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In the almost six months since Maggie’s incident (he still can’t bring himself to call it an accident, because the official definition of an accident includes the word unforeseen , and dammit he had seen the potential, the danger , he just hadn’t been able to stop it from happening), OA has slept through the night exactly four times.
Of those four times; the first had been his own night in the hospital after the sarin gas. He’d pushed himself hard, a little too hard, in his desire to see Maggie, and it had backfired. It had been worth it, but it had also resulted in him being put back on oxygen, loaded up on so many different drugs that he didn’t even bother trying to learn the names of, and when at 1am he was still awake; shaky, pale and distraught, the charge nurse, who reminded him just a little too much of his mama, had patted him reassuringly on the shoulder and added something to the cocktail of meds already in his IV. He hadn’t questioned it, hadn’t fought it like he normally would have. Instead, just for the moment, he had welcomed the forced, dreamless slumber that it brought.
With the arrival of spring came a change to the nightmares that plagued him every time he closed his eyes, and at first it was almost welcome. For weeks he had been jolting awake in a cold sweat, unable to shake the visions, the memories, the sights and sounds of his partner, his friend, begging for her life. Begging for him to save her life. Now, Maggie still haunts his subconscious, but as the date of the anniversary grows closer, so does Tom. At first he’s grateful that at least he’s dreaming of something, anything , else, but it quickly loses its novelty after the third time he wakes up replaying the look of terror on Tom’s face as they heard the unmistakable click of the IED he had just stepped on, and can’t shake the memories of Tom’s voice trembling with fear (and Tom never sounded afraid) as he pleaded with OA to do something. To save him.
As awful as the pleading had been, OA would relive that moment every day for the rest of his life if it meant he could spare them both from what happened next, but he couldn’t do it then and he can’t seem to change it in his dreams either, as in his panic Tom shifts his weight, and the next thing OA knows he’s standing there, covered in the remains of what used to be his best friend.
He’d joined his buddies for breakfast on the anniversary, and hadn't been sure if it was the emotions, or the lack of sleep that made trying to tie that damn string around his finger so damn hard.
Ben had watched him closely from across the table, and OA got the sense that the circles under his eyes were revealing just a little more than he really wanted to about where his head is at right now, but they’re here for Tom, and everyone at that table was painfully familiar with nightmares, so nobody says a word. He’s never been more grateful for people that get it.
Nina got it too, even though he pretended like she didn’t.
He didn’t want to admit that she was right, because that means admitting failure.
Rationally he knew that’s not how this works. Therapy, mental health, it’s not really something you win at. He is pretty far from rational thought right now though, so hearing Nina suggest that he needs help makes him get defensive. He’s fine. He’s done the work. He’s done what he’s supposed to. He came home and he did the whole therapy thing. He’s past that now. He’s all better.
He isn’t though, obviously, and while not an easy call to make, he phones Janelle, the receptionist at Dr. Patel’s office. He manages to stumble over his own name, to try and tell her he thinks he needs to see someone, and he must even sound bad, because she books him in for that afternoon.
That appointment is needed, and cathartic, but it's also beyond draining. He walks the streets of the city for almost two hours afterwards, too tired to run but needing to decompress, and then sits on the edge of his couch and stares at the bottle of pills in his hand.
“There’s no shame in medication, Omar.”
“I understand, I do, but I’ve been off my prescriptions for so long, I’ve been doing better I just…”
“You don’t want to feel dependent on the drugs.”
“Something like that.”
Dr. Patel had understood, because the man always seems to understand what’s going on inside OA’s brain, even before he does. He’d been firm in his recommendation of restarting medication, but he had also respected OA’s wishes. They’d settled on a small dose of sleeping pills and a few days off work, then another appointment to reevaluate.
He needs to sleep, he knows he needs to, yet there’s a large part of him fighting against even this, and so he sits on the edge of the sofa, fiddling with the bottle. It’s not until he finds himself wheeling around in a panic, reaching for his gun, thinking that he’s hearing Tamir inside his apartment, despite personally ending the man's life the day before, that OA clenches his fists in an effort to calm down, twists off the lid, brings a shaky hand to his mouth, and tosses back one of the tiny pills before he has a chance to change his mind.
That’s the second time he sleeps through the night.
He refuses to take another sleeping pill, because he doesn’t like the way they make him feel. Slow, sluggish, barely functional the next day despite plenty of coffee. Even still, one solid night of sleep, continued sessions with Dr. Patel, and he’s doing better. He’s got a handle on the trauma now. When he’s in public he can hide the thoughts that consume his mind. So what if his nights are still full of breakdowns and panic attacks and nightmares so bad he does everything in his power to avoid closing his eyes. So long as he can keep up appearances, he’ll be alright.
Mind over matter, fake it till you make it, don’t let anyone see the pain you’re feeling, wait till you’re alone; those have been hallmarks of OA’s entire existence since the day his baba sat him down and explained that the cancer had spread, that he wasn’t going to get better.
Don’t let your sisters see you cry. Don’t give Mama something else to stress over.
Then he’d joined the army, and the internal monologue had shifted a little.
Don’t show weakness. Don’t show pain. You’re a soldier.
