Day 14 (fic): The Paradox of Vision (Part 1)
Title: The Paradox of Vision (Part 1)
Notes: This part beta'd by the lovely and talented secrethappiness (did you know she can juggle bicycles? she totally can); any mistakes are mine and mine alone. Title from Susan Griffin, Happiness:
...This
is the paradox of vision:
Sharp perception softens
Our existence in the world.
~*~
"Ow!"
"Don't stop!"
"I'm not stopping," Rodney gasped, pounding along behind John. "I'm saying OW! They - hit me - with a rock or - something -"
"Dial the gate, dial the gate!" John roared; Teyla was already slapping the address. Ronon crouched beside the DHD, aiming over John and Rodney's heads, and began laying down cover fire as the event horizon shimmered into being.
"Teyla, go!" John yelled; she turned and let a few bullets fly at the screaming horde of Wraith worshippers in the woods behind them, then vanished through the silver shimmer.
"I don't feel so good," Rodney gasped, slowing. John grabbed his arm.
"Nearly there," he said. There was something sticking out of Rodney's shoulder. "Oh shit," John said, slapping it away - a small, feathered dart that fell to the ground behind them, irretrievable as they fled. "We're almost there," he panted again.
Two steps past the DHD Rodney slumped mid-step to the ground - an abrupt, shocking fall, graceless and heavy.
John struggled to pull him up, not thinking about the way his head flopped bonelessly back as John heaved him forward. "Ronon!"
They pulled him through the gate.
*
Everything hurt.
"Carson," Rodney managed through chattering teeth.
"I've got you," Carson said, calm face hovering over Rodney. Beyond him, the infirmary ceiling, Teyla, Ronon, Sheppard. "You're going to be fine, lad."
Rodney closed his eyes, shaking.
*
"Carson," Rodney said.
His voice sounded pathetic; he cleared his throat (dry and achy) and tried again. "Hey, is anybody -"
"Hey, Rodney." A brief touch on his arm. "Are you thirsty? Beckett said you might be thirsty."
"And they call me a genius," Rodney groused. "Yes, I'm thirsty."
A fumble and then Sheppard's hand was on his shoulder, tugging him upright as the bed hummed, lifting his torso. "Here you go," Sheppard said. Chilly plastic against his mouth; Rodney sipped: water, cool and perfect, sliding down his throat.
"Thank you," Rodney said. "Although if you'd just turn up the lights, I could get my own cup, I'm sure."
"Ah... what?"
The faint click of the cup set aside.
"It's pitch black in here," Rodney said. He lifted a weak hand. "Can't see my hand in front of my face."
There was a pause. "Let me ask the doc about those lights," Sheppard said.
*
"I want to go back to my quarters."
A hubbub of responses, Rodney silent among them, sitting up in the infirmary bed, arms folded, face uncharacteristically blank.
John stepped past Beckett and Elizabeth, past Heightmeyer and Dr. Biro. "I'll take you," he said, and Elizabeth turned on him.
"John, that decision is up to Carson," she said, reproof in her voice.
"It's up to me," Rodney said loudly. "I'm not sick anymore, and my vision isn't going to improve any time soon. I want to be in my own quarters, and I'm going. The only question is whether you're going to let Sheppard take me now, or leave me to fumble my way there by myself in the middle of the night."
John laid one hand on Rodney's arm. "Upsy-daisy," he said, and Rodney swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood.
They walked slowly, more out of deference to Rodney's still-shaky legs than his lack of vision.
"Upsy-daisy?" he said, and his fingers flexed on John's elbow.
John shrugged, telegraphing the motion through his arm. "It's a thing I say."
They walked in silence for a time; Rodney's fingers were a little too tight on John's arm, but John kept his mouth shut. At least Rodney was letting himself be led.
"What are they saying about me in the briefings?" Rodney asked abruptly.
