Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 14:38:36 -0700
To: brainy9@eyrie.org
Subject: He said it!

Right at the end, and in passing, but he said it and he meant it.:)

=============================================


"The usual, Ozzy?" Ozymandias Quinn sits heavily at the bar,
dropping his army green duffel at the foot of his stool as he hooks
his cane on the edge of the bartop. "You got it, Rosie." As the
boiler maker arrives, Quinn cracks his knuckles, wearing the
determined expression of a drinker with a quota to meet.

"...another briiide, another groom, another sunny honeymooon..."
This is the false good cheer which is found about halfway down a
Scotch bottle. Matt Pierce has been here for an hour and a half
already and he's been drinking with a rare dedication. "Another
season, another reason for makin whoopee. *Good* evening," he adds
as he passes Oz, making to give the outdoorsy guy a friendly clap
on the shoulder. He likes everyone right now!

Hardin walks in slowly, stopping to look around carefully, and then
making his way again along to the bar. He leans against the bar and
after being prompted clears his throat, "Just a beer, something
dark..." He takes the mug then handed to him and takes a drink from
it.

The old hermit is caught by surprise, clapped on the shoulder in
mid-swill. He sets his mug down and wipes foam from his moustache
as he looks over at Matthew, neutral menace in his tone. "You sure
about that, pal?" Overtones of potential leg-breaking.

Which completely pass the doctor by. "Ayuh! Observe. This is my
bottle of Scotch. There are many like it, but this one is mine."
Matt amuses himself enough to snicker. The bottle in question is
held up for inspection but briefly. He doesn't want anyone swiping
it. "By the time I'm done with it this will be an incredibly good
evening. Perhaps the best since yesterday."

Hardin looks over at Matthew and Oz as he drinks from his mug,
shaking his head the 'This my bottle...' He sits down on a stool,
his coat still on, which he straightens and neats out of habit.

Everyone loves a drunk, and Oz is no great exception. Disarmed by
Matthew's sodden humour, he smirks gruffly and raises his mug
toward the inebriated surgeon. "Here's to more evenings like it."

"And many more!" Matt grins and clinks his bottle against Oz's
raised mug, then turns his gaze on the rest of the bar. And who
else in here looks like they need a conversation with somebody
drunker? "If you keep picking that it'll never heal," he tells
Hardin, with reference to the coat-straightening. "Trust me, I'm a
doctor."

Hardin looks over at Matthew and nods his head, realizing what he
was doing, he raises his mug a bit towards Matthew. "Thanks for the
advice. Of course..." He trails off deciding not to go into
questioning the value of advice from a doctor who is not only
rather hammered, but also looks like he crawled out of a gutter.

Oz drinks to Matthew's toast, then gives him a piercing squint.
"Doctor, huh?" He shakes his head and shifts in his seat. "Let's
hope your patients still respect you in the morning." Drunken
doctors. And people wonder why he shuns civilization.

"Never on the job. So to speak." Matt snickers again, entirely
pleased with how effectively he is not thinking about Daisy - oh.
Damn. He leans on the bar and takes a gulp from the bottle. "That's
the stuff. See, this is why I always carry a spare, in case I
should in an emergency drink all of the main one. How they goin?"
he adds, conversationally.

Hardin chuckles to himself, deciding that should anything ever
happens to him and he is conscious enough to see Matthew coming
towards him to help, he'll just rough it and avoid medical
attention. He then comments, more to himself than anyone else, "I
would think a hangover would make delivering medical attention
somewhat difficult..."

Deciding that he doesn't want to let some doctor guy ruin a good
bar crawl, Oz tunes Matthew out as he drains the last of his boiler
maker. Looking across the room, he flags down a woman who could,
with a great stretch of the imagination, be a waitress. Well, she
certainly works for tips, anyway. "If you gentlemen will exuse me."
He gets up and limps toward the door, beckoning the woman to
follow.

"What?" Okay, now Hardin has Matt's full attention. Faded-denim
eyes turn an unfocused glare on the oh-so-pristine man. "Say that
again."

Hardin smiles calmly, "I was simply wondering how you go about
treating patients hung over..."

"And just what on God's green Earth - hah - makes you think I'd do
that?" demands the guy who currently smells like a brewery passed
out in his pocket.

Hardin looks him over again. "Well, I doubt you come off of a night
like this very well in the morning. What type of doctor are you
anyway?" While he would normally phrase the question more politely,
he decides not to bother in this case.

"I'm *not* the type who goes out when he knows he's got patients to
see in the morning!" Matt's speech is slurred but angrily
heartfelt. Grr.

Hardin nods, and then raises a brow a bit. "What happens if you're
needed in an emergency?"

"I'm a *surgeon*. They don't need me in emergencies. We have
special doctors for that." Matt is pissed off and being
deliberately patronising now.

Hardin nods again, and then adds after taking a drink from his mug
again. "Right, I forgot surgery is always scheduled weeks in
advance. But your business is none of mine, and I apologize for
prodding."

"Yeah, you didn't bother to find out, did you?" Matt is more
defensive than he perhaps should be. Sure, he doesn't drink when he
has work the next day. *Yet*. "What do you do, anyway?"

"I'm in the volunteers," Hardin replies. "Full-time."

Oh, a military man. Matt's half-formed smile fades rather quickly.
"That's your idea of a responsible career choice, is it?"

Hardin shrugs. "Someone has to do it."

Matthew doesn't look impressed. "So why's it have to be you,
exactly?"

Hardin finishes off the mug and turns to the bartender asking for
water. "I'm a product of my environment. It was a family tradition,
UCAS Army."

"Oh, UCAS, huh. Which part?" Matt is almost glaring, and probably
would be if he could see straight.

Hardin takes the glass of water and drinks from that, "All over,
it's the military, you don't really live in any one part. The
longest I was in one area was when I went to West Point."

"Oh, West Point, that's cute. You must be an officer, then? Isn't
that what that is?" Matt is no expert on the military.

Hardin simply nods, deciding to let the doctor have his fun for the
moment.

"So you're one of the ones who gets to play with other people's
lives as *well* as your own. That's great. Good for you. Have you
ever killed anybody?" Matt's question comes suddenly, a brief glare
along with it.

Hardin nods, "Of course, I 'play with other people's lives' I would
think a doctor does too, but I guess that isn't the issue right
now. And yes, I've had to kill before. And I've had men follow my
orders and die, but my job as an officer is to minimize losses,
both for the enemy and my side. I don't enjoy killing or watching
men die. "

"I *save* lives. You take them away. If there was nobody like you,
there'd be no killing. How can you sleep at night? How can you look
yourself in the eye knowing that someone was alive, and now he
isn't, and it's your fault?" Matt doesn't lose articulacy with
drink, just stability.

Hardin chuckles, "It does trouble me of course, but there are also
men who are alive because of me, and they might be dead had I not
been there. There will always be people 'like me.' War is a part of
humanity, and while I never want it to come, when it does come I
act to protect the people that are important to me, or the beliefs
that are important to me."

The chuckle lights a fire behind Matt's drink-cobwebbed gaze and he
*glares*. "War is *no* part of humanity. War is barbarity. War is
murder and hatred. Is your conscience really clear?"

Hardin has been trying to keep an air of levity, despite the fact
he is geniunely pained by memories. "War, and violence are one of
the most basic instincts of humans. Your own hatred, or at least
anger, right now is a sign of that. I never said my conscience is
clear, but I accept what I've done as the lesser of two evils. I've
seen villages that were in danger of being wiped out simply because
of their religion, and I fought to protect them." He thinks back to
his days in combat in the UCAS during the Desert War.

Grr, he's got a point and that makes me mad. "But we're *better*
than our instincts. We have to be better. How can I keep putting
people together when so many people are doing so much to take them
apart?" Matt takes another gulp from his bottle. Clearly not drunk
enough yet.

Hardin looks a bit startled, and has a bit of respect for the
doctor now. "Maybe some day there won't be a need for soldiers,
police, and such. But for now there is, and for now you just have
to try your best to keep putting people back together. I'd like to
see a world where I am not necessary, but while I am necessary, I'm
going to do the best damn job I can to keep as many people as I can
safe."

"It's just not right." Matt exhales heavily and finally gets around
to sitting down. It's more of a slump than a sit, really, and the
contrast between the picture-perfect Volunteer and the ragamuffin
doctor couldn't be greater. "If nobody killed, nobody else'd have
to."

Hardin drinks again from his glass of water. "But people do kill,
there are people who do it for the hell of it, because they can.
Sometimes they claim political goals and call themselves
Terrorists, other times they're just your run of the mill murder,
and other times they call themselves soldiers or police." He won't
entirely excuse his line of work.

"Yeah, I noticed that." Matt sure isn't singing now. The bottle is
eyed. Traitor, how dare you be getting empty. "I just don't
understand how they can do it. I'd die before I'd kill."

"Then congratulations you've made a step in overcoming the instinct
of self-preservation. But you would you kill to protect others that
you care for? What if by taking one life you could save a hundred
others?" Hardin's head cocks a bit to the side as he asks this,
looking at the doctor.

Oh boy. There's a question I'm not drunk enough to ponder... Matt
stares into his Scotch bottle as if the answer is perhaps hidden
somewhere at the bottom. "...I don't think I could do it."

Hardin simply nods as he finishes the glass of water, and deposits
the right amount of money for the earlier beer on the counter.

"I don't know if I could live with myself. Either way. How do you
do it?" This is a genuine question, this time, not aggressive. Matt
looks to Hardin.

Hardin takes a moment to think about that. "It's hard to explain,
and I'm sure it's different for each person. It's not something you
can ever forget or just go about your day having done. It's...maybe
it's just different in combat against other soldiers, but I always
tried to convince myself that the other guys were prepared to die,
it was their job, just like it was mine, but that never really
works. I know the guy on the otherside of the gun had hopes and
aspirations..." He looks at the bartender and orders 2 shots of
whiskey.

There is a long pause from the other man. "...you know my father
always said the answers weren't in the bottom of a bottle." Matt
tips the bottle briefly towards Hardin. "What does he know."

Hardin takes one of the shots as then looks at Matt. "Normally I'd
agree with him, but every once in a while, it's nice to double
check..."

"Here's blood in your eye." Matt reaches over to clink the neck of
the bottle against the shot glass. "My name's Pierce. Matt Pierce."

Hardin smiles back at him. "Mine's George Hardin." He then downs
the shot.

The bottle is upended. Matt goes for broke, swallowing the Scotch
as if it were beer. He slams the mostly-empty bottle down on the
bar afterwards. "Hoo boy! Finest kind. I'll regret *that*
tomorrow."

Hardin laughs. "Hey, you're a doctor, let me know if they ever find
away to get rid of that in the morning, other than drinking
more..."

"I have yet to find it. But there's a hangover cure waiting
somewhere and it's called staying in bed for a month, and I need to
go do that, sometime quite soon." Matt starts to get to his feet,
finds that his legs have different ideas about which way to go, and
staggers, almost falling. "...nuts."

Hardin grins a bit, watching him. "Hmm, good luck getting there,
although it should be easy to stay once you're there."

"Oh, ayuh. No problem at all." Matt sways dangerously. "At home I'd
call a cab. Uh." He pats himself down for his wallet, locates it,
and looks around fuzzily. "Door?" Where is it.

Hardin stands, with considerably less trouble, although he doesn't
drink much the two shots and a beer didn't do a whole lot to him.
He pushes Matthew by the shoulders until he is facing the right
direction. Ooh, now I'm dizzy. "Thanks. Do that again and I'll
throw up on your shoes." Matt gets going, at a sort of slow
stagger. "If I'm never heard from again, tell Daisy I love her."

Hardin doesn't bother pointing out he has no idea who she is. "I
got it, no problem." He gives Matthew a bit of a wave as watches
the man leave.

Matthew doesn't wave back, because that would be incredibly
dangerous. He makes it to the door, pauses to regroup in the
doorway, and heads out into the Martian night. Gotta hate this
dome.