Once and For All

Posted on Tue Apr 30th, 2019 @ 11:20pm by Major Jacob Asher & Staff Sergeant Jeremiah Corvus & 1st Lieutenant Hunter Williams

Mission: Interlude 1
Location: Jake's Office
Timeline: Current

Jeremy leaned against the wall, his hands cupped around his lower face, breathing slowly and deeply. He wasn't sure if it was hokey touchy feely crap, but he'd learned about it in a class once and figure, considering what he was about to do, he could use all the calming techniques he could get his hands on. He checked his watch and then took another deep breath.

"Don't have anything better to do than lurk?" Williams asked as he came up on the Staff Sergeant. He held a couple files in one hand and a large, insulated tumbler in the other. It was only three quarters filled at the moment, but the coffee was thick and strong. The way it should be.

"Lieutenant," Jeremy said, his breathing shallowing. "I don't know...I don't think I can do this. What if he doesn't listen? What if...what if he doesn't want to give me another chance?"

Hunter clapped the kid on the shoulder. "C'mon, Sergeant. Stop overthinking everything. It's not like he's going to make you throw yourself on his sword."

"Okay," Jeremy said.

"Mostly because he's sent his sword out to be sharpened. He'll most likely just impale you. On a pike."

"Not helping," Jeremy said, shaking his head. But, they'd met only a short distance from the office.

Hunter only smiled in response then gave the door a brief knock then opened the door. "Major?" he asked, "I've got Crow here to have that chat you wanted. Now a good time?"

"Sure," Jake said. "Come in and take a seat. Good to see you up and around, Crow."

"Thank you, sir," Jeremy said wanting to take the seat closer to the door but Williams dropped into it before Jeremy had the chance. Which pretty much left the one fully inside the room open.

Williams opened the top file and flipped a few pages. He had a pen in his 'good' hand and appeared to be writing or making notes. "You had something more you wanted to say, Sergeant?" he spoke absently, as if it was just some conversation at a nearby table in the dining facility.

Jeremy let out a breath. "What do I need to do, Major, to stay here?"

Jake looked at Corvus a moment. "Sergeant," he said. "If I give you permission to speak, if not freely, at least honestly, do you think you could explain to me why you think we don't get along without going off the rails?"

Jeremy took a brief look to Williams then nodded. He waited and then realized that it was silent because he should be talking. "I'm not totally sure but on my end, I've been expecting you to be someone that perhaps you're not. I was in need of something and wanted if from you, but instead of asking, I let some of my own issues dictate my behavior. You've said you've seen some of the good things I've done and, Lieutenant tells me that it was you that ordered him to give me another chance to get my head out of my..." he blushed a bit. "butt. Maybe, with some help, I can show you and everyone else that I am more than just the soup sandwich I've been since getting here."

"Okay," Asher said. "Here's the thing, and it's the thing that's causing the most stress and conflict from my end. You can't prove a negative. You can't prove you don't have your head up your ass. You can prove you have your head where it's supposed to be and screwed on straight. Trying to prove a negative, that's not about improving yourself. That's about seeking approval. I can see you pushing harder and harder to get my approval, but in the process you're reaching beyond your grasp. Do what you do, and do it well. That's the kind of thing I approve of. Stop stressing out over whether I approve of you. You did something dumb, I had to intervene, and that should have been the end of it. Everyone in the military has to take an ass chewing now and then. It comes with the job. And it never stops. Wolf gets his ass chewed, too, and the people that chew his ass get theirs chewed by someone else. If we all hung on to the anger and embarrassment of every ass chewing we get, or spent all of our time trying to prove we didn't deserve it in the first place, we'd all be miserable all of the time."

"Yes, sir," Jeremy said. "It took some time to settle down, and a few knocks to the head," he gave a short lived smile as he rubbed his still sore ear, "to realize that I deserved what happened and that I needed to be stopped, not just for me, but for everyone else as well. I just...I want to do well at everything I do. In talking with the Lieutenant after visiting with the OSI guys, it made me realize that I haven't been fulfilling my role here either. I'm not used to being a senior rank but I am now, even if it's only by a few months. I could use guidance every now and then on stepping up and helping to make sure this unit runs the way it should."