John slowed a little more. "They're worried about you," he said after a brief hesitation. "Carson's frustrated because he hasn't been able to isolate which neural pathways are disrupted, or figure out why your brain hasn't compensated. Biro wants to send you back to Earth, to some neurologist she knows at the SGC. Heightmeyer's worried that you won't talk to her. Radek hates running the labs."
"I won't go to Earth," Rodney said. "If Carson can't figure it out, it can't be figured out, and if they send me away and don't cure me, I'll never get back here."
"Yeah." John glanced at him, then away. It seemed wrong to look at Rodney when Rodney couldn't look back.
On the other hand.
John looked at Rodney for a while, and kept stealing glances for the remainder of the walk.
"...Here we are," John said.
Rodney waved his free hand at the sensor panel and stepped forward unerringly when the door hissed open. "You can come in if you want," he said.
John went with him, hand light on the small of his back. "Uh, it's kind of a mess," he said. "Hold on, I'll pick stuff up so you don't trip."
"You don't have to," Rodney snapped. "I think I can manage to walk around my own quarters."
"I can't manage to walk around your quarters," John said, rolling his eyes. He moved around Rodney's stiff figure, scooping up clothes and MRE packaging, tossing the one into the hamper by the bathroom, the other into the overflowing trashcan under the desk. He stuffed his boot into the can, compacting everything and then cursing as he shook his leg free. "Okay," he said, straightening. "You need anything else?"
"How do I look?" Rodney asked.
"What?"
Rodney lifted one hand, gestured vaguely in front of his face. "I mean, do my eyes look normal? Or, or what? How do I look?"
"You look fine," John said, stepping closer. "Your eyes look, uh, pretty much the same as always." Rodney stood still, chin jutting, bright blue gaze fixed just to the left of John's eyeline. "You look fine," John repeated.
"I just. I wondered." Rodney moved slowly toward his desk, hand outstretched. John resisted the urge to leap to his aid. Rodney's hand encountered the chair; he pulled it out and sat, reaching for his closed laptop. "You can go now," he said, pulling the computer toward himself.
"Okay," John said, turning toward the door. As he left Rodney was opening the computer, fingers sliding over the keyboard, orienting himself. His face was tilted down toward the screen, gaze unmoving as he tapped out a password.
*
Two weeks in and Rodney was back in the labs. He'd rigged a few items to be voice-activated and/or audio-responsive; a bastardized life-signs detector got him through the hallways, paired with one hand running along the walls. His laptop fed tin-voiced information into his headset, a constant mumble of electronic noise, barely audible to anyone else but telling Rodney what he did as his fingers flew over the keyboard.
He'd gotten Harrykissoon to rig up a whiteboard for him, narrow strips of tape in a grid so that he could write in a straight line, equations scrawled in handwriting that was, Radek informed him, just as illegible as before and please stop yelling when we point out the parts we can't read. "Is nothing new," Radek said, and Rodney could hear his eyeroll as clearly as he'd ever seen it.
Atlantis opened to him.
She rose to meet him, responding to his voice commands in the transporters, humming beneath his hands as he walked the corridors. His computer interfaced more smoothly with the Ancient database. The knick-knacks and tools his team still worked to identify, items found in abandoned labs and storage rooms and then set aside for cataloguing, responded more easily to him, although he still found that he needed John for others. They continued their pattern of meeting once a week to sort through items, John adding description to his light-switch duties, Rodney typing his descriptions into the laptop and adding his own details about size, shape, texture.
Some people avoided him.
Others did not. Teyla came to get him a week after he left the infirmary.
"I don't see myself stick-fighting," Rodney said dryly.
He could hear Teyla's small smile when she spoke. "Not yet, perhaps. But you have been sedentary, and you need to maintain the strength you have gained in the last year." Her hand on his arm was light, guiding without pulling, and he went along without protest. It was a relief, in a way, to have someone's touch there, guiding him. He'd pushed everyone away so hard in the beginning that now, two weeks later, some still stuttered when he spoke to them.
In the weight room, she took him from machine to machine, placing his hands on the levers, showing him how to adjust the weight. Her fingers were cool and certain on his, adjusting his grip and leading his hands to the proper places and grips.
