Backpost: Can't sleep

Posted on Sat Jul 18th, 2026 @ 2:49pm by Captain Samuel Woolheater & Lieutenant J'airesh Mora-Heath

Mission: Interlude
Location: Immediate Care Unit - Deck 12 - USS Elysium
Timeline: Later today
3059 words - 6.1 OF Standard Post Measure

[ON:]

It was going to be another long night on duty.

Sam stood regular watch rotations now. The MARDET was so thin that there weren't enough Marines to have two rotations for line staff. Security was picking up the larger share of the patrols. And Sam was on in thirty minutes.

He walked down to Deck 12 and checked himself in at the self-service kiosk to "Expensive Care" and took a seat.

J’Air was just about to finish her shift but she saw Sam in the waiting area and waved the approaching Nurse politely aside wishing to see him herself.

“Captain Woolheater!” J’Air greeted her friend. “It’s been such a very long time since we’ve bumped into each other!” She offered a hand just narrowly deciding not to launch into a hug just yet.

Sam got to his feet and smiled ear to ear. It was good to see her again.

“What brings you to see us in sickbay?” she opened out her arm towards a cubicle nearby as she was speaking, silently inviting him to accompany her inside.

Sam took her offered hand easily enough before following J’Air toward the cubicle. "Yeah. Been a minute."

The familiar Georgia drawl was still there, but closer now it became easier to see the fatigue sitting underneath it. Not dramatic exhaustion. Just cumulative wear. The kind that settled into his blue eyes first. Sam sat carefully on the edge of the biobed once inside the cubicle and rubbed one hand slowly across the back of his neck.

"Well, doc, uhm....Honestly? I can’t seem to stay asleep anymore." A quiet exhale. "I’ll get maybe twenty minutes. Thirty if I’m lucky. Then somethin’ wakes me back up again."

"I see" Rio said, sympathetically. "That's just not at all what you need. It's frustrating, exhausting and it will be running down your resources like a battery that isn't being recharged." As she was speaking she was quietly programming the bio-bed to run tests and scans.

"I'd like to check and see if there's anything obvious going on first, so if you'd please sit right back into the biobed, it can scan and reel off all kinds of data for me to see. Is that okay?" she asked.

Sam nodded affirmatively, "Its probably nothing. Maybe too much coffee. Maybe the replicator is broke again and coffee has been set to motor oil again?" He joked with a grin as he got onto the biobed and laid down. "How have you been Doc?"

J'Air chuckled. "Motor oil? That's too much of a delicacy for this ship!" she joined in Sam's joke happily. "I've been good Sam, but it sounds like you're not doing as well as I would like you to be" she shook her head gently and continued to smile at him but she started setting up the bio-bed for a whole swathe of tests and scans, determined to try to discover what was happening to him.

Sam watched the scanning emitter pass overhead. For a while he said nothing. He watched her as she set up the equipment. He felt safe here. Which was saying a lot. The biobed hummed softly beneath him. "I kept telling myself it was the coffee." A faint smile appeared. "Or shift work. Or getting older. You know? I'm twenty-six, getting some mileage on me, Doc."

J'Air grimaced and then grinned.

The smile faded. "The truth is, I don't really know what's waking me up." His eyes remained fixed on the ceiling. "Sometimes I hear something." A pause. "Sometimes I think I forgot something." Another pause. "Sometimes I wake up and I'm shaking. I don't know why. I'm not afraid of anything at that moment...no bad dreams or nothing."

He was quiet a moment. "And sometimes I wake up thinking I'm still there." The words slipped out before he could stop them. Sam frowned slightly. "There...back on Popsicle One. Remember? Cold all the time. I've never eaten so much soup in my whole life. I remember you sat at the table with me to eat. Number of times. I liked that. I appreciated that from you.

Her face had turned serious and reflective.

A long silence settled between them. "I never told anybody this." His voice had become quieter now. Not ashamed. Just thoughtful. "Back on Popsicle One..." He swallowed. "...I carved a memorial."

The biobed continued its scans.

J'Air remained silent, letting him speak.

"There was a stone slab. I don't know nothing about carving stone. But... I had to do something for...."

His eyes never left the ceiling as he paused. "...for all those people we lost. I started putting names on it." A breath. "Marines we lost." Another breath. "It started because it felt like somebody ought to remember." A faint huff escaped him. "Then it got bigger." His jaw tightened briefly. "Bigger than I expected. Sometimes...I think about those Marines. They're here in the morgue, I know. But they're also...not here." The room grew quiet again. "I never told anybody that. I don't know why I'm telling you now. ."

A beat.

"It didn't seem important at the time." He laughed softly at himself. "Which probably should have told me something, because most people don't spend their spare time carving memorials."

For the first time, he turned his head slightly toward J'Air. The humor was still there. But so was the exhaustion. "I don't know, Doc." A shrug. "I feel like...you get it. And that I'm not crazy or cracking. I can't crack apart. Not now."

His eyes drifted back toward the ceiling. "I'm sorry I said all that. Laid it all out like that..."