After that came Westpoint.
Pull it together, or you’ll get yourself killed. Get your partner killed.
Regardless of the context, the bottom line remained the same. Don’t show what’s going on beneath the surface. That’s your burden to bear and yours alone.
Maggie had done a lot of work to try and take down those walls, despite having ones of her own. She’d made him feel all sorts of things. Safe, comforted, validated.
Loved.
He’d come a really long way.
The sarin gas moved that healing backwards, but little by little, he’s starting to make progress again.
He’s trying to focus on things he enjoys.
The third time he sleeps through the night is because of doing something he enjoys. He asks Sabah if he can have the kids for a weekend, because he knows they’ll keep him busy, and keep his mind off things.
The squeals of “Uncle Omar!”, the trips to the aquarium, to the park, the sticky fingers and little feet padding into his bedroom in the middle of the night fill his soul and his heart more than anything else has in months. He’s fulfilled, if exhausted, when his sister comes to pick them up Sunday evening, but it’s a different kind of exhaustion than he’s experienced lately. He’s weary, but in the best way. For the first time since Maggie got hurt, he climbs into bed with a smile on his face, and doesn’t dread the way his eyes feel heavy with sleep.
Perhaps the most telling in terms of his healing, is the fourth time he manages to sleep through the night, because absolutely nothing happens to cause it. He’s no more physically exhausted than any other day, he hasn’t been given something to help him sleep, and he’s actually one of the only agents who has managed to avoid the cold spreading through the JOC that seems to be making everyone borderline narcoleptic.
No, nothing really happens. Instead, he has a decently good day, comes home, makes an actual proper meal, takes a shower in an effort to quell the aching muscles from a particularly intense sparring session with Tiffany this morning, and goes to bed.
It’s not until he’s halfway through his routine, almost out the door actually, the next morning, that it dawns on him that he just slept for nine hours straight, without a single nightmare.
That realization brings with it a whole host of emotions that he doesn’t even really know how to begin identifying, but it also means that when work gets hectic that afternoon, he feels comfortable phoning and canceling his appointment with Dr Patel.
Janelle is understanding, but when she asks him if he wants to reschedule, OA hesitates.
“...Not right now. I’m in the office. I’ll give you a call later.”
It’s exactly what he’d done last time, and he’s aware of it. Cancel an appointment, don’t rebook, dodge the phone calls until they stop coming. It worked out okay for him last time though, and he’s been doing better, really.
So what if he’s lost ten pounds because it feels like the stress and the guilt is literally gnawing away at his insides, making it hard to stomach more than a few forkfuls of meals. Nobody but him needs to know that more often than not those few bites of dinner that he can manage are coming right back up in the wee hours of the morning when he wakes in a panic from his nightmares, bile already rising in his throat.
OA’s stoicism runs deep, and as a result he can almost manage to convince himself that it's true too.
---
Scola was supposed to take the UC operation. He was who Isobel had originally picked, but OA had fought her tooth and nail.
Respectfully, m’am, as the senior field agent right now, it should be me.
It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Scola, quite the opposite actually. Stuart is someone OA has implicit faith in, both personally and professionally. His desire to take charge of the OP wasn’t rooted in distrust. Instead, it stemmed from the fact that this was dangerous, and there were about seven different ways it could go badly. If that was going to happen, OA would rather it happen to him.
I can’t risk…
Isobel had seemed to understand that.
As it turned out, all the things that could go wrong, had gone wrong, and OA is both grateful that it wasn’t Stuart who narrowly dodged a bullet, and finding himself wondering that maybe if he’d relinquished that control, nothing would have gone wrong in the first place, because now there’s solid intel that the bomb is ready to detonate in an underground parking garage, with enough power to take down the whole building.
He isn’t sure what leads him to make the call he does when it comes time to breach the parking ground, but he finds himself barking orders in a way he hasn’t done since Iraq. Desperate to make up for the mistakes he made in the UC that are now the reason this damn bomb is out there anyway.
“Scola, Nina, you take charge of the evacuation from up here. Tiff, you’re with me.”
She hadn’t blinked an eye at his directive, just taken her place by his side as they’d breached, searched, and found what they were looking for. She’d made the call to the bomb techs, shooting him a nervous glance.
“That timer’s ticking down real fast.”
“Yeah. Bomb techs are on their way.”
They’d arrived quickly, and been working on disarming the bomb, when Tiffany had come over from across the room.
“That was Scola. Says the evacuation is coming, but they estimate they’re only about 30% done. If we don’t get this disarmed, I don’t know if they’ll have everyone out of here.”
“Okay. why don’t you get out of here, go up and try to help them get as many people to a safe distance as possible.”
She’d just nodded, taken a step to her left, and for a moment OA thinks he must be dreaming because he hears the same click that’s been plaguing his nightmares of Tom.
He’s actually not all that concerned at first, he can deal with auditory hallucinations later, but suddenly the bomb techs are all yelling “nobody move!” and Tiffany is standing rooted in place, staring at him with more fear than he’s ever seen.
“I think I just stepped on something.”
All it takes is one glance at the bomb techs and their terse nod for conformation.
“If anyone moves, this whole place will go up.”