"I don't see the point," he puffed, arms straining, pulling a bar down and letting it rise again slowly. "I won't be back in the field. Sheppard's going to have to find someone else for the team."
"That may be true," she said. "And it may not. However, exercise is healthy and you will be lacking in it, if, as you say, you are not going offworld. Also, Dr. Heightmeyer has told me before that it is a great reliever of anxiety and stress."
Rodney closed his eyes and did three more repetitions. "Thanks," he said later, and Teyla squeezed his arm before leaving him at his door.
"It is my pleasure," she said.
*
Ronon kept showing up in the mess hall at the same time as Rodney.
"They have blue jello," he rumbled behind Rodney, and Rodney jumped and turned, scowling, in his direction.
"Thank you so much for that information," he snapped. "I'm sure Private Leighty was just about to tell me that."
The private behind the table mumbled something affirmative, and Rodney reached gingerly out, fingers encountering jello cups. "Aha."
Later Ronon slipped him a second cup. "So Sheppard wants Zelenka to join the team until you can see again," he said.
The table creaked every time Ronon shifted his weight. It was annoying, and Rodney couldn't believe he'd never noticed it before. "Zelenka hates going offworld," he said. "He'd be good at it, though."
"I think he's too timid," Ronon said around a mouthful of... something.
"You know, I never thought I'd be grateful to lose my vision," Rodney said. "But at least I don't have to watch you eat anymore."
Ronon snorted a laugh. "Pot, kettle," he said. Rodney thought maybe he and Sheppard should quit bickering around Ronon, who spoke again: "If you say Zelenka would be good, he'd be good. You should talk to Sheppard about it."
"He can talk to me about it," Rodney said. He ate the second jello cup in silence, listening to Ronon's continued massacre of food from across the table.
"He doesn't want to talk about that with you," Ronon said, and Rodney could feel him stand, hear the bench give a moan of relief as he rose. "If you wanna tell him Zelenka's okay, you'll have to bring it up." A heavy hand landed on Rodney's shoulder. "Later, McKay."
"Uh, later," Rodney said.
*
John's door chimed and then hissed open. "Hey, Rodney. What's up?"
Rodney came into his quarters slowly, stopping just inside the door; John stood and reached for him, touching his wrist lightly. "Floor's clean, I promise," he said. He guided Rodney to the bed.
"I wanted to talk to you about Zelenka," Rodney said, sitting gingerly on the edge.
"Oh." John scratched his ear. "I, well, Elizabeth wants me to find someone temporary, until Beckett figures out how to fix your, uh, your eyes."
"I know that," Rodney said sharply. "She came to me about it a week ago. I told her Radek would be the best choice." He frowned at where John had been a moment ago, and John moved back there, intercepting Rodney's vacant gaze.
"I think he'd be okay, but he seems reluctant," John said. "I'm not sure what to tell him. I thought maybe -"
"He's scared," Rodney said bluntly. "He's always wanted to stay in the city more than he's wanted to get offworld, and now he's got me as a constant reminder of what can happen when people go out there - as if Gall and Abrams and Grodin and Collins and the rest weren't enough."
"Ronon doesn't think he'd be okay," John said slowly. He came and sat beside Rodney. "Teyla thinks he would. I think he would but I, well, I wanted to..." He shrugged, uncomfortable.
"You wanted to know what I thought but you were too chickenshit to ask me," Rodney finished for him.
"I guess." John looked at Rodney's face. It hadn't changed in six weeks. He wondered if it would, eventually - would his eyes lose their piercing brightness? Sink inward, sag? "You seem to be handling... things... well," he offered, the but unspoken.
Rodney laughed, low and bitter. "Don't be an asshole," he said. "I'm handling 'things,' as you so quaintly put it, terribly. I can't -" He stopped for a moment, took a deep breath. "I hate it," he said. "It's just - it's always dark. And I think I'm starting to forget what people look like." John was silent, but he shifted slightly so his shoulder pressed against Rodney's. Rodney sighed. "I've broken four chairs in my room," he said. "Not to mention a few of the less expensive items in the labs, throwing them at people. I've got bruises up and down my shins from bumping into stuff. At least, I think I've got bruises." He snorted humorlessly, pulling his trousers at the knees, displaying hairy shins, decorated with yellowing and fresh marks.
