SGA: Dear John (WIP Remix) (PG-13, gen, text-only version)
Title: Dear John (WIP Remix)
Author: mad_maudlin (
mad_maudlin)
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Characters: Rodney + Team, mostly Rodney + John (and maybe pre-John/Rodney too)
Warnings: None
Spoilers: through "The Lost Boys/The Hive," though there are references to later episodes as well.
Summary: in the aftermath of "The Hive," Rodney writes a letter.
A/N: This is a remix of Stutter by
pocky_slash, for Remix Redux 9. This version is TEXT ONLY; to see the original image-only version, go here.
Thanks to
icarusancalion and lofro
lofro for, respectively, kicking my ass and holding my hand on this, and to Pocky for writing such a great story to start from.
Dear John,
I have to write this because I get stuck the enzyme has you
I choose to write this in order to compose my thoughts better, because the lingering effects of the enzyme has made it difficult to express concentrate
I am writing this down because otherwise I will swear at you
I wrote all this down because there is no way that I can say it all at once without making a mistake or you interrupting me and I printed it out because it is important
Dear Lt. Col. Sheppard: John Sheppard YOU
I am writing to you in regards to our recent mission to Planet wHatever the hell that was, which resulted in the deaths of multiuple drug addicts as well as probably Lt. Ford and almost you. In particule I would like to formally request an explanation for why you thought it was good idea to go along with a plan that did not involve escaping back to Atlantis at the first opportunity but instead going along with Ford's stupid STUPID blow-up-the-hive idea i while permitting myself and Teyla and Ronon to be drugged against our wills for an extended period of time. I feel this was a bad decision on your part because:
You can't save him, John. I don't think you ever could.
So I think that's good enough as proof that you are moron, ebcasue Ford at least had an excuse for getting us all into this mess and you do not. I think I kind of know why you did it, because God knows that even after everythingI still miss the little twerp, guy because at least unlike some people he was too young to do Bob and Doug McKenzie jokes at me even if he couldn't find Vancouver with both hands an a GPS. I don't want you think I didn't like Ford because I did, I do, I liked Ford when he was still Ford and not Captian McCrazyface. But you can't save everybody John, and I am frankly astonished that you have survived this long trying. I know you wanted to save Ford but we needed you to save us too and did you really think this was going to have a happy ending with rainbows and high-fives at the end? Even if we do bring Ford back he's going to go to prison for what he's done. iv
I needed you guys to get me out of there and look how that turned out. I was waiting for you to save me and instead I had to shoot myself up v and did you know I nearly died? Carson says I nearly died. Well, he didn't so much as say it as leave my files sitting out where I can see them, and by "sitting out" I mean under the worse encryption in history, I mean it's not hard to guess that his mother's name is his password and I can look that up any time I want in his personel file. No, really, try it. I bet you have the same clearances. Anyway my point is that I should never have got out of there on my own, I shouldn't've had to, because you should've done the right smart thing and let Ford go. I should could have died there while you guys were off playing hunt the hive Ship and I'm not saying what I did was right, I'm saying what you did was stupid, and therefore I had to do an even stupider thing and if I am being stupid who is going to save us all?
I mean, obviously you're going to try, but that's not the point.
The point is this. The point is you. Because I needed you and you weren't helping me us. We're supposed to be in this together as a team but you spent way more time worrying about whether Ford wasgoing to come back than whether we were going to survive. And it's not like Ronon and Teyal vi were much help, they were busy playing Fight Club, you were the one with no excuses. You've got not problem ordering me around but I thought htat meant you had a duty to, a duty to protect us and act in our best interest and I know Ford is a duty too but I've already told you that Ford is not Ford and you have seriously got to examine your priorities.
Maybe we were all being idiots back there and in addition I'm not sorry because I thought you were dead. I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD YOU ASSHOLE. !^*$%^ THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH WINGDINGS IN THE WORLD FOR MY RAGE. I thought you were dead on a hive a million miles from everywhre and that you'd taken Teyla and Ronon and Ford with oyu, which just about exhausts the list of people without PhDs who are willing to talk to me (note that I count Elziabeth on that list too, though, because political science isn't) and and I think my actions can be justified in that light. This your reckless insanity is becoming habit-forming, and this time you took people with you and this time you didn't take me. Not that I want to commite suicide or anything, because I like to think I have a long full life ahead of me, but if I do it I want it to be with you. OR better yet, I want ot prevent you from doing it at all. /Because that is part of my job description now, I made Elizabeth put it in to give me job security: I am a miracle worker. THERE I SAID IT. You may not understand the differnece between magic and physics so you don't understand what you're asking of me, you don't know what I have to do to make the math work out, I have t osolve the equations and come up with a positive number.
