FI don't know what happened, but this story somehow got lost on the forum.  I reloaded it so that it would make sense when I added my author's notes.  Here they are:

Behind the Scenes of
The Bodyguard
by Denise Felt  2012

This was a challenge story for the SHADO Writers’ Guild.  We had a title and had to create a story around it.  I have to say, these are some of the most enjoyable stories to write, because you have a vague premise as soon as you see the title.  Everyone went very different directions with their stories, and I got quite a kick out of reading all the other challenge stories.

I wrote this story as a companion piece to the episode “Psychobombs.”  I have never liked that episode, and here’s why: there were too many holes in the plot and too much was left unexplained.  However, since this back story had so many holes, I was able to bring my story in and let it develop alongside the other.  In the end, I managed to make sense out of the episode and fill up most of those holes in the original.  At least, to my satisfaction.

Chapter 1: My story begins after the episode has already started, coming in about 6 minutes into the program.  The psychobombs have been released into the populace, and Straker has already been attacked by Mr. Clark, who he gave a lift into town.  We find the commander glaring at Dr. Jackson in Henderson’s office, so obviously the doctor has managed to piss him off. 

But the doctor is only trying to keep him safe.

Straker doesn’t win this round with the general.  In fact, he accepts that this had been coming for some time, although he doesn’t admit as much to the general.  He just hates the necessity of it.

Even though he tries to put it from his mind, of course it bothers him all the way back to HQ.  In the series, we saw the commander alone so much of the time.  Even around others, he stands off to the side, separate from everyone else.  From this, we can see what his position has done to him.  He has a unique vulnerability now because there is nothing so alone as being at the top.  Naturally the bad guys want to take advantage of this isolation to get rid of him, and the IAC has to step in and make it so that he is no longer alone. 

But Straker finds his isolation preferable to being smothered by security.  Most wouldn’t.  They’d feel safer with bodyguards surrounding them at all times.  But we know our commander, and his privacy means a great deal to him.  How will he cope with a security detail?

Well, we never actually find out the answer to that question.  I cheat in a way, because he doesn’t actually get a security detail.  He gets Tehb.

Chapter 2: He notices a few odd things about her right away.  Her unusual ability to be absolutely still.  The silver flash in her eyes.  Her ability to move fast when she perceives danger.  And as they enter HQ, we get a description of her through his eyes.  I dressed her as a player in an RPG game, and anyone who’s played those games would recognize the basic outfit for any medieval role-playing game and know right away that Tehb is going to be a very different bodyguard indeed.

Tehb is actually a Russian word for shadow.  I was playing around in Google Translate until I came upon a foreign word for shadow that looked like it could be a name.  Tehb was the coolest one I found.  I had a lot of fun having Straker constantly have to fight his physical reaction to her.  He’s so stoic that it’s almost mandatory to find a way to shake him up. *grin*

Chapter 3: The rest of the day passes without incident and at 10 pm Straker calls it a night.  I loved bringing Alec into this episode (even in passing) because he wasn’t in the original.  This episode was filmed after their break, and George Sewell was no longer available for shooting.  But to me he’s an important part of SHADO, so I put him into the story anyway.

Bringing someone into his home overnight has to be unusual enough to disturb the commander, but he actually handles that well.  It’s the fact that she intends to watch over him while he sleeps that discomposes him.  And she manages to do it in spite of him. 

Now we intertwine with the episode again as Col. Lake contacts the commander with the news of what Mr. Clark has done to their tracking station.  Of course, this news becomes of secondary importance as Straker realizes that Tehb disobeyed him and watched him as he slept.  I love it when Straker’s tone gets icy!  Somehow the fact that he’s still polite only adds to the sting, don’t you think?

The confrontation in Dr. Jackson’s office is one of my favorite parts of the story.  Jackson of course has no idea why Straker is demanding to know the list of Tehb’s duties, and when Tehb explains how far she is willing to go to protect the commander, even Straker is startled.  And Jackson is left without any explanation at all as to what the visit was all about.  Forgive me if I find it hilarious to have the good doctor be in the dark for once!

Chapter 4: Straker being Straker tries to get to the bottom of Tehb’s devotion to him, but her cryptic answers give him the wrong impression.  Hopefully the reader isn’t fooled into thinking that Tehb is just a psychotic fan. 

Straker returns to Dr. Jackson, and once more we converge with the episode as he talks to the doctor about the destruction of Skydiver 3.  Afterward, he sends Tehb from the room and asks the doctor for her psych evaluation.  This scene was another of my favorites in this story as Jackson reveals just how they got Tehb as a bodyguard for the commander.  I don’t portray Straker as religious in my stories.  He never seemed so in the series apart from the one biblical quote at the end of the pilot. 

But Dr. Jackson is a different matter!  As a secondary character who isn’t ever completely defined, he allows the writer to alter him to fit whatever the story requires.  So in this story, I made him religious.  And not your ordinary Christian religion either.  He worships Odin.

My son has loved Norse mythology since he was a teen, so I learned a great deal about Odin and Valhalla over the years as we talked about the gods.  Matt told me that he had to look up Norse mythology while reading this story, because he hadn’t been exposed to it before.  I’m glad I was able to widen his horizons.  My Jimmy G. did that for me.

The Valkyrie are truly awesome ladies, and I enjoyed having Straker’s new bodyguard be one of them.  There is a moment when Jackson mentions that if a Valkyrie finds a warrior she admires, she will protect him from death.  I hope a few readers pricked up their ears at this and remembered that Straker had miraculously managed to survive three other attacks in the past months.  I never definitively say that Tehb was behind these miracles, but I hope the implication is enough to get you thinking.

The last line of this chapter made me chuckle when I wrote it, and it still makes me chuckle whenever I read it.  Straker deals with the most demanding females in existence every day at the studio: actresses.  He figures a goddess can’t be much worse than that.  What do you think?

Chapter 5: Straker finally takes a nap, sure that his eyes are playing tricks on him when he sees Tehb’s wings.  But after he has rested and returned to his office, he sees them again and asks her about them.  Their conversation is one of the major themes of this story.  Most people would say that ‘seeing is believing.’  After all, we live in a physical world and respond to visual stimuli. However, Tehb is a goddess and understands the importance of having faith.  She tells Straker that ‘believing is seeing’ as her explanation for why he can now see her wings.

The love scene between them was not in the first draft of this story.  But I was so inundated with complaints that I hadn’t included it that I added it in for the final draft.  It wasn’t a long scene, but hopefully it conveyed the sweetness of their blossoming relationship.

One of the truly stupid moments of the Psychobombs episode is when Straker lets Paul bring Linda Simmons to HQ knowing that she intends to try to kill him and destroy SHADO.  But in my story I give the reader a reason why.  As Tehb explains, he needs to face his enemy’s fire in order to quench it.  And of course, he’s counting on Tehb’s protection to get both he and HQ through this crisis.  Finally his decision makes sense!

I had to follow the script for the climax scene in the Control Room, even though it’s a little lame and full of plot holes.  But back in his office afterward, I give the reader a believable interpretation of what happened.  Tehb intervened, stopping Linda from drawing on the power of the universe to destroy SHADO.

My story ends with Straker calling it a day, this time not at all bothered by Tehb’s determination to watch over him while he sleeps.

I really enjoyed writing this story about Tehb.  I don’t know that I’ll ever write a sequel to it, but I’m open for it if an idea strikes.  She was just so fun to have around!

Personally, I think she should have -- then taken over HQ and dealt with Linda Simmons too!   

I think I found it and got it.