"Please don't be sorry you spoke about it all. You needed to do that. You needed to think it all through out loud to stop it from circling and re-circling around inside your head without letting it out to breathe. We really DID lose so many friends, colleagues, fellow-crew, it's a huge wrench to the soul to lose just one but in the numbers we experienced it, loss accumulates. It has differing effects on all of us but no-one comes out of it unscathed". J'Air reassured Sam.

She felt the need to put a hand on his shoulder. The contact was important. It shared a memory and a mutual distress that never seems to completely fade right out, no matter how much time passes.

"Some people suffer from what we call 'Survivors' Guilt' - feeling that it's not right that they lived and others died. None of us can know why this works out the way it does. Some look at the science for explanations or patterns but these are fickle and what seems to be giving a clue then vanishes with a contradiction. As if the Universe is playing with us."

She sat beside the head of his biobed. "Have you forgiven yourself for still being here, when so many others are not?" she asked softly.

He frowned. "It's not forgiveness...we did our jobs. It's why we're here. Not to be safe or play it cool. Marines do the job so that the mission succeeds. We do that right and nobody knows we did it."

Sam looked at her a moment and then looked away and stared at the ceiling for a while after she asked.

He lightened and smiled, genuine and bright. 'cept you of course. Never lie to the docs."

The biobed hummed softly beneath him. He could hear the distant sounds of Sickbay beyond the curtain. A cart rolling somewhere. Somebody talking quietly. A kid getting a hypospray.

Life continuing.

His jaw worked once. "I don't know." The answer came out honest. Not defensive. Just honest. He didn't blame himself and he didn't think that he should be dead somewhere. "I don't think I've ever really asked myself that question before."

J'Air smiled, gently, encouragingly. "Might you like to ask it?" she said, her voice soft.

"I never felt guilty for coming home." He frowned. "At least I don't think I did." Another pause. "But I remember every name." His eyes remained fixed on the ceiling. "And every time I add another one..."

He stopped. "I don't know. It feels like I owe them something."

"We all do, my friend." she agreed. "We all owe them a great deal, in many ways. Each of them lost their lives and if they hadn't others amongst us might not be here now. In some cases, it was direct sacrifice for others, in others it was that we all stood up and took our turns and we all rolled the dice. Some won and some lost but without everyone being part of it all together, it could very well have been that none of us would have got home."

Sam stared at the ceiling for a few moments after J'Air finished. Then he huffed out a quiet laugh. "Well." A hand rubbed across his face. "That got a lot deeper than I intended when I walked in here." His smile was tired but genuine. "I was hoping you'd tell me to drink less coffee and stop watchin' bad holovids before bed."

The humor lingered for a moment before softening.

"It's not guilt Doc. We all knew what Starfleet meant when we got here. Nah...its not forgiveness...that keeps me up at night." A small shrug. "Maybe just habit." His eyes drifted toward her. "Marines keep accountability rosters." Another shrug. "We count heads." A pause. "Maybe I just never stopped."

The moment hung there for a second before he pointed vaguely toward the medical scanner overhead. "Besides, you're supposed to be telling me what's wrong with me." A faint grin returned.

"But thank you" he reached up and squeezed her hand. He held it longer then he would have. Fact is, another attack like the last one and Sam wasn't sure if anybody was going to make it back home.

J'Air sensed and also remembered the thin line that Sam was still walking. It was a common theme amongst a crew who had been severed from their comrades in such traumatic ways as this whole ship had.

"Well...." she poured sightlessly over the scans, corticoid overproduction, stress levels off the charts, iris flickering, hands trembling almost imperceptibly, dark shadows under the eyes, pallor of long-term exhaustion. This patient, as 85% of the rest of the crew needed to be signed off sick, sent for months of rehabilitation with the Counsellor and her Team, given trauma-reducing sessions of relaxation therapy, water sensory soothing, NSAIDs, anxiolytics, the works, to be honest, however this patient was a Marine. The suggestion of any of these remedies would set one of these stoic characters to one of these would be not only insulting but would trigger derision, not only of the diagnosis but also of the patient for accepting it.

"Since you have admitted to already trying watching horror inducing bed-time vids with no luck, and since I know all your Marine constitutions are allergic to medication, and you've drunk coffee and counted sheep, or heads or horns or whatever, I'd say you've tried all the remedies I'd advocate!" she smirked, demonstrating the irony in her joking rejection of all the things she was supposed to advise him to try, all of which he knew already, of course.

Allowing her smirk to edge up into a grin, she went on. "I think I'd keep my reputation better intact if I sent you to the Counsellor and passed it all off on her abilities to teach you yoga and meditation........" she let that hang, waiting for him to snort with a 'not likely' response of some kind.

In the meantime she returned the squeeze of his hand.

"I know............ " she said, a lightbulb idea hitting the horizons of her wallowing around in the mud of the usual less-stress types of suggestions.

"How about......... How's your hiking? Cliff-face climbing? Sky-diving?" she asked, suddenly less down on her own lack of new ideas and more up-beat again.

"Picnicking skills?" she added, as if reducing the challenges.

