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Behrad wakes up from his nightmare in a cold sweat and feeling so sick that he bolts out of bed to go throw up, nearly colliding with whoever’s exiting the bathroom just as he rushes in.
“Whoa, dude, are you okay?” It’s Nate, who he’d almost just knocked over in his rush, and who steps back in through the open door. As the sink runs for a moment, then shuts off, Behrad coughs into the toilet bowl, and he feels Nate place a soothing hand on his back, rubbing gently. “Here.”
Behrad takes the dampened face towel that Nate offers him with a mutter of thanks and wipes at his face and mouth, then flushes and scooches back to lean against the wall, breathing heavily.
“You wanna talk about it?” Nate sits down and slides over next to him, arm-to-arm.
“Nightmare.” Behrad tells him, eyes firmly shut. He can still see the bodies flying through the air, hear the loud thud as they land on the ground, and can still remember the horrible glint in Damien Darhk’s eyes as he tossed those Time Bureau agents around like ragdolls.
“London again?” Nate asks. Behrad nods, opening his eyes and looking over at him. Nate throws a reassuring arm around his shoulders. “I’m sorry we didn’t come to your rescue sooner.”
“No, no, it’s fine.” Behrad sighs, leaning into it. “I’m just not used to seeing stuff like that. And I guess I’m not gonna forget it anytime soon. Doesn’t exactly help that I’m, uh, not great with blood?”
Nate lets out a low whistle. “Oh, man. Trust me, I’ve been there. You’re talking to a former haemophiliac. I used to be terrified of paper cuts .”
“I hate fighting.” Behrad says. “I don’t know how you guys do it.”
“You’ll get the hang of it.” Nate reassures him. “Believe me, we’ve all had nightmares about lesser things.”
“I don’t know, man. I feel like I need to just... get a grip, already.”
“You know, it’s not a bad thing to not be used to this stuff. If anything, it’s good . If you spend so long around bad stuff like London that you get used to it, eventually you just sort of… stop feeling anything at all.”
“I guess.” Behrad shrugs. “But the nightmares still suck.”
“Hey,” Nate says, squeezing his arm around Behrad a little tighter. “Next time, just come find me. I mean-- if you need to puke, come here first, but after that, I’ll help you get your mind off of things.”
“Thanks.” Behrad says, placing one of his hands over where Nate’s lays on his arm. “It means a lot.”
“Guys, what the hell are you doing hogging the bathroom at seven in the morning?” A sleepy Jax complains from the doorway, making Behrad and Nate both jump a little in surprise. “Quit makin’ out, I’ve gotta pee.”
“ Seriously ?! It’s already seven?! Man, I did not go to bed last night.” Nate whines. Then, he helps Behrad to his feet. “C’mon, B, you can brush your teeth in the kitchen. Let’s go get breakfast.”
---
Behrad runs into Amaya while wandering through the corridors aimlessly, feeling a lot better now after hanging out with Nate for a while. It also helps that he’s high off a midmorning snack: his latest attempt at fabricated pot brownies-- this time, with a little too much pot and not enough brownie. Amaya’s in her workout gear, sweating and breathing heavily where she leans against one of the walls, and she doesn’t look like she’s in a very good mood.
Still, he greets her with a friendly wave. “I don’t think it’s good for the ship’s systems if you sweat all over them.”
“Hi Behrad.” She rolls her eyes, wiping at her forehead with a hand towel. “I’m not really in the mood to chat right now.”
“Yeah, I can see that.” He raises an eyebrow. “Whatever it is that you’re mad about, punching things didn’t get it out of your system?”
“No.” Amaya admits, taking a sip from her water bottle. “It’s going to take a lot more than a workout to get my mind off of Kuasa.”
“I’ve got the perfect idea.” Behrad rubs his hands together, then grabs her hand to drag her off to his room. “You’re gonna love this.”
---
“I hardly think meditation is going to distract me from thinking about my family.” Amaya frowns, but still, she positions herself cross-legged on the rug next to him. “Contacting my ancestors won’t do me any good right now.”