And I can move mountains give sufficient time, energy and raw materials to work with and I would do it for you if you would let me and ask me and not stand therw while neandertals with the IQ of a doorknob shoot me up with what essecially amouts to highly refined Wraith spit. I have been injected with wraith spit for you colonel. I am the person officially in charge of last-minute miracles and you are kind of infringing on my territory in that, especially with all the suicide missions, because does it not occur to you that getting yourself blown up for the greater good is not at all a good way to die? I don't want to do anything for the greater good. I don't want to make coffee for the greater good. vii
Stop going where I can't follow because I can't save you if I don't know where you are.
And thing this I didn't even CARE Aabout this sort of thing before now. I didn't used to care about anybody. Well, my cat. I've actually had three cats, four if you count my mother's cat, but she never liked me and honestly, who names a cat Lucy anway? My cats were all named creatively and thematically, Pertwee Baker and Trouton, but not in that order. It has been a very long time since I cared about anybody but a cat and I blame you. Back at the sGC, the first time I met Samantha Carter, she was completely obsessed wth getting what's his face with the head out of the gate (and I know you know what I'm talking about because I've told you this story bfeore). She was just obsessed, and nothing I could say would make her see reason, he was already good as dead and she didn't even seem to care and she blew up a DHD just to get him back and I absolutely did not get it. Because everything thing she did was wrong, and even though it worked it doesn't mean she was right, and who the hell is that important that you'd blow up a stargate for him? What was WRONG with heR? viii ix x
I'm still not forgiving you for that, by the way. Any of it! I refuse to until you apologize for being reckless and stupid and not letting me follow you and making me want you to. It makes me want to go back to earth except I can't do that now. I think I've gone feral living out here around Marines. xi So I'm not forgiving you but I think I can forget it, as long as you promise not to leave me us behind again, and also not to die, because I can trust you with my life but I'm not sure I can trust you with yours. If you are going to insist on spewing insipid slogans about the unity of the team you might want to try not acting like an air force of one, you knoww?
Sincerely,
Dr. Rodney Mckay PhD PhD MSc
ps please ignroe the doubtlessly major typographical errors as Carson says I still have enough enzyme in my system to drop a pit bull and I have been prescribed three different medications and I'm not sure any of them work. Then again, I suppose we don't really have anything FDA approved for wrait spit.
Pps if you show this to anyone else in the city I'll kill you
ppps not really.
iSeriously, I saw the problem with this plan in like five seconds while I was on drugs
iiAnd probably other people me too
iiiAlso, kobayashi Maru: really dumb idea
ivMaybe not. The SGC is remarkably forgiving about things done under the influence of space drugs and alien consciousnesses and obviously this counts. I hope think.
vAnd do I look qualified for that? I learned this skill from drug addicts!!!
viDid I miss something or was Teyla the only woman in that cave? What did I miss???
viiAlso, I don't want to die and neither should you!
viiiIt's like that story, The Cold Equations. I am sure you have read this unless, of course, you didn't. It's about a spaceship pilot who has to make a special mission, and he only has so much fuel, so when he finds out he's got a stowaway he has to shoot her into space. I promise this makes perfect sense. And I used to love that story because it was all dramatic and science and the stupid little whiny girl got what she deserved, and I was sixteen. But it's like that, where sometimes the rules are the rules and there are no miracles and bad things have to happen and people die in space.
I used to read that story and think about what it would be like to be the tough, decisive pilot shooting the little brat into space beause she stowed away. This was usually right after Jeannie had annoyed me, mind you. But it turns out it's actually a really awful place to stand, when you've run out of miracles and somebody has to die. I used to think it was just math and stupid people, but it's harder than that and I hate don't want to decide.
DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU'VE DONE?