"What if I got together a team of lazy medics and we challenged you and some of your battle weary, sleep deprived, easy to beat Marines? Maybe in the holosuites, like a decathon but more of a centithon? And the winning team buys the plasters for blistered feet?" she had lit up. Excited for the real boiled down and serious suggestion buried in that silly description.

Sam stared at her for a few moments. The idea sounded ridiculous. At first. Hiking. Climbing. Picknickering. A bunch of Marines and medics running around a holodeck competing over blistered feet and bruised egos. The corners of his mouth twitched. He was going to dismiss it. Then something softened. His eyes settled on J'Air. "You know..." he said quietly. The humor faded, though the warmth remained. "You did this before." He looked away for a second, gathering the thought. "Back on Popsicle One." A small shrug. "I don't think I noticed it at the time. Or...if I did, I couldn't appreciate what you were doing. But I see it now."

His gaze drifted back to her. "You kept showing up." The biobed hummed softly beneath him. "Mess hall. Sickbay. Check-ins. Soup." A tired smile appeared. "Lotta soup." For a moment he simply studied her. "Most folks look at Marines and see the loud part. The rifles. The uniforms. The dumb jokes."

He exhaled quietly. "But you...Doc...you figured out we count heads." The words hung between them. "We keep track of our people." A pause. "Maybe more than we keep track of ourselves." Sam rubbed one hand across his jaw.

"So when you start talking about getting everybody together..." He shook his head slightly. "The medics. The Marines. The crew." Another shrug. "Well." The smile returned. "That's dirty pool, Doc." His voice carried no accusation whatsoever. Only affection. "'Cause now I wanna do it. Every Marine at some point has to come off watch."

A soft laugh escaped him. "And the worst part is I think half the detachment would show up before I did."

He looked toward the scanner overhead before glancing back to her. "You're good at this." Another pause. "Not the medicine part. Don't get me wrong, I know you're good at that too."

A crooked grin. "I'm talkin' 'bout the people part." The grin lingered for a moment before softening. "Truth is... I think you're right." His voice had become quieter again. "We've all been carrying a lot." A breath. "And maybe we've been carrying it alone longer than we needed to." For a moment he said nothing. Then he nodded once. "Yeah." A faint smile. "I'd like that. Picnic, hike, or just a walk around...some place beautiful and calm. And quiet and just a place to close our eyes and stand down for one watch."

He closed his eyes and felt a weight coming off him. He could fall asleep right there.

J'Air turned down the lights in the cubicle and added the softest of gentle sounds, the lightest rainfall in a tropical forest on Earth, she spoke softly. "No rush for you to leave Captain, why not just close your eyes and try to relax for a few minutes before you need to return to normal life?" her voice was soothing and she waited to see if he would perhaps take a short nap while he could.

Sam let out a slow breath. "Jus'....like...five minutes," he murmured, almost as though he were negotiating with himself. He settled a little deeper into the biobed. His tiredness evident on his features. For several long seconds he didn't move.

His fair eyebrows settled naturally against the strong ridge above his eyes, the hard lines of vigilance finally giving way to simple fatigue. The permanent crease between his brows softened until it disappeared altogether. His jaw unclenched. Beneath the open collar of his uniform, the pulse in his neck settled into a slower, steadier rhythm as the biobed quietly monitored every heartbeat.

He felt the tension in his shoulders ease out. His lips parted ever slightly with a tired exhale. For this moment, in her presence, he allowed himself to loosen his grip on the situation. Even at rest there was something unmistakably human about him. Broad shoulders, work-worn hands, a strong brow softened by exhaustion. A body shaped not for perfection, but for endurance. He looked younger. Not like a Marine officer with responsibilities. Not like a Marine captain either, nor even a Starfleet officer. Just... Twenty-six. Exhausted. And Human. His breathing deepened. One slow breath. Then another.

For the first time in what felt like weeks, there was nowhere he needed to be, no decision demanding his attention, no one depending on him to stay alert. The silence stretched. Sleep hovered just beyond reach. His fingers twitched once against the biobed, almost as if some part of him still insisted on holding the watch. After another quiet moment, he inhaled, and a deep sigh and then one eye opened. "...Almost got me," he said, his voice rough with the edge of sleep. A crooked smile found its way onto his face. "That's probably the closest I've come in a while."

Whatever protest Sam might have offered died somewhere between thought and speech. His open eye drifted shut again. He agreed and nodded, “Five minutes,” he reminded her, the words barely audible now. “Then I’ve got watch.”

But the Marine who measured his life in duty rosters, patrol schedules, and names carved into stone had already begun to lose track of time. The holographic sound of rainfall continued around him, soft against imaginary leaves. Somewhere beyond the curtain, Sickbay carried on without him. Footsteps passed. Instruments chimed. Voices rose and faded. Nobody called his name. Nobody needed an order. Nobody was missing. His breathing settled into a slow, even rhythm. The last of the tension left his hand, his fingers finally becoming still against the biobed. For one watch, Samuel Woolheater stopped counting heads.

This time, Doctor Mora-Heath had his.


[OFF:]

A Joint Post by:

Lieutenant J'airesh Mora-Heath

&

Captain Samuel Woolheater



OOC Thomas: Thank you Jools. Thank you for taking care of Sam for a bit. :)