything to lie about. Not anything other than what the hell he's doing here. Now.
The truth is it's because no one else is. There is no formal rule saying anybody has to do this, now that Jack is back solidly in RL, or as close as he's ever been. Machines monitor his vital signs better than an untrained observer ever could. A guard could sit out in the hallway. In fact, if there was a guard, he would be out in the hallway; you didn't allow anybody to get in to the room, which would be defeated by going in yourself. He's not here now by mere default; he's here because he knows. Knows what it's like to wake up in darkness, wondering if you were wrong and if Purgatory really exists. Knows what it's like to wonder if you're not living in some hellish simulation and needing one real thing - the murmur of a familiar voice or even just a waft of remembered scent - just one thing to remind you that this is RL and you can't just drop offline for a bit. Even Sam only got a mild scare, she never lingered close enough to death for it to become the easy 'just close your eyes' option. Jack may be an unremitting screw-up, but that's something they can sort out later. It's something they can sort out later, and they came damn close to not being able to sort it out at all. The truth is, when nobody else said yes to this shift, Martin volunteered. Better, he reasoned, to be kept awake by watchfulness, than kept awake by guilt.
He tries to find a comfortable spot in his chair, but between his hip and the fact that it's a piece of industrial furniture not meant for use for long periods of time, he fails miserably. He glances over at Jack again and wonders what happens now. Is the man going to change, or six months or if they're lucky six years from now, are they going to be going through this again? This didn't have to happen. Why the hell didn't you trust us? That, he thinks, is what hurts the most. Danny asserts that it's the fact that Jack sets different rules for himself than for everyone else, but that's not quite it. It's the fact that he doesn't have faith in them, anymore. He used to, but over the last few years he's distanced himself to the point that what used to be his team might as well be strangers. It's like Year One all over again, and Jack keeping that phone call secret so as to preserve Martin's innocence on the stand. I thought we had that conversation. This is worse, though. This isn't somebody twisting out of a conviction and they'll have to get him later, this was damn near Jack's life.
Jesus Christ. If I'm willing to commit perjury… hell, all you had to say was you had a tip. One of us would have gone with you, and then we wouldn't be here. He understands why Jack didn't trust him then: he was new, and nobody knew just what side he was really on. Now, Jack should have known better. Okay, maybe Danny's been pissed at him for a while, maybe Elena's still too new, Sam's condition too delicate and Viv too officially in charge for Jack to pull that shit on her, but what the fuck? If he'd had another gun there, he might not have ended up damn near being a body.
He sips his drink, letting the coffee calm him. Damn Jack, anyway. I can't even go for a run, thanks to you. The farthest he can go is down the hall to replenish the melting ice, or grab a crappy vending-machine replacement for his own drink. And all for what? Some son-of-a-bitch so ungrateful that he'll claim to have been protecting them, to cover up for his own need to be a hero?
"What the hell did we ever do to you, Jack?" He doesn't realise he's spoken aloud until he's at the end of the sentence. He could stop, but he doesn't. "Seriously. I mean, why don't we rate? I mean, I understand why Danny's pissed, and I get why you stopped him - hell, I would have too - but what about the rest of us? What the hell did we do to deserve you walking out on us?" If he's honest, that's what this feels like, like his seventh birthday when Victor was a no-show until late at night and Martin finally realised he'd always rank a distant second to the job, if even that. He thought Jack gave a crap about the team, enough to temper his own obsessions, and it sucks to be proven wrong.
He sighs. What does it matter, anyway? Danny's right. Jack's gonna do what he's gonna do. This isn't going to change him. He'll be out of here before the doctors even think it's wise, ready to sacrifice himself for some useless cause. People who think Martin has the inside line in the Bureau don't have a clue. The shit Olczyck lets Jack get away with? If Martin had pulled a stunt like this, he'd be waking up to his walking papers, courtesy of the old man himself. What happened to him was just oversight, not being well enough prepared for contingencies. If he'd been running a maverick operation like Jack… Dad might cover for a lot, but even he draws the line somewhere.
He's not sure what leaves a worse taste in his mouth, the fact that Jack is going to get away with it again, or the fact that Viv is going to end up taking the fall. Again. The FBI really is an old-boys club, and she's not one of the boys. She barely even had time to sit in the chair before Olzcyck pulled her out of it and reinstalled Jack. Not, Martin has to admit, that he was disappointed when it happened. That really burns. She's worked hard, she deserves it more than most - more than Jack - but that idiot Fitzgerald couldn't cooperate.
He winces, remembering something Dr. Harris called him once. Jack Malone in training. That is a very scary thought, right now. If Jack were merely self-destructive, that would be one thing, but they're all caught up in his wake and going down with him. Danny's never been so close to snapping, Elena hasn't been around long enough to risk getting caught up in the politics and tangled emotions surrounding all of this, and Sam? The only thing saving her is her distraction over impending motherhood.