Which brings me back to the theme of 1. you 2. stupidity. Because I think I understand now why Carter was willing to blow up a gate for Tealc even though it was still absolutely insane of her and why you won't let Ford go when the rest of us are still right here. I understand why you do stupid things now and it is terrifying because apparently now I do them too. I will do truly stupid things for you people, even when there is a smart thing but also when there isn't.
Did you know Caldwell threatened to tie me up? He was going to tie me up in my quarters because I wouldn't sotp looking ofr you even when the sensors said there was nothing bigger than a peanut for 15,000 meters in every direction. It was like being on the enzyme again with everything in the world gone wrong and I never wanted ot be wrong before, John, I have never hated sicence and the cold equations that much in my life
ixYou would never shoot a stowaway off your rocket. You would jump first. Idiot.
xAnd I just realized the girl only weighed 110 pounds = 50 kg! There was plenty of junk on the rocket ship to jettison! The pilot was just a dick!
xiI mean, who will give me a grant for wacky hijinx? Also POSTDOCS. :-(
Author: mad_maudlin (
mad_maudlin)
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Characters: Rodney + Team, mostly Rodney + John (and maybe pre-John/Rodney too)
Warnings: None
Spoilers: through "The Lost Boys/The Hive," though there are references to later episodes as well.
Summary: in the aftermath of "The Hive," Rodney writes a letter.
A/N: This is a remix of Stutter by
pocky_slash, for Remix Redux 9. This version is TEXT ONLY; to see the original image-only version, go here.
Thanks to
icarusancalion and lofro
lofro for, respectively, kicking my ass and holding my hand on this, and to Pocky for writing such a great story to start from.
Dear John,
I have to write this because I get stuck the enzyme has you
I choose to write this in order to compose my thoughts better, because the lingering effects of the enzyme has made it difficult to express concentrate
I am writing this down because otherwise I will swear at you
I wrote all this down because there is no way that I can say it all at once without making a mistake or you interrupting me and I printed it out because it is important
Dear Lt. Col. Sheppard: John Sheppard YOU
I am writing to you in regards to our recent mission to Planet wHatever the hell that was, which resulted in the deaths of multiuple drug addicts as well as probably Lt. Ford and almost you. In particule I would like to formally request an explanation for why you thought it was good idea to go along with a plan that did not involve escaping back to Atlantis at the first opportunity but instead going along with Ford's stupid STUPID blow-up-the-hive idea i while permitting myself and Teyla and Ronon to be drugged against our wills for an extended period of time. I feel this was a bad decision on your part because:
drugs. They are, in case you somehow missed an after-school special or two while riding ponies in the Hamptons or whatever the hell it is your family did, bad for you. Of course you weren't actually getting drugged so maybe you don't care but I happen to value my brain cells and do not appreciate serving as a case study on ways to violate the geneva convention.
Waiting. Because in case you failed to notice while you were busy swanning back through the gateroom like you own the place, by waiting around Camp Chemlab for all that time we basically convinced all of At lantis that we were dead. Heartache and grief et cetera, also the chimpanzees who occupy my lab have stolen all my cofee and won't give it back. I would greatley prefer if my first contact with my sister in a bajillino years did not involve explaining why she mistakenly received a box of my personal effects wrapped in a flag!
Speaking of waiting, you flew through the gate before the hives exploded and then waited several hours to come back to atlantis? What is this? You have got a radio Colonel Nimrod you could have called. People were looking for you. I'm sure Elizabeth was very worried ii.
Also let me return to the theme of drugs for a moment, because you may not have noticed that ford is on them. He is not a reasonable person right now ever again. I am sure Teyla and ronon will back me up in saying that the enzyme is not your garden variety steroid or crack or anything, not like I would know, I'm just saying, Ford is not Ford anymore. He is not your little buddy. He will not play Prime/Not Prime anymore for Cheetos. He neither an officer or a gentleman. The enzyme gets into your head and it makes you see things, not like bleeding walls kinds of things, like concepts, like one of those optical illusions when you think you're looking at two cups and suddenly you're seeing a face. It's like that, except worse, because the whole world is the face that you didn't think you were seeing, the whole world has gone wrong and I don't know how else to explain this to you. Ford != Ford. The proof is the infected needle stick in my arm.
You can't save him, John. I don't think you ever could.