“We’re not going to contact your ancestors. This is just about clearing your mind. Feeling the good vibes. Manifesting tranquility.”
“Look, I appreciate you trying to help. I really do,” Amaya says, getting up, “But I’m going to go back to punching the bag, now.”
“No, no, no, no! No more punching. Can’t we just sit here and open ourselves up to the universe?”
“Behrad…” Amaya says slowly, raising one skeptical eyebrow, unimpressed, “Are you high ?”
“Okay, yes, I am.” He admits. “But that’s not the point-- you need to relax. And we’re going to meditate-- not with our totems, but with these .”
Behrad pulls out a box from under his bed and shows her his collection of crystals. The look she gives him is so disinterested, it’s almost comical.
“I think I would rather you had offered me some of your marijuana.” She deadpans.
“I mean, yeah, sure, if you--” He starts, but she’s already slipping out of his room. “ Okay , never mind, then.”
---
“I really wish I had better news about Sara, but she’s still in a coma, thanks to Damien Darkh’s daughter putting her out.” Jax leans against the table in the center of the parlour, where everyone has gathered. Behrad curls up sideways on one of the armchairs, legs hanging off of the side.
“Well,” Ray sighs, putting his hands on his hips, “In the meantime, we could do what we do best, and fix a couple of anachronisms.”
“How ‘bout you drop me off on an island full of beautiful women,” Mick suggests dryly, tipping his head towards Behrad, “Like that guy did, with that Helen chick.”
Uh oh . Behrad tries as hard as he can to sink into the cushions of the armchair he’s sitting in, but everyone’s gazes shoot towards him.
“ Really , Mick?!” He complains, burying his face in his hands. “You weren’t supposed to tell anyone about that!”
“Wait, you didn’t take Helen of Troy back to where she belongs?” Amaya’s disapproval stings a little bit, with the way she frowns and crosses her arms in a way that’s uncomfortably similar to the way his maman did when he was a kid and did something he wasn’t supposed to.
“Are you kidding? Of course I didn’t-- that’s the Time Bureau’s job, not ours. We do something different --” Behrad starts to argue, but Nate cuts him off.
“ No , we do the same thing, but different… ly.” He says.
“Yeah,” Ray nods in agreement, and adds, “More messy.”
“Okay, well,” Behrad gets up out of the chair and moves towards the viewscreen’s map of anachronisms, swiping across it to focus on Greece. “If you look at the historical record, the Trojan War happens with, or without Helen. See? No anachronism.”
“Well, how do you think the captain would feel about you re-engineering time?” Ray asks, and Behrad opens his mouth to defend himself, but Jax cuts them both off.
“We can all argue about that later, because I know exactly what she’d say if she wakes up and finds us doing nothing .”
“We owe it to Sara to keep doing our job,” Amaya agrees, joining Jax and Behrad in front of the screen, “So, where do we start?”
Vietnam, 1968
They should never have let Jax pick an anachronism out at random, because it turns out that the monster that disrupts the Vietnam War is a massive, psychic, meta-gorilla from Central City named Grodd, and the locals call him Ông Trời Mới and worship him like a god.
But on some level, Behrad doesn’t totally blame the locals. He still can’t get the sight of the massacred Time Bureau agents out of his head, from back in Victorian London, and he’s only seen that level of carnage once . Thinking about what living with that would do to people… that’s why he took Helen to Themyscira, when she told him about what was waiting for her back in Troy. And from what he’s learned about the Vietnam War, he really can’t fault Anh Ly and the other locals she brought them to for latching onto something that feels like salvation. Even if it comes in the form of a terrifying , gigantic gorilla who can project his thoughts directly into your brain.
“I wish Jax were here, I’m still getting the hang of this tech stuff.” Behrad admits to Ray, as they fiddle with the devices that Grodd’s been using to disrupt their comms. “Hey, where are we taking this gorilla dude once we get him out of Vietnam, anyways?”
“Well, last I heard, he was locked up in an A.R.G.U.S. prison.” Ray says, unscrewing a panel and taking a peek inside.