Hunter only made a grunt at that, what it meant was open for interpretation, but he never looked up from the reports he kept marking up.

Jake nodded. "I can do that," he said. "So can Williams. But you can't get upset if we criticize you. You're going to make mistakes and we're going to point them out to you when we catch them. That's our job. And while I'll try to find a time and a place where I can do it calmly and be constructive, when we're in the shit it's not always going to be practical for me to be worried about my delivery. But again, don't get wrapped up in earning an attaboy from me or from Williams. That's when I've really noticed that you screw up. Just concentrate on the job in front of you, focus on the mission. That's hard for PJs and CROs sometimes, because part of their mission is medical care, but you're going to have to sort that out for yourself. Where and when possible, I'll try to give clearer orders this time around when I assign you leadership responsibilities so you have clear parameters within which to base your decisions. We'll do better. To help that along, we're spending the next two weeks running training sessions with everyone, including the civilians, so everyone knows what they're supposed to be doing. Then we go out on our next mission the following Monday. I don't want you to push yourself too fast. When did they say you could resume PT?"

"I go back for re-evaluation in two days. They didn't give any specifics on what they plan for that day, but they're happy with how I'm healing, and I can push on it more every day. I'm off the painkillers and down to six hundred ibus, so that's good. So, I'm pushing to be released by Friday if possible. But," he added quickly, "that's up to professionals and I'm abiding by all their rules and orders."

He sat back, a little bit more relaxed. "I have...McNeil gave me orders as well, for when you piss me..." Jeremy stopped and cleared his throat. "I mean, for when I'm upset, so I'm working on those responses as well and fair criticism isn't a problem. Or shouldn't be at least. And I'm glad to hear about some training for the civvies. I've taken Rav out shooting at his request but I think they all could use some knowledge. If you'd like, Major, I can draw up a training plan that O'Connor and I can implement?"

"We're all going to be training together," Asher said. "Williams and I will run the training with the help of Sergeant Hassan, this time around, anyway. But, I still want you to come up with a plan and show it to Lieutenant Williams and Sergeant Hassan, who will critique it and take from it what they deem appropriate. You will then go back to the drawing board, so to speak, work on the areas they feel need working on, and go back to them. Think of it as a command exercise. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of what you come up with is used over the next two weeks of training. Lieutenant, you and Hassan will assign Sergeant Corvus portions of the training to run himself, under your watchful eye."

"Yes, Major," Williams said, almost a grunt. He still hadn't looked up from the files he was working on. "It'll be my pleasure to work with Crow." There was something of a scary smile in the way he said it. Jeremy sighed as he shook his head, rubbing his ear again. Well, if it came down to that, at least he and Shae will have an idea of what to expect.

"Excellent," Asher said. "Jeremy, go slow. As someone once said, the human race is the only race no one is trying to win. Be where you're at and and go from there. Learn from these guys. They know what they're doing. I know I haven't always been a stellar example of leadership. I know that a team is as good as their leader. But a leader is also only as good as his team. So let's take this next two weeks to start turning this rag tag group of civilians and combat airmen into a team that can handle the job its been given."

"Yes, sir," Jeremy said. "I'm trying, but all this loafing is driving me insane. I'm not a huge fan of running, but I want to get back out there the more they tell me I can't. So, I'm hoping to get a release."

"Dumbass," Williams muttered under his breath.

Jake shook his head. "I appreciate your eagerness, Sergeant," he said. "But these two things right here are what get you in trouble. First, I know you heard what I said about not getting ahead of yourself, because you acknowledged it. But, here you are again, announcing you're going to do exactly what I advised you not to do. When you do things like that, it makes someone like me think you can't listen to what's been said to you and act on it. Second, you're trying to get ahead of yourself again, which, as we've just discussed, is when you fail so spectacularly. Please, Jeremy, just be where you're at. Suck it up and go through the steps of getting back to full duty one day at a time without skipping any, if for no other reason than I think it will be a good lesson in patience for you. Can you do that?"

Jeremy frowned as he took a small notebook out of his chest pocket and clicked a pen. For a few moments he scratched on a page before putting the notepad away.