The timer is still ticking, and it feels like the numbers are moving even faster now. He’s vaguely aware of Isobel in his earpiece demanding to know why they’re still down there, and OA takes a breath, determined not to let on to everyone else what’s going on inside him.
“We have a situation. Please be aware the evacuation will not be complete. We cannot leave.”
With that, he pulls out his earpiece, and directs all his attention to Tiffany.
“It’s all going to be okay.”
He doesn’t believe it though.
It’s all his fault. Every single decision that he’s made, has got them here. From demanding the UC, to blowing the OP, to the fact that the words “Tiff, you’re with me” are probably going to be burned into his soul for the rest of his time on earth. Maybe it’s a good thing they only have eight minutes left to live.
Quinn had been right all those years ago.
You’ll get yourself killed. Get your partner killedd.
He’s been dreaming of it every night for six months, so why was he so damn stubborn. So damn stupid.
Here he is, with another friend facing death because of him.
These last eight minutes need to be for apologies. To the members of the bomb squad who aren’t going to make it home. To Isobel, because 12 dead team members is probably going to be a lot of paperwork. To Tiffany. Who did nothing except what he asked of her, and is now standing remarkably still, looking much calmer than he feels, doing everything she can to allow the bomb squad every second of the eight minutes.
“Tiffany…”
“Hey, no.”
Her voice is shockingly steady, and OA isn’t sure how. The glistening in her eyes gives away the fear she’s got to be experiencing, but on the surface she’s together.
“Don’t go there. Don’t say what you’re about to say.”
“I-”
Her voice shakes for the first time as she cuts him off.
“I said don’t.”
If the last thing OA can do in his life is respect the wishes of the woman who is about to die because of him, he’ll do it.
“Okay.”
She gives him a nod, and he can read the thankfulness in her expression even through the dim lighting of the parking garage, and the fact that his own vision is blurry with tears.
The techs are working furiously behind him, and he can tell that Tiffany is about to spend her last moments trying to make sure he doesn’t feel responsible, and isn’t burdened by the guilt that is currently the reason his legs are trembling, his heart racing, his stomach threatening to expel its contents onto the concrete in front of him, and somehow that just makes him feel worse.
Something in his expression must give that away though, because now it’s Tiffany’s turn to fix him with a sad expression.
“Okay.”
They’re all going to die anyways, and if it weren’t for the techs who are still working furiously, OA would take the three steps towards her and give her a hug, because it’s bad enough that he’s responsible for even more loss, the idea of living for even a split second after watching the bomb go off at her feet first, of losing another friend the same way he lost Tom, of not being able to stop it like he hadn’t been able to stop Maggie getting hurt, hadn’t been ableto talk Chris out of shooting the man…
It’s so remarkably painful.
He can’t move though, because if he moves not only will this be on him, and the tiny, miniscule chance of survival that they do have will be gone, just because he couldn’t stand the thought of watching Tiffany explode, and dying alone himself.
The way she’s watching him with so much understanding is painful too, and between that and how loud the ringing in his ears is getting, all he can bring himself to do is squeeze his eyes shut.
He doesn’t open them again until he feels hands gripping his arms, and wow, he’d always assumed death would be a lot more painful than this.
“OA, OA!”
Tiffany.
Making the first person he sees in the afterlife be the woman whose life he’s responsible for ending, damn he can’t even catch a break when he’s dead. He’s going to have to face it sooner or later though, so OA cracks an eye, and suddenly he’s gasping for breath, stumbling, and Tiffany’s grip on him is the only reason he doesn’t fall flat on his ass.
“You…”
“They got it. They disarmed it. It’s okay.”
It still doesn’t feel real, but the pain in his chest, the warmth of Tiffany’s expression, those feel very real, as does the way she rubs her hand up and down his arm, and the way she gives him a nod that makes him feel like she’s understanding where his head is at, before she reaches out and pulls him into a hug so tight he can barely breathe, and doesn’t let go, whispering, presumably so the bomb techs left on scene don’t hear.
“You’ve gotta let go of this guilt you’re carrying, OA. Because I think it’s going to kill you.”
He manages a nod into the crook of her neck, because she’s right, and somehow Tiffany manages to squeeze just a little harder, and that’s all it takes for six months worth of tears to start rolling down his cheeks, down the bridge of his nose. For his shaky breathing to turn into heaving sobs, and suddenly it doesn’t matter that they’re at work, Tiff is swaying a little as she holds him, and the rest of the team must have made their way down because suddenly there’s Scola’s unmistakable touch on his upper back, voice softer than OA has ever heard. “We’re here buddy.” He’s clinging to Tiffany like she’s some sort of floatation device and he’s drowning, and fortunately she seems to get it, because she doesn’t let go either, just helps direct him to the chair that Nina seems to have made appear out of nowhere and crouches down beside him as he sits. Stuart’s hand is on his shoulder now, and Nina is handing him a bottle of water, the cap already off as if she knows that his hands wouldn’t have cooperated to undo it himself.
There’s way, way, too many emotions going on right now for him to figure out where to begin, but somewhere beneath all of the guilt and the grief and the trauma, OA feels loved.