"Yep," John said, leaning to look. "Definitely bruised." He sat back up before he could reach - run his hands gently down Rodney's shins, and Christ, how pathetic. That even his shins should look good. John snorted inwardly.
Rodney let his pants fall again. "I'm handling it like shit," he said. "Heightmeyer keeps telling me it takes time. Jesus." He dropped his face into his hands, muffling his voice. "Like I don't know that."
John touched his shoulder. "I know."
Rodney sat still and silent, hunched beside John for a long moment. Eventually he straightened. His face was just the same - pale and dry, no sign of whatever emotions had shaken him a moment before. It was unnerving, and John wondered how many of Rodney's volatile expressions had been reflections of what he saw around himself. "I don't want Radek taking my place on the team," Rodney said steadily. "But you need a scientist again - you and Teyla and Ronon can't keep risking yourselves without a scientist to save your asses." He smiled, sort of - an uneven quirk of his mouth. "Ask Radek. I'll make sure he says yes."
"Thanks," John said.
They sat quietly for a moment.
"Um," John said.
Rodney turned his face toward him. "What?"
"Are you really forgetting what people look like?" John asked, tentative. He blew out a puff of air. "Forget it. Sorry, I totally suck at this."
"Welcome to the club," Rodney said, voice tight. "Why'd you ask?"
"I was thinking about the movies, where people touch, uh, touch faces to get a picture of how they look," John said, too quickly. "I just wondered if that would really work."
"Huh," Rodney said. "I don't know. Hold still." And just like that he raised his hand, fingers on John's ear, sliding around to touch his cheekbones, nose, the arch of his eyebrows, over his cheeks again, ghosting across his lips and chin.
John struggled to keep still, to breathe normally. It was unsettling, weird, and he wished he'd never said anything. Watching Rodney's head tilt, his eyelids half-closed as he concentrated, as the blunt, soft pads of his fingertips ran over John's face - it was creepy.
He didn't want Rodney to stop.
"I don't know," Rodney said, dropping his hand into his lap. "I mean, I guess it feels like you, like you look. But I'm not sure I could pick anybody out of a lineup that way." His mouth twisted, wry. "Thanks anyway."
"No problem," John said, and stood up.
Rodney stood hastily, too. "So, uh, light-switch duties Tuesday, right? Right. In the afternoon. After Radek's first mission with you guys. I'll talk to him tomorrow." He sniffed. "Tell him to write his will, get his affairs in order."
"You're all about the morale." John led him to the door, glancing at Rodney's tight jaw as it whooshed open.
"Yes, yes. The science staff calls me Miss Mary Sunshine," Rodney said.
John snorted. "Miss Meredith Sunshine," he said, and before Rodney could respond, he pushed him outside, gently. "See you tomorrow, McKay," John said.
Rodney stepped outside, lips twitching - fighting back a smile? Then he turned and lifted his right hand to pat John's cheek twice, unerring and a little sharp. "You need a shave," he said, and smirked, turning away, life-signs detector already in his other hand, strides not much less confident than they'd been before.
John rolled his eyes and watched Rodney walk away.
"Go to bed, Colonel," Rodney called, and John grinned and stepped back into his quarters, doors sliding audibly shut behind him.
*
"You're late," Rodney said when John finally hailed him on Tuesday, stepping into the lab.
"I'm also not covered in swamp slime, and you should be grateful," Sheppard replied.
"Yes, yes," Rodney said. "Radek told me all about it. Way to break him in easy."