Hunter just shrugged, he had no idea what the sergeant was doing either.

"Yes, sir," Jeremy said, simply. "I promise I'll abide by and follow every order given by the medical staff. I won't rush into anything."

"Thank you," Jake said. "Is there anything else you need to say to me? Because I'd rather we got it out now and straight instead of sideways in the field."

Jeremy thought for a moment before shaking his head. "No, sir, I think thats-" He stopped at the sudden cough coming from the lieutenant sitting next to him.

"Sorry," Williams said, taking a long drink of coffee. "I seem to have gotten something stuck in my throat. You were speaking, Sergeant?"

Jeremy sighed again before he stared at his hands. "There is something else," he said, not wanting to look at either of the two men. "There was an incident several months ago and, I don't want to go into details right now because it still hurts too much. But, it's screwed me up in ways I didn't begin to understand until recently. It's part of why I was so stupid about Big Round and a few other things. Both Lieutenant Williams and Major McNeil have told me that I will be continuing with therapy. So far she's not restricted me from duty but...I don't know what'll happen when she finds out about what happened."

Jake nodded. "Jeremy," he said. "We get asked to do a lot of damned distasteful things for our country, and we have to bear witness to a lot of damned distasteful things, too. Hanging on to them and not talking about them doesn't help anything. In fact, if it's affecting job performance, then it's unfair to the rest of the team for you to hang on to it. Caitlyn MacNeill is really good at what she does. Talk to her. Trust her. She won't pull you from the team if you're not a danger to the team or yourself, and if you are a danger, wouldn't the honorable thing to do be to let her pull you until you get your head on straight? Wouldn't anything else just be selfish?"

"Yes, sir," Jeremy said, hearing one of his worst fears voiced out loud - that he could be taken off the team. But worse, that he doesn't and his mental screwup gets someone else hurt because of it. "As I said, I'll abide by whatever fair decision is made by professionals. Can I ask, though, without wanting to come across as trying to push too hard or fast, I'd still like to work with the team. Even if the doctors don't restore me to full duty, if I find a way to abide by all their restrictions but still find a way to help train with the team, would that be okay? I promise I understand your word as CO is the final matter."

"Absolutely," Jake said. "And Jeremy, I deal with the same struggle you're going through now. I deal with it all the time. The only variables I have control over are my own decisions, actions, and reactions. So I try to stay in the moment and do what I can to control those variables and try to influence the outcome that way. And believe me, I can mind fuck myself as well the next person, and my private logic can really go to some wild places. If you ever need help getting crazy thoughts out of your head, let me know, and I'll do my best to make time to listen to you. Sometimes, when I make my private logic public, even just to a friend or colleague, I can better see how illogical it is." Jake had an idea. "Are you familiar with Tai Chi and/or Qigong?"

"I've heard of tai chi, but I don't usually care for tea, especially spicy tea with milk. It just tastes curdled." Jeremy shrugged. But, he was bouyed by the Major saying that he was worth making time for...when he needed it. It was just something, Jeremy told himself, he'd need to remember. To ask for the time.

Jake laughed. "I think you're talking about Chai tea," he said. "Tai Chi is a kind of soft martial art from China, and Qigong, often taught tandem with Tai Chi, is sort of like Chinese yoga. I didn't learn it until I was an adult, having learned harder martial arts as a kid. But I find that practicing it helps me get out of my head and stop mind fucking my brains out. If you're interested, I can teach you short forms for both. It wouldn't take long to learn the movements and the breathing, technically, anyway. Combining the two will take time, but that's an ongoing process. You're sort of always learning more through practice. Just a thought."

"Oh, yeah, they taught us a bit of yoga in PJ school," Jeremy said, shrugging. "Said it was something they were doing for special operators across the services. But, I could try Tai Chi. Anything to help me be better."

"Great," Jake said. "If we're not all mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted at the end of every training day over the next two weeks, we're doing it wrong. So let's plan on starting this up after the next mission. If we're all set here, I should probably get back to work. I need to go over the MALP and UAV feeds from the next place they're sending us. Tell me, Crow, how do you feel about Vikings?"

OOC: I think we should end this right here.