“Wait, so we’re just going to lock him back up?” Behrad doesn’t know much about gorillas, but even he knows that they probably belong in nature. “We can’t do that, that’s horrible--”
“Look, Behrad, I know you don’t like this, but Grodd is a psychopath . And, well, a giant gorilla --”
“Which is exactly why we can’t just lock him up in some dark room-- I mean, don’t you think that being locked up in a military prison might have something to do with why he’s like this?”
Ray doesn’t seem to have a response to that, so Behrad drops it. Instead, they tinker with the machine in an uncomfortable silence, until the machine whirs, and the familiar peripheral buzz of their comms returns.
“Hello? Can anybody hear me?” Nate’s voice comes through their earpieces, once the whirring subsides.
“Nate! Is that you?”
“Where are you guys?” Nate hisses, sounding panicked. “We need to get out of this jungle, ASAP !”
“Oh, no, what’s wrong, buddy?”
Nate tells them that Mick’s dad is here.
“That’s why Mick didn’t want to come to Vietnam, on the off chance he’d run into his dad.” Behrad realizes. Suddenly, he finds himself hoping that there aren’t any anachronisms in early 2000’s Iran, because running into younger versions of his own parents would just be weird .
“Which is about as likely as Marty meeting his great-great-grandfather Sir Stein.” Ray agrees, slowly.
“Right.” Behrad squints. “Or, young-you befriending a time-displaced alien.”
Suddenly, ending up meeting younger versions of his parents seems a lot more plausible.
“Do you people not hear me?!” Nate asks, impatiently.
“Listen,” Behrad sighs, “The monster-slash-anachronism is Gorilla Grodd . We’re stuck in his compound.”
“Did you just say Gorilla Grodd ?!” Jax asks from QB-ing back on the ship. “Uh, guys… Our anachronism just jumped from an eight to a level ten.”
“Where’s Amaya?” Behrad asks. “Didn’t she go after him?” Ray nods. “We’ve gotta find her and get out of here.”
“Let’s split up,” Ray suggests. “You take those tents over there, and I’ll check these ones. Once we find Amaya, we get back to the ship.”
Behrad nods, then heads for the tents on the left.
Amaya isn’t in the first, or the second, or the third one he looks into, but in the fourth, he finds documents-- photographs of the American president, details on when he’s going to land in Vietnam, and Behrad realizes that these aren’t just pictures and travel itineraries.
They’re plans for an assassination.
Behind him, a gun clicks. He raises his hands slowly in surrender, and turns around to face Anh Ly.
“This, uh, isn’t what it looks like?” He tries.
“We’re defending our home,” She says, aiming the gun steadily towards his head. “Against those who have attacked us.”
“I know. And I’m sorry this is happening to you, but this is not the solution.”
“Grodd is only doing what is necessary.”
“Necessary for who ? Can’t you see? He’s not doing this for you, he’s a dictator-- he only cares about himself.”
“I have lost both of my parents.” She says, trembling with anger. “My brother. My village. Ông Trời Mới is the only one left to protect us.”
When he doesn’t respond, not sure what to say, she continues. “Do you have any idea what that’s like?”
“No,” Behrad answers, “I don’t. And I don’t blame you for getting desperate, but this won’t bring you the peace that you want.”
Anh’s hands shake, and Behrad can see her losing her conviction as she grows more emotional. “Please,” he urges her, “You don’t have to do this. Just put the gun down.”
She lowers her gun and exhales raggedly, tears streaming down her face, and Behrad turns away to relay his discovery to the team, until he’s interrupted by a pained moan. He turns back around to find Anh, bent over and clutching at her head.
“Hey, are you--”
She suddenly stops, straightening up slowly, and her arms raise to point the gun at Behrad once more. He can still see the tear tracks shining down Anh’s cheeks, but she isn’t crying anymore; instead, her face is frozen in a cold glare.
“Anh is weak.” She says-- no, Grodd says. Then, she swings the gun at Behrad and knocks him out, cold.
---
The rest of the mission pans out without Behrad doing much of anything, to be honest.