5. LEADERSHIP. I am particularly worreid about your willingenss to basically ignore every offworld protcool that we've ever come up with so that you could try to deprogram Not-A-Ford. I thought that you people had a duty to escape from bad guys captivity cave people crazy people who drug your friends team at all cost? Is that not the thing where you had to eat bugs for it? I distinctly remember a conversation about interrogation and bugs. And I Realize you have a somewhat flexible idea about order sand duty and things, what with your hsitory of grand theft helicopter and all, but I would think t is kind of important to not let your whole team get killed while you are attempting reparative therapy on a drug addict. Needs of the many > needs of the few, iii I thought this was a clear concept for you what without your tendency to run off and play with high explosives at the drop of a hat. There comes a point when you have to cut your losses and I really want to know, would it have been worth it? Would it be okay if one of us got killed but Ford came back?WHat about two of us? Who were you gonna trade for him? DO THE MATH.
So I think that's good enough as proof that you are moron, ebcasue Ford at least had an excuse for getting us all into this mess and you do not. I think I kind of know why you did it, because God knows that even after everythingI still miss the little twerp, guy because at least unlike some people he was too young to do Bob and Doug McKenzie jokes at me even if he couldn't find Vancouver with both hands an a GPS. I don't want you think I didn't like Ford because I did, I do, I liked Ford when he was still Ford and not Captian McCrazyface. But you can't save everybody John, and I am frankly astonished that you have survived this long trying. I know you wanted to save Ford but we needed you to save us too and did you really think this was going to have a happy ending with rainbows and high-fives at the end? Even if we do bring Ford back he's going to go to prison for what he's done. iv
I needed you guys to get me out of there and look how that turned out. I was waiting for you to save me and instead I had to shoot myself up v and did you know I nearly died? Carson says I nearly died. Well, he didn't so much as say it as leave my files sitting out where I can see them, and by "sitting out" I mean under the worse encryption in history, I mean it's not hard to guess that his mother's name is his password and I can look that up any time I want in his personel file. No, really, try it. I bet you have the same clearances. Anyway my point is that I should never have got out of there on my own, I shouldn't've had to, because you should've done the right smart thing and let Ford go. I should could have died there while you guys were off playing hunt the hive Ship and I'm not saying what I did was right, I'm saying what you did was stupid, and therefore I had to do an even stupider thing and if I am being stupid who is going to save us all?
I mean, obviously you're going to try, but that's not the point.
The point is this. The point is you. Because I needed you and you weren't helping me us. We're supposed to be in this together as a team but you spent way more time worrying about whether Ford wasgoing to come back than whether we were going to survive. And it's not like Ronon and Teyal vi were much help, they were busy playing Fight Club, you were the one with no excuses. You've got not problem ordering me around but I thought htat meant you had a duty to, a duty to protect us and act in our best interest and I know Ford is a duty too but I've already told you that Ford is not Ford and you have seriously got to examine your priorities.
Maybe we were all being idiots back there and in addition I'm not sorry because I thought you were dead. I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD YOU ASSHOLE. !^*$%^ THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH WINGDINGS IN THE WORLD FOR MY RAGE. I thought you were dead on a hive a million miles from everywhre and that you'd taken Teyla and Ronon and Ford with oyu, which just about exhausts the list of people without PhDs who are willing to talk to me (note that I count Elziabeth on that list too, though, because political science isn't) and and I think my actions can be justified in that light. This your reckless insanity is becoming habit-forming, and this time you took people with you and this time you didn't take me. Not that I want to commite suicide or anything, because I like to think I have a long full life ahead of me, but if I do it I want it to be with you. OR better yet, I want ot prevent you from doing it at all. /Because that is part of my job description now, I made Elizabeth put it in to give me job security: I am a miracle worker. THERE I SAID IT. You may not understand the differnece between magic and physics so you don't understand what you're asking of me, you don't know what I have to do to make the math work out, I have t osolve the equations and come up with a positive number.
And I can move mountains give sufficient time, energy and raw materials to work with and I would do it for you if you would let me and ask me and not stand therw while neandertals with the IQ of a doorknob shoot me up with what essecially amouts to highly refined Wraith spit. I have been injected with wraith spit for you colonel. I am the person officially in charge of last-minute miracles and you are kind of infringing on my territory in that, especially with all the suicide missions, because does it not occur to you that getting yourself blown up for the greater good is not at all a good way to die? I don't want to do anything for the greater good. I don't want to make coffee for the greater good. vii
Stop going where I can't follow because I can't save you if I don't know where you are.