But himself? Lisa's right, he's got all of the symptoms, right down to a tendency to brood, alone. Give him a few years and it could be Martin feeling a need to save the world or die trying, and not really caring which. The only thing separating them is an NA group that Martin doesn't share too much with, anyway. Oh, sure, that violates the principle of the thing, but he's never gotten the 'plays well with others' comment. Danny would be pissed if he knew how slip-shod Martin is about actually working the twelve steps, but turning things over to a higher power has never been a talent of his, either. His moral inventory needs government-sized archive space but most of the documents are 'eyes only', and while God may know without being told, the only human being he's confessed to is four years dead. Oh, he feeds Ed a few tidbits every now and then, to keep the guy convinced that Martin really can cooperate, but nobody, and he means nobody knows the bulk of it. And maybe that's the wrong way to be, maybe he's setting himself up for failure or he's just a selfish little bastard (both on that inventory list), but it's easier for him to beat the addiction habit than change that.
Thinking of, how crazy is this? Alone in a room with an unconscious man getting pumped full of painkillers and enough brains to figure out some way of getting those drugs into his own system, if he wanted. Is everybody else nuts? What the hell are they doing, trusting him with this? Lead me not into temptation, I can find it for myself. He wonders, briefly, what is holding him back. The absurdity of it all? Most likely; ridicule has always been his greatest weapon. That's one big difference between him and the man in that bed. Jack's good at mocking what he doesn't understand, but he's never been one to appreciate the sheer ridiculousness of life. It's one thing Martin's stats-loving brain can prize: things don't have to happen for a reason. Sometimes life just randomly hands out shit. That's how, he realises, he can fake the whole 'hand over to God' thing. It's nobody's plan, it's just… odds. Give any random-number generator enough time, and it can spit out that one special number out of five-hundred-million. It might even do it on the first try; just because the odds are five-hundred-million to one against means that there are still odds of one in five-hundred-million. But how do you explain to someone that talks to some bearded guy in the sky that your higher power is composed of numbers? That you'd rather accept the purposelessness of things than the helplessness of being a pawn in someone else's game?
He shifts in his chair. This is not good. He suspects that boredom is half the reason he got hooked in the first place. His normal cure for that is to get out and do something, but for a while he couldn't do anything. While he loves to read, there is also only so much sitting still he can manage at a time. So… pop another pill and if you can't get going, at least get to sleep. That was the problem: it had worked. Drugged, he was better rested and more relaxed than he'd ever been in his life. It was just the unfortunate fact that in the intervals between, he was more stressed-out, twitchy, bloody-minded, and generally all around dangerous.
A sudden thought occurs. If he's Jack-in-Training, and if he ended up hooked after his bout of solid-metal infiltration (nobody uses lead anymore, which is a shame, because it was such a good euphemism), does it follow that… Oh, dear God, please, no. The man is bad enough without sticking him into recovery. Danny, Martin can handle. Jack… He'll either screw it up or be reborn in the movement. Either one is bad news. He wonders what his chances might be in the private sector. Run away! Run away! The thought of a twelve-stepping Jack is scarier than any Killer Rabbit - even a Holy Hand-grenade might not be enough.
And now for something completely different… He forces his thoughts away from that possibly impending nightmare. Why risk it becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, after all? There are too many variables to construct any decent probability, anyway. Admittedly, they've got the family background in common, but that might be all, and might not be enough. After all, Jack's not going through another painful detox right now, at least not as bad as Martin's was. Yes, I admit. I have a problem. I cannot give it up at any time I feel like, and right now I feel like some more. So, as long as I'm heading out, is there anything the rest of you want? You know it's bad when the office shrink comes to visit and sneaks in a cappuccino for the patient. Martin shakes his head. And then she seemed surprised when he got hooked on something else? Your coffee, or your life. He thinks it might be one hell of a debate. After all, without coffee, would the resulting life be worth it? The painkillers were one thing. The elixir of life is quite another.
His gaze is drawn back to the pitiful figure on the bed. No, if he's going to be honest - and when calculating odds, honesty really is the best policy - Jack is not a changed man, which is why Martin vows not to be the least bit surprised when they get a call from the hospital, asking the team to do what they do best. He vows not to get angry, like Danny, frustrated like Viv, or even plain worried, like Sam will. Jack is no more capable of being rational than phi. Random shit. If and when that call comes, they can either assign it to him under the mistaken impression that he really cares about saving the guy, or they can put him on something else, and it'll really make no difference. It's not a step forward into some sort of enlightened acceptance of things, however, but a regression to the 'I don't give a shit' Seattle days when nobody made that much of an impression on him. Nice one, Jack. A year, hell, even a month ago, it would have been different. He would have been worried, sitting here, but now? Oh, he'll sign the obligatory card and toss five bucks into a collection, but only because it's easier than not doing so. When Jack comes back, he'll smile all the right smiles, say all the right phrases and maybe even give him a hearty clap on the back, but it's going to mean what all those things meant for most of his life: nothing. He'll do his job and ignore everything else, all the pleas for understanding and the irrational demands; if Jack wants to bust him for insubordination, let him try. That's the great thing about passive-aggression: it's so damn hard to prove.
"You brought this on yourself, Jack." He speaks aloud again, getting in his disclaimer. Jack's the great psychologist. Did he forget what kind of a personality he was dealing with? Probably doesn't care, but Martin is used to that, in fact it's half the reason he has this personality to start with. The difference between now and back in Seattle (or back as a kid, for that matter) is that this time Martin actually knows what he's doing on the job. He doesn't need to ask questions or favours. He can look after himself.
Not like Jack at all.