Amaya manages to talk Grodd down, until American troops attack and the Gorilla rampages away in search of the Waverider. Then, Mick’s dad takes them all captive and nearly executes them all, before Mick talks him down and then knocks him unconscious with a nasty punch to the face. Stein reports from the ship that he’s managed to defeat Grodd, who has most likely fallen to a fiery death, and Anh tells Behrad that she’s going to lead her people and work towards peace, so they pack up and head back to the Waverider.
Not long after, Sara wakes up and makes her way over to their celebration in the galley, joining them for some of the pie from the recipe LBJ gave to Jax.
Afterwards, Behrad stops by the library, and finds the person he’s looking for poring over an ancient-looking book.
“Hey, Nate.” He says, leaning against the doorway. “Is this a good time?”
“Oh, hey, B,” Nate looks up from his reading. “What’s up?”
“I was wondering if you could help me with something.” He walks over and takes a seat on the desk, to the left of where Nate perks up and raises an eyebrow in question. “I want to start training.”
“Training?” Nate asks, surprised.“To fight?”
“No, no. Not really . More like… to be prepared.” He clarifies. “Magic air totem wind powers are one thing, but I’m still just getting the hang of being out there in all the action, and it’s kind of overwhelming.”
“I feel you, bro.” Nate closes his book and sets it aside. “You should have seen me when I first joined the team-- I mean, I spent most of my life sheltered because of my haemophilia, and then once I got my powers and didn’t have to worry about that anymore, I didn’t actually know what to do with my body. I spent months just flailing around like an idiot .”
“Really? You ? Dude,” Behrad motions to Nate’s very tight t-shirt, “You look like you popped straight out of a sexy firefighter calendar, or something.”
“What, you think so?” Nate flexes and waggles his eyebrows dramatically and it makes Behrad laugh so hard that Nate has to grab him around the waist to stop him from falling off of the table. “But yeah, sure, bro, I’ll help you out.”
“I don’t know,” Behrad gathers himself and rests his chin on one hand, pretending to look lost in thought, “Maybe I asked the wrong guy-- I should ask Ray if he can train me instead. The dude’s built like a brick wall--”
“Shut up,” Nate laughs, smacking him lightly on the arm and getting up out of his chair. “Let’s go get you in shape, B!”
“What, right now?!”
“Yes, right now!” Nate guides him out of the library with a hand on his back, with a declaration of, “After I’m through with you, you’re the one who’s gonna be in the sexy calendars.”
---
When Behrad gets back to his room after his post-workout shower, body aching from the exercise, Amaya is sitting on the floor, legs crossed and eyes closed.
He tiptoes inside and tries to make as little noise as possible, but still, she hears him and opens her eyes to greet him.
“You were right,” is the first thing she says to him, “It’s actually pretty nice to clear my mind like this.”
He sits down on the floor across from her, “Are you feeling better? Grodd got you pretty good, back there.”
“I’ll be okay.” She reassures him. “He showed me the things they did to him to make him that way. They experimented on him, tortured him… it was barbaric . I can hardly fault him for wanting revenge.”
“Yeah.” Behrad sighs. “That’s why I couldn’t bring Helen back to Greece. I know we shouldn’t mess with the timeline but it feels so wrong to send people back just to suffer. And Grodd… I mean, sure, he was kinda crazy and hurt a lot of people, but I still wish we could have done something for him. He didn't deserve to die."
“We tried.” She reaches for his hand and gives it a little squeeze. “We can’t save everyone. I’ve had to make my peace with that. But we can’t give up trying.”
"I was able to find a loophole for Helen." Behrad squeezes her hand back. "Maybe I could find something for your village?"
"No, Behrad." Amaya smiles sadly. "The risk is too great. I think about it every day, but I can't."
"How is that any different?" He asks. "Sending you back to 1942 to die in Zambesi-- how is that different from putting Helen back in the middle of a war, or putting Grodd back in a military facility?"
"Because it's my choice. We can't waste our energy on looking for loopholes for me. We have to focus on fixing the anachronisms and defeating Mallus."
“Okay. Alright.” He lies, to appease her, but he’s not going to drop this. Amaya said it herself-- they have to keep trying, and until he sees for himself that there’s no way to save Amaya, he’s not going to give up searching.