Jason Thompson leaned back in his office chair and sighed. It had been a long day today, even though he hadn’t seen any patients. He was just catching up on his paperwork, painstakingly transcribing his personal notes over to the electronic systems. It would have been faster if he just wrote on his datapad to start with, but unfortunately, that wasn’t an option now.Back when his job had been to work with spoiled rich kids in Kensington and Sydney, he had gotten into the habit of using a paper notebook to write down his notes. At first, it was because he was young enough to worry about his age, and the older appearance made him look older. It worked, at least a little, but it wasn’t because it made him look older – it was because those kids were very aware of his pen scratching away, rather than having the datapad record the entire session. It got the rambunctious brats to pay attention.
These days, of course, there were far fewer kids for Jason to help. Halsey’s Compound was much quieter these days. A handful of Spartans still lingered around, undergoing physical rehab with the aid of the Orion trainers, but almost all of the rest had moved out to the naval academies.A few years ago, he would have been looking forward to these days. His contract with ONI was almost up, and then he’d be able to go back to Earth and live a normal life – one where he could forget the word ‘Spartan’. But he didn’t think that way anymore. Jason couldn’t nail down exactly when things had changed. Maybe it had been that hike that his boss David had taken him on, all those years ago. Maybe it had been when he started to connect with the young cadets, and had started wanting to help them surpass all of the Doctor’s expectations.
Catherine Halsey’s mission was crazy. Everyone in the Psych Team knew that. It was a classic case of a guilty conscience, and it pushed her forwards like she was a sinner running from the devil’s whip. But at the same time, her mission was a good, moral one. She wanted the children to have the best possible lives she could give them. Considering how messed up this situation was, it was a thin silver lining to this mushroom cloud, but it was probably the best that she could do.
Still, even as one of the many devoted and loyal civilian staff in Halsey’s Compound, Jason was still running out of things to do. In a few months, the final class of Spartans would finish their rehab, and then, theoretically, the Psych Team could downsize. There wouldn’t be a need for enough trained shrinks to handle the seventy-five Spartans on the regular. They could shift down to a much more relaxed schedule, now that the children were finally becoming adults.
And then the War had changed everything, yet again. Now there was plenty of need for trained psychologists and psychiatrists. The survivors from Harvest needed professional help, but the UNSC – understandably – didn’t want the average psychologist hearing too many gruesome stories and venting about it on the planetary ‘net, breaking confidentiality.Jason himself wasn’t helping those civilian survivors, though. So many UNSC contracted shrinks had been, since there were hundreds of thousands of them. But the civilians weren’t the only people to make it off Harvest, and as strange as it was, Jason Thompson’s specific association as a member of the Spartan-II Program had made him (and the rest of his co-workers, of course) the perfect solution for the others.Most of his sessions now were with the Army Rangers from the special forces unit that had been on Harvest, a year and a half ago. Captain Ackerson’s men – though he’d been promoted to Major in the time since, Jason had heard. It was interesting work, because they were very psychologically mature and durable, but at the same time, they had seen such horror face to face.In some ways, this was a career growth opportunity. Not many UNSC shrinks were trusted to handle these kinds of therapy sessions. Since Jason and the others in Halsey’s compound had been pushed into the role, they were gaining that trust far more quickly than they would have otherwise. On the other hand, however, it was deeply terrifying stuff. Death came sudden and quick ever since the popularization of the firearm and the explosive, but modern armor usually slowed that down. Not anymore. Jason had heard and seen far too much about what Covenant plasma could do to the armor plates and the flesh beneath it. He remembered one man a few days ago, a Corporal from the Army Ranger, who had been working through some of the trauma left over from the death of his squad leader in the botanical gardens on Harvest over a year ago. The man had been perfectly composed, not a twitch on him… and then, as he described having to carry his friend’s body to the truck, he suddenly froze up, and remembered how some of the man’s guts had slipped onto the ground – the plasma had punched a hole clean through, and they didn’t have a stretcher, so it fell out the back-side, instead of the front.It was enough to make Jason wish that he had a smoking habit, or a drinking habit, but he didn’t. The choice confronted him every day: ask for a reassignment and give up, or continue to move forward as best as he could, and try to help those poor bastards with their trauma.Every time he thought about the choice, he knew that it was not actually a choice. There was only one option. Continue onwards, and do your best.One of these days, I’m gonna either thank David for that, or I’m going to punch him, Jason thought to himself wryly, as he continued transcribing his personal notes over to the computer.