He could practically hear Sheppard's smirk. "Hey, he came back with all his pieces, didn't he?" He touched Rodney's arm lightly; Rodney jumped. Sheppard was one of the few people who touched Rodney of his own volition, and Rodney couldn't quite remember if Sheppard had always touched him like this - a brush of his fingers across Rodney's hands, tap on the shoulder, hand at the small of his back to guide him, just for an instant. Ronon had ignored Rodney's acid rebuffs from the start, and touched him no more or less than he ever had; Teyla ended most of their weight-room sessions by bringing his forehead down to her own. But Radek had changed his habit of dragging Rodney physically into a new project by the sleeve, and Elizabeth didn't squeeze his arm anymore. Beckett touched him only professionally, moving him around the equipment for his weekly MRIs or adjusting him in the chair to get the best optical scans. It was Rodney's own fault, he knew - he'd actually yelled at Elizabeth once, in the first days, when she'd offered to lead him to the transporter - but perversely he resented the lack at the same time - without sight to connect him to the world, to the people around him, touch had suddenly jumped in importance.
"All right," Rodney said nervously. He reached out, brushing Sheppard's arm on accident, and pulled the first item from its box. "Simpson and Kusanagi put this box together. It's everything that either needs a really strong gene to operate, or is out of juice. We don't know which." He handed the object to Sheppard, then poised his fingers on the keyboard.
"Okay, silver, sort of, um, egg-shaped, 8.636 centimeters at its longest point, 5.08 centimeters across, 25.654 centimeters diameter at widest point. Weighs..." A pause as Sheppard put it on the scale. "Fourteen-point-five-four ounces." Another pause. Rodney had the urge to place his hand on Sheppard's arm, feel him turn the silver egg in his hands - tendons and muscles lean and flexing in his forearms... "There are two striations on the surface - they look almost like stress fractures, though, not really like part of the object. I'm going to -" a minute pause, then a cracking noise. "Uh, okay, so this one's broken," Sheppard said ruefully.
"Hand it over," Rodney said, snapping impatiently. Sheppard placed several pieces into his hands. "Good work," Rodney said. "That was probably the Ancient food replicator or something." He touched each piece - smooth curves of outer shell, and dozens of tiny springs and cogs. "Or, wait." Rodney held it, turning his head up and to the left as he thought, finger pushing the debris around on his palm absently. "Maybe not." He gestured. "One of the disposal bags, if you don't mind." Sheppard rustled and then his hand cupped the underside of Rodney's, guiding him to pour the pieces into the bag with a faint, tinny chime. Sheppard's hand was warm and calloused under his, rough and steady. "A music box," Rodney said. "Or a children's toy. Probably." He pulled his hand away and typed it in, then turned on the stool to face Sheppard again. "Next."
And so it went. Two of the items came to life; one seemed to be a medical scanner of some stripe, and Rodney set it carefully aside for Carson to look at later. The other just... glowed, not appearing to do anything, until John set it down again. The rest of the items remained inert, and were stowed away accordingly. They were nearly to the bottom of the box when Sheppard said "Hey there," in a cheerful tone.
"What's happening?" Rodney asked sharply.
"This little gadget perked right up when my hand even got near it," Sheppard said. Rodney could hear him moving - a barely audible rustle, and then "Hmm, it looks like it has two parts."
"What is it?" Rodney asked. This was the part he hated, although Sheppard was better than most people about talking as he went - Rodney had never known him to talk so much, until he himself had had to shut up and listen. "Colonel?"
"Well, I don't know what it is," Sheppard said, considering. "There's this part -" He grasped Rodney's hand and placed a flattish, irregular box in it, about the size of a deck of cards. "It's got a clip on it, and there are three lights - " he curled his fingers behind Rodney's, guiding them to touch: Rodney felt smooth bumps, perfectly round, tiny. "They're all glowing green right now." He pulled his hand back. "Oh, only two are green when I take my hand away." He poked it again. "Yep, I guess it likes me better."
Rodney rolled his eyes and batted Sheppard's fingers away. "What's the other part?" Rodney asked, hands busy examining the box. A belt clip? Or a clip of some other kind? "We should measure these before we start messing around with them. Hey. There's a pad here," he added, thumb slipping along a narrow line down the back of the clip; it felt different, softer, almost like leather.