And thing this I didn't even CARE Aabout this sort of thing before now. I didn't used to care about anybody. Well, my cat. I've actually had three cats, four if you count my mother's cat, but she never liked me and honestly, who names a cat Lucy anway? My cats were all named creatively and thematically, Pertwee Baker and Trouton, but not in that order. It has been a very long time since I cared about anybody but a cat and I blame you. Back at the sGC, the first time I met Samantha Carter, she was completely obsessed wth getting what's his face with the head out of the gate (and I know you know what I'm talking about because I've told you this story bfeore). She was just obsessed, and nothing I could say would make her see reason, he was already good as dead and she didn't even seem to care and she blew up a DHD just to get him back and I absolutely did not get it. Because everything thing she did was wrong, and even though it worked it doesn't mean she was right, and who the hell is that important that you'd blow up a stargate for him? What was WRONG with heR? viii ix x
I'm still not forgiving you for that, by the way. Any of it! I refuse to until you apologize for being reckless and stupid and not letting me follow you and making me want you to. It makes me want to go back to earth except I can't do that now. I think I've gone feral living out here around Marines. xi So I'm not forgiving you but I think I can forget it, as long as you promise not to leave me us behind again, and also not to die, because I can trust you with my life but I'm not sure I can trust you with yours. If you are going to insist on spewing insipid slogans about the unity of the team you might want to try not acting like an air force of one, you knoww?
Sincerely,
Dr. Rodney Mckay PhD PhD MSc
ps please ignroe the doubtlessly major typographical errors as Carson says I still have enough enzyme in my system to drop a pit bull and I have been prescribed three different medications and I'm not sure any of them work. Then again, I suppose we don't really have anything FDA approved for wrait spit.
Pps if you show this to anyone else in the city I'll kill you
ppps not really.
iSeriously, I saw the problem with this plan in like five seconds while I was on drugs
iiAnd probably other people me too
iiiAlso, kobayashi Maru: really dumb idea
ivMaybe not. The SGC is remarkably forgiving about things done under the influence of space drugs and alien consciousnesses and obviously this counts. I hope think.
vAnd do I look qualified for that? I learned this skill from drug addicts!!!
viDid I miss something or was Teyla the only woman in that cave? What did I miss???
viiAlso, I don't want to die and neither should you!
viiiIt's like that story, The Cold Equations. I am sure you have read this unless, of course, you didn't. It's about a spaceship pilot who has to make a special mission, and he only has so much fuel, so when he finds out he's got a stowaway he has to shoot her into space. I promise this makes perfect sense. And I used to love that story because it was all dramatic and science and the stupid little whiny girl got what she deserved, and I was sixteen. But it's like that, where sometimes the rules are the rules and there are no miracles and bad things have to happen and people die in space.
I used to read that story and think about what it would be like to be the tough, decisive pilot shooting the little brat into space beause she stowed away. This was usually right after Jeannie had annoyed me, mind you. But it turns out it's actually a really awful place to stand, when you've run out of miracles and somebody has to die. I used to think it was just math and stupid people, but it's harder than that and I hate don't want to decide.
DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU'VE DONE?
Which brings me back to the theme of 1. you 2. stupidity. Because I think I understand now why Carter was willing to blow up a gate for Tealc even though it was still absolutely insane of her and why you won't let Ford go when the rest of us are still right here. I understand why you do stupid things now and it is terrifying because apparently now I do them too. I will do truly stupid things for you people, even when there is a smart thing but also when there isn't.
Did you know Caldwell threatened to tie me up? He was going to tie me up in my quarters because I wouldn't sotp looking ofr you even when the sensors said there was nothing bigger than a peanut for 15,000 meters in every direction. It was like being on the enzyme again with everything in the world gone wrong and I never wanted ot be wrong before, John, I have never hated sicence and the cold equations that much in my life
ixYou would never shoot a stowaway off your rocket. You would jump first. Idiot.
xAnd I just realized the girl only weighed 110 pounds = 50 kg! There was plenty of junk on the rocket ship to jettison! The pilot was just a dick!
xiI mean, who will give me a grant for wacky hijinx? Also POSTDOCS. :-(