Suddenly, the computer rang. Jason jerked in place, surprised by the instantaneous shift of light on the screen and the jarring ring of the dial-tone.It was a video call, but that couldn’t be right. He didn’t have any appointments today.He looked at the caller ID, and blinked in surprise – it said Samuel Westergaard, Reach Naval Academy.What the hell is Sam calling me for? he wondered.
The young Spartan had almost completed his first year at the Reach Naval Academy. Soon enough he’d be back in the compound for the ‘training sessions’ that everyone knew was a thin excuse for Catherine Halsey to see all the cadets once more, growing and healthy. Summer vacation, some of the trainers were calling it during the meals, with a joking, knowing tone. Empty nest syndrome, others said more quietly.There was nothing wrong with Sam calling him, of course. The cadet obviously already had his classification status, otherwise the planetary network would have never allowed the call to go through the satellite relay.
It was the why that was confusing Jason at the moment. The last time he’d spoken to Sam was… a month ago, maybe less. They weren’t due for another call for another few weeks at least.Jason shook his head to dispel all those stupid thoughts, and instead did the obvious thing: he reached over to the screen, and accepted the call.“Doctor Meyer, I’m sorry to bother you,” Sam’s voice said, even as the image flashed to life on Jason’s screen. “I know we don’t have an appointment, but I thought I should ask-”The teenager’s voice suddenly cut off, and his eyes widened. It was a rare sign of emotion that Jason took a small moment to enjoy – too many of the Spartans tried to emulate the emotional stoicism of either Chief Mendez or Doctor Halsey, and it was good to see them still be children.“Doctor Thompson,” Sam said, correcting himself awkwardly. “I apologize, sir. I must have hit the wrong address.”“It happens,” Jason said, smiling easily as he waved the boy’s worries aside. “I’d love to connect you over to David, but… he’s actually out of his office today. Is there anything I can help you with?”Sam swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing for a moment, but he didn’t reply. Instead, he sat there, clearly in thought, and said nothing for a few moments.“If you’ve got the time,” Sam said, finally. “I don’t want to impose or interrupt your work.”“I’m catching up on paperwork,” Jason admitted with a shrug, holding up the closed paper notebook for Sam to see through the webcam. “So you’re doing me a favor, actually. Giving me a break.”“You might not feel that way afterwards,” Sam said. It could have been worrying, but there wasn’t a bite to his words, and Sam wasn’t a cruel boy, so Jason wasn’t concerned. “That’s my job,” he said, with a light smile. “How are things at the Academy?” “It’s… good,” Sam said. He winced a moment later, either at the hesitation, or at the obvious fact that Jason would notice his hesitation. “Chess club’s going well.”“Good,” Jason said, nodding. “They’re not pressuring you too much, are they?”“Some of them are,” Sam said, tilting his head to the side. It was a small indicator that Sam hadn’t actually wanted to talk about his extracurricular club activity – he had to think about Jason’s question, which meant he didn’t have that answer fresh in his mind. “It’s getting better, though. I think the president is realizing that I just want to take my mind off things with a casual game, and not have to think about anything for a while.”Jason wanted to smile, but he kept his face politely neutral. The ‘pressure’ was Sam’s upperclassmen trying to convince him to make chess a full-time focus for the boy. They thought that he had the makings of a grandmaster, and though Jason didn’t play the game, he would not be surprised in the slightest if that was true.However, there was no chance that Sam would spend more time on those things. Not these days. Not after the loss of his home.Samuel Westergaard, also know in the ONI records as Samuel-034, was easily one of the biggest psychological risks in the current Spartan-II program. That was part of why he’d been kept here on Reach, within easy distance of the Spartan-II Compound and Doctor Halsey – as well as the potential ONI retrieval teams if he decided to go rogue. Oh, the entire Program knew that Sam wasn’t a flight risk, but try telling that to the professional paranoiacs at the Office of Naval Intelligence! They could see the facts plainly enough. Sam was from Harvest, and Harvest was gone. They didn’t know the boy personally, and they couldn’t. That was their job, to avoid that kind of bias.Still, if Jason could help Sam take his mind away from Harvest for a bit, he would gladly do so.
“And your classes?” Jason asked, moving the subject along. If it wasn’t Sam’s extracurriculars, then maybe it was his education.The Spartan hesitated, and the therapist noticed it instantly. Sam was growing at a rapid pace, thanks to the augmentations, but his face had a little bit of baby fat that kept clinging on, and it was like a neon sign to Jason.“They’re alright,” Sam said, with a barely suppressed wince that demonstrated his awareness of how weak a defense that was. “I’m mostly paying attention to the courses we haven’t done before.”Jason nodded, not saying anything. Lieutenant Keyes had trained the Spartans with all the tactical knowledge they would need, but since it would have been obvious that something was weird if all the tall, really capable kids got to skip those classes, the Spartans just had to suck it up and sit through class again.“It’s all useful stuff, of course,” Sam continued. “I just… I wonder if it’s useful for me?”Oh boy, Jason thought, keeping his face expressionless with a lot of effort. That’s not a good sign.
“Like, leadership class,” Sam said, gesturing with his hands. “I understand why it’s important to maintain the morale of your soldiers. But… I’m not going to have soldiers serving underneath me, am I? I’m going to be serving with the others. Our morale isn’t a concern. Why do I need to learn how to be a good officer, when I’m really just a specialist?”
It was a good thing that Sam was expressing these thoughts to Jason. Not just for his own therapeutic benefit, but also to make sure that he didn’t say them to anyone else. Jason could imagine Adrianna hearing this conversation, and he winced internally at how she would have reacted to this topic.The boy’s eyes were focusing on something else rather than Jason’s face; maybe one of the knickkancks he had on a shelf, or something behind Sam’s computer screen. Jason knew that the conversation was secured, so he didn’t worry that someone might be listening in, just out of sight. You couldn’t just call this compound from any UNSC terminal. You had to be in a high security communication center, such as the one that Sam was sitting in at the moment.As a therapist, Jason’s job was to figure out the true source of the problems that hurt his patients. Not the topmost display, the most obvious effect, but the disruption that was beneath all those layers of psyche and thoughts. Everyone understood that, even the morons who watched pop entertainment shows and thought that meant you should do dumb things like try to force a patient to break down crying over their dead father’s last wishes – which you absolutely shouldn’t, to be clear. Most of the time, this was easy enough. People go to therapists to get help. Just by coming to an appointment, they had already displayed a willingness to accept that help. The best kind of therapy was easy enough: figure out what was bothering your patient, figure out why it was bothering them, and then help them gradually, peacefully, and calmly work through that baggage.In theory, that was easy! But in practice, people often had many, many reasons behind their issues, and you had to sort between all of them to figure out what the real issue was. Sibling rivalry? Nope, this time it was cultural values clashing with learned experience. Oh, sorry, it was actually pent up stress from the patient’s lack of emotional outlets. So it was a total mystery why Samuel Westergaard, the Spartan-II from Harvest who decided to stay on Reach to help his friends rather than go visit his family on Harvest, might have a problem.This is going to either be the most obvious thing in the world, or it’s going to be something incredibly subtle, Jason predicted, already feeling the headache growing behind his skull. It was unfair of him, because Sam was a good patient. But it was also probably true, because no matter how good a patient was, it didn’t change how complicated and twisty their problems were.
“Why are we even becoming officers, anyway?” Sam asked, with a note of longing in his voice. “I mean, I get the Doctor’s point about how we still need to finish growing before we can wear the power armor, but we can fight without it. The ODST gear is pretty good, we can just wear sets of those.”Jason leaned back in his chair, and a frown came over his face despite all his attempts to keep it away. He had been worried about this. Not with Sam, specifically, but with any of the Spartans. They had been told for years that after the augmentations, they would be deployed. Instead, they’d been told to sit on the sidelines for four more years. Of course they were enthusiastic to go to war. Despite everything that Jason and the rest of the Psych Team had done to try to help them grow up normal and well adjusted, they were still kids, and they were eager to prove themselves.
They didn’t know that the true reason for the naval academies wasn’t actually to let them finish growing – it was so that Halsey could buy a few more years in her never-ending battle to keep them all alive. They couldn’t be told, not without revealing the sick truth to all of them.And the problem was, Jason wanted to tell Sam that truth. But he couldn’t! So now, he had to lie to a teenager yet again. Maybe a few years ago, this might have been a genuine moral dilemma… but not anymore. Jason had gotten used to lies.“You’re becoming officers because special forces need to consider more factors than a regular infantry soldier,” Jason said calmly.
They weren’t really his words. Despite having gotten pretty good with a gun in recent years, he didn’t understand much military stuff. He was just repeating what Doctor Halsey had said when she’d told all the Spartans about the academies, and maybe that reminder would help ground Sam.
Sam rolled his eyes, but he didn’t argue, which was good enough.“I feel…” the teenager started to say, before stopping – not out of awkwardness or embarrassment, but out of irritation, judging by the look on his face. “I feel… helpless. Powerless!”“Because of the more formal environment, compared to the compound?” Jason asked, gently. Sam was diving too deep right now, and it was better to make this a gradual process. Eliminate the obvious variables before you start making big assumptions.No,” Sam said, shaking his head. “I don’t like some of the classes, but there’s nothing wrong with the format. It’s not that different from what we did before. It’s just… we’re sitting here in nice little classrooms, while men and women are dying out there. That’s our job. Eight years of training, and for what? It’s still not enough. Am I not good enough, Doctor Thompson?” Jason’s throat tightened. He had been hoping that Sam wouldn’t go there. Not because of that tired old problem about the morality of child soldiers, that had been done to death – but because Sam, of all people, might be harboring a grudge.Out of all the Spartans, there was one major concern that lingered with Sam. Not the flight risk that ONI feared… but the anger. Sam’s planet had burned. His family was probably dead. The Spartan-II Program had been training him to be a human weapon, and right when the perfect enemy appeared… they held him back. David Meyer had told Sam’s therapists, Jason included, that he was afraid the boy would volunteer for suicidal missions just to get revenge.
That was unacceptable. Not just to David, or the program, but to Jason as well.Every single Spartan cadet had multiple therapists. It was both a safety measure and a protection against bias. No mistakes could be allowed with the psychological well-being of these kids. But since there were only so many therapists available, each therapist handled multiple Spartans. Jason had been one of Sam’s therapists ever since he first joined the program. He’d talked to the boy on his literal first day in the Valley, right before David had dragged him out to that fateful hike, climbing that mountain.And maybe this was his own emotional bias, but Jason was feeling like today, he was back on mountain, and the roles had switched. What did Sam want? To give up. To turn back. To surrender. He might not think of it that way, and maybe that was fair, because Sam wanted to volunteer to go fight the most lethal enemy that humanity had ever encountered – but it was still true. Asking to fight the Covenant wasn’t just because of his sense of duty. It was because it would be something simple, mindless. Asking to be sent in as an enlisted man was effectively asking to be given a simple but difficult task. Something that you could do while turning your brain off, and just relying on instinct and muscle memory.And if in the process, you died fighting for the cause… well, then you didn’t have to worry about complicated emotional issues anymore, did you?
That was why Jason felt that Sam was giving up.
There was more to life than just fighting the Covenant with a gun in hand! That wasn’t Jason’s own cowardice speaking, or his emotional bias towards Sam – okay, maybe it was a little of his bias towards Sam – it was the truth. This wasn’t an enemy that they could beat by just sending in waves upon waves of soldiers to be mowed down by machine guns. This was a war against a clever, technologically advanced, religiously fanatical enemy that was almost completely unknown. If Sam wanted revenge against the Covenant, then sure, fine, that made sense. But this was not the optimal way to achieve that. He could do so much more damage in the longer term, after a few years training up as an officer and when he was equipped with Steve’s power armor. Instead, he wanted to charge in right now.You’re assuming, Jason thought to himself, biting the inside of his cheek as he forced himself to stop. It might not be revenge. Just because it’s obvious doesn’t mean it’s true!“Sam, I’m not one of the trainers, so I can’t say if your training is good enough,” Jason said, choosing his words carefully. “I do trust that you would know better than me. I’m not going to ask you to trust the process, or your superiors, since your teachers don’t know what you’re actually capable of.”He paused for a moment, just long enough to let that sink in, and then he quickly added, with a half-serious, half-humorous note in his voice:“At least, I hope they don’t know what you’re capable of,” Jason said with a little laugh. “You’re not showing off for them, are you?”The teenager smiled weakly.“I do feel obligated to ask,” Jason continued, hoping that his little joke would help ease Sam’s heart a bit. “Why do you think you should be sent to fight right now, instead of later?”“Because the Covenant are killing people, doctor,” Sam replied.“Yes, they are,” Jason agreed. “But the UNSC is already fighting them. That’s where Sergeant Johnson and many of your Orion trainers are, right now – fighting the Covenant.”“And I can help with that,” Sam said, leaning forward in his chair, getting a little closer to the camera and looming larger on the screen.“You can,” Jason said, still agreeing with the boy. “Do you think they’re not capable of handling it without you?”Sam shook his head at that, but he didn’t say anything, and that caught Jason’s attention. Why didn’t he answer verbally? Shame? Something else? He couldn’t assume, he reminded himself. That wouldn’t go anywhere.“I can’t read your mind, Sam,” Jason reminded the teenager gently.“No,” Sam said, bitterly. “I do think they can handle it; I just want to help them with it. They’re doing important work out there, in the Outer Colonies, and I’m just sitting here on Reach, spinning my wheels. If I can contribute just the smallest amount, then I think it would be worth it. Even if I’m just carrying their bags.”There it is, Jason thought to himself, humming in interest. They’re doing ‘important work’, and he’s not.It wasn’t revenge, or bloodlust, or glory-seeking. All of those things were selfish acts. A person that wanted payback usually wanted to be on the tip of the spear. They wanted to see their enemy die in front of them. Their pain wasn’t abstract, but deeply personal, and the only way to ease that pain was to pass it on to whoever hurt them in a very basic, primal fashion.And that didn’t fit with what Sam had just said – specifically, his willingness to do pathetic, humiliating work like carrying bags, instead of something important. Purpose. That’s what Sam was missing. Jason should have spotted it sooner… but of course, the Spartans had never had this problem before, because their lives up until this point had been filled with purpose. Their training kept them busy for most of their days, and their time off had been full of interaction with a highly motivated, athletic, intelligent peer group that they bonded tightly with. Boredom, apathy, depression – those things barely existed among the Spartans at the Compound, and that was insanely unusual for children!
But now Sam was surrounded by thousands of other students, in much larger classroom settings, and without the immediate, direct feedback and support of the sergeants, the staff, and his fellow Spartans. Jason almost wanted to laugh. It was kind of funny, in a way. A sign that nature had triumphed over nurture one last time.Like almost any teenager, the walls of Sam’s childhood had fallen away, and now he was staring out at an enormous world that surrounded him. For normal teenagers, this was where they usually got worried about what job they’d do, or what goal they wanted in life, or that kind of grand plan that suddenly seemed so very important after many years of not mattering in the slightest.Sam already knew what he wanted to do, but he was still being held back from it by Doctor Halsey. He was like a homeschooled teenager that thought he had everything figured out, and then his parents insisted that he absolutely had to attend college before he could go off to join the military. He was floundering in an environment that he’d never been a part of, and he thought it was something bad enough to talk to a therapist about.It was so normal. To the teenager’s credit, it was a very legitimate issue. Just because it affected almost everyone in the world didn’t mean that it was a minor topic. The search for purpose was one of the most important things that a person could struggle with. They could suffer from a lack of money, or luxury, or even love, so long as they were working steadily for some grand meaning in their lives, and making progress with it. And in Sam’s mind, he probably thought that he wasn’t making progress. Especially compared to how much progress he had made at Halsey’s Compound over the years! He had said it earlier, that he felt helpless, powerless.
He wasn’t wrong. His negative feelings were still perfectly legitimate and had a very real source. It was just that the teenager was misdiagnosing the true origin. He had plenty of power; compared to thousands of students at least four years older than him, and he was steadily beating them in almost every academic and athletic competition imaginable!
To put it in simple terms, Sam was unhappy that he wasn’t doing anything that felt important – and importance was directly related to whatever his goal in life was.
Perfect. Now Jason knew exactly what the problem was. There was only one remaining issue: what did Sam think his purpose was? It clearly wasn’t killing Covenant, for the same reasons that Jason had already ruled out earlier. To get to the bottom of this, Jason would have to ask more direct questions. “And you would feel better if you were out there, helping with the war effort,” Jason said, gesturing vaguely to the middle distance. It wasn’t a question, just a repetition of what Sam had said earlier.“Yeah,” Sam said, quiet but firm. “Why?” Jason asked, keeping his expression still and projecting a serious demeanor, so that the teenaged Spartan wouldn’t take offense at the apparently simple question.Sam opened his mouth to reply, and then paused. His eyes flicked from left to right, and he closed his mouth again. Then, after a moment, he opened it again with a nervous, almost shy expression.“I guess it’s for the others,” he said slowly. “The other Spartans, I mean.”Jason raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t been expecting that answer. “How?” he asked calmly. “Do you want all the Spartans to be deployed?”“No!” Sam blurted out quickly, in a sudden change of attitude. He blushed, but to his credit, he quickly rallied, and kept speaking. “No, that wouldn’t be necessary. The others, I’m sure they can get plenty of benefits out of attending the academy. I just think that they’d be better prepared if they had firsthand information, before they got sent out.”“Which you could provide, if you were deployed early?” Jason asked, as the pieces came clicking together.“Yeah,” Sam said, nodding slowly. “Something like that. You guys taught about so many instances where listening to older veterans helped young soldiers in combat. But the Covenant are new, and we don’t really know anything about them. I’m sure Sergeant Johnson and the others will write some reports, but… I’d feel a lot better if I could go out there, get some experience, and then bring it back to the others. So that they could do better.”Jason smiled.
God, how the hell did we manage to raise this kid so well? he asked himself, as a ball of pride grew in his chest.It was a very kind thought for Sam to have. Stupid, of course, but kind. He was willing to throw himself into the most dangerous part of the war – the early phase, where nothing was known and therefore risks could not be judged properly – just so that his fellow Spartans could perform better.Not the suicidal urges that David Meyer had feared. Instead, it was selflessness.Of course, even selflessness could go too far. It was easy to sacrifice yourself nobly, when you didn’t think of yourself as someone important. It was just as dangerous as an outright suicidal desire to end all your suffering.
Because the question remained: why did it have to be Sam?Jason wouldn’t ask that question, of course. That was too much for this session, since he didn’t think that Sam knew the answer to that question, and forcing the boy to stare that deeply into his own soul was a cruel thing to do.At the end of the day, Jason kept thinking back to the hike that David had dragged him on. The physical metaphor for how you could be trapped in a horrible situation, and the only true option was to keep going and stick it out. Refusing to give up to the temptation of alternate paths when the real one was right under your feet.That’s what Sam wasn’t realizing. Yes, his actions might help the Spartans by helping them prepare for when they were inevitably deployed, but he could help his fellow cadets out in more ways than just that! He was mono-focusing on a single option, instead of the others. An advance deployment wouldn’t actually have helped the other Spartans as much as Sam completing his academy training would.
But it was an easier mental burden, and so it looked tempting to the teenager.
“If it’s alright with you, I think it would be best if we shifted topics for a moment,” Jason said carefully, as he planned out how to articulate this. “I promise it’s related, but a different angle of approach might help here.”“Of course, Doctor,” Sam said. “Whatever you think is best.”“You’ve been helping with the other Spartans,” Jason said. “The second waves, I think we’re calling them. Kirk, Sandradra, Otto, those Spartans.”“Oh, yeah,” Sam said, his expression lightening up as he replied. “You mean at the Compound for their physical therapy?”“From what I’ve heard, you’ve been very helpful with that,” Jason said, chuckling a little, but deliberately not answering Sam’s question. “After becoming so strong and capable, it can be a real pain to suddenly have difficulty walking, or carrying things, or stuff like that.”“Well, I went through it too,” Sam said, shrugging. “So it felt like the obvious thing to do; help them out with the same troubles I had.”“Yes, and that’s very good,” Jason said, nodding. “But… I actually meant both with their physical therapy, and with their entrance to the Academy. The social situations.”Sam blinked, and then he almost stiffened in his seat.“I’m following the guidelines,” he said with a cautious voice. “We’re all pretending like we don’t know each other, until we can form a good cover story. It’s not a risk.”“You’re fine, Sam,” Jason reassured him. “I’m not saying you’ve messed that up, not at all. I’m simply saying that… have you considered that just like you helped the other Spartans with their physical therapy, you’re also helping them with their social therapy?” “No, I’m not,” Sam said, his forehead wrinkling as he looked at Jason in confusion. “I’m just helping them with basic questions about how people act. That’s not – they aren’t damaged.”The Spartans sounded almost desperate, and Jason knew why. It was a common belief that you shouldn’t get therapy unless you were damaged, and somehow, despite growing up with plenty of therapists helping them, it had infected the young Spartans just as much as anyone else.“No, they’re not,” Jason lied, knowing full well that they were. “But this is a very different environment than they’re used to, just like how their physical capabilities have suddenly changed, and are now very different. Learning to adapt to those changes… that’s therapy.”He watched as Sam thought about it, knowing that the boy was more than smart enough to get the connection.“Perhaps,” Jason said, after a moment, “If you want to help the other Spartans, I think you’re in exactly the right place. What you discussed about going to the frontlines so you could get that firsthand experience to share with them… doesn’t that apply to the naval academy, as well? You’re briefing them on the smaller things that our training here at the Compound couldn’t tell everyone.”“I… didn’t think about it that way,” Sam said slowly. “I didn’t think I was doing anything special, though.”“You’re not,” Jason said, reassuringly. “That’s the trick. The more we experience something, the more normal it can seem. So the first day in a new environment, surrounded by thousands of other children for the first time in their lives… that’s very strange, and worrying. I know you felt that same way, your first few weeks. But now, you’ve had almost a year at the Academy, and so it’s slowly becoming normal.”“…yeah,” Sam muttered, with dawning comprehension. “It has become normal.”“Think of it like acclimatization training” Jason suggested. “No different than getting used to high altitudes, or scuba diving. You’re acclimatized, now, and they aren’t. So you started helping them. Nobody told you to do that. You didn’t have orders. It just… felt right, didn’t it?”Sam nodded. “It felt right,” he repeated. “Yeah, that’s correct. It felt kind of wrong to watch them fumble with things that I already knew. And, y’know, since Adrianna had to help me out when we first got to the Academy, I thought I should pass it on.”“Now, I could be wrong about this,” Jason said, raising a hand as if to disavow what he said next. “But maybe the same feeling of wrongness that pushed you to help them… is why you’re thinking about a forward deployment right now. The same root cause, perhaps.”The teenaged boy flinched at that. His eyes widened.
“Are you saying that the former is a good thing, but the latter isn’t?” Sam asked. Credit to the boy, despite his obvious unease with the idea, he was engaging it head-on, without hesitation. “I’m not saying that,” Jason said. “I’m not a military man, remember. I don’t know if it would be better for you to get that deployment or not. It just occurs to me that you’re doing quite a lot of good right now, exactly where you are.”
Sam pursed his lips, but his expression was shifting towards a more thoughtful one. He wasn’t just musing idly, either – he tilted his head as a new thought occurred to him, and Jason waited patiently as the boy mulled it over before speaking.“The second wave started here at the Academy in January,” Sam said. “The third wave’s still going through some rehab, and they’ll be starting in the fall. The fourth wave… I think they’re coming in next January?”Jason nodded, not saying anything, but already suspecting where this was heading.“If I get a forward deployment, then I wouldn’t be here to help them out with the same problems I had,” Sam said. “That’s what you want me to think, isn’t it?”“I don’t want you to think anything, Sam,” Jason disagreed. “I want you to better understand yourself.”“Sure, doc,” Sam said, with a wry tone. “But you know, even if I get deployed, Adriana’s still been here as long as I have. And the others from the second wave, like Cassandra, they’ll have as much experience as I did, when the third wave starts. So I’m not really necessary, am I? I’m… interchangeable.”Jason raised both eyebrows, and gave Sam a blunt look. He could tell that the boy had been about to say ‘expendable’, and had only changed his mind at the last moment.“None of you are interchangeable,” he corrected the boy softly. “And neither are your experiences.”Sam grimaced. “You have plenty of time to think about this,” Jason reminded him. “But if your main goal is to help out your fellow cadets… then maybe you can do that right here, on Reach, better than you can all the way out in the Colonies?”