"The other part is - " Sheppard lifted the box from his hand, placed the softer second half of the device into his palm. "Here, feel for yourself. I don't know what it is, except it sort of seems to go with the first one. And it was wrapped around it."
And Rodney was, was seeing something - grey and black, blue, amber, a jumble of shapes, blurry colors his brain named even though it couldn't make sense of them.
"Oh," he said, and his voice sounded gut-punched. He moved, grasped for the Colonel's arm to steady himself, saw a corresponding movement, but it was wrong and he still didn't know what he was seeing - he blinked several times, rapid-fire black-white-black-white. "Don't move," he said.
"Rodney, what's wrong?" Sheppard asked, voice taut. "What's going on?"
"I can -" Rodney blinked again, turned his head and saw movement again. "Hold on." He closed his eyes for a moment - darkness, but not as complete as it had been. He opened his eyes again slowly, one hand tight on Sheppard's arm, the other clenched around the soft form of the second object, slick against his sweaty palm. "I'm, I'm seeing something," he said.
"Holy shit," Sheppard breathed. "What do you see?"
"I don't know," Rodney snapped. "It's not making sense, maybe because it's been so long, I don't -"
Sheppard's arm moved - he lifted it and Rodney heard the click as he tapped his radio. "Carson, this is Sheppard, are you there?"
Rodney ducked - there had been another motion, close, toward his face, but -
"Here, Colonel, is something the matter?"
"Rodney and I are coming to the infirmary, we've got - there's something going on with his eyes," Sheppard said tersely. "We'll be there in a couple of minutes." He dropped his hand, twisting it to hold Rodney's wrist again. "Come on, let's go."
"It's not blurry anymore," Rodney murmured to himself.
"What're you seeing?" Sheppard asked, pulling him up.
Everything swooped. "I don't know," Rodney said again, frustrated, stumbling as Sheppard drew him forward. "It was blurry at first, but now all the edges are sharp and clear, it's just, I can't - " He huffed angrily. "I don't know what it means." He bumped into Sheppard's side as they walked, dizzy and beginning to feel a little nauseous. "Slow down," he said. "Everything's moving. And sometimes it goes black for a second, then comes back - like a flicker, like a camera aperture opening and closing, but it's - ungh, slow down - it's irregular."
"Are you seeing around?" Sheppard demanded, halting for a moment. "Are you seeing... walking by things?"
Rodney closed his eyes to get his bearings, then opened them again, slowly. "It would appear so," he said. "Since it all just stopped moving."
"You can't see it when you close your eyes, can you?" Sheppard said. He'd moved again, and again there was the sense of motion, stopping an instant later. Sheppard's voice came from right in front of him. "What're you seeing right now?"
Rodney growled. "What part of I don't know is unclear to you, Colonel?" he demanded. "It's just - shapes. Colors, like, like..." He stopped. "Be still." He lifted his hand; he saw motion. "Skin," he said, low, and put his fingers up. Yes, there was the Colonel's face, solid and real under his fingertips. But the sight was wrong... He sighed and dropped his hand. "I just - I can't tell, yet." He reached for Sheppard's hand - fumbled it, let Sheppard grip his wrist again. "Let's go."
He closed his eyes a couple of times as they walked, fighting dizziness. Each time, though, he forced them open again; by the time the doors to the infirmary hushed open for them, his stomach had adjusted to what his eyes seemed to be telling him, and he was fine. Stomach-wise, at least. Other things were adjusting as well; he thought that maybe he could tell he was looking at doors, walls, windows, beds, people, and his brain had begun filtering out the weird, abrupt moments where the vision blinked out and then back.
"What've we got here, then?" Carson asked, hurrying up to them.
"Carson!" Rodney said. He reached for his arm. Movement again and he felt an abrupt moment of disorientation. "I can see -" but his aim was off and he had to swing his arm to the left to touch Carson's arm. "I thought I could see," he corrected, scowling.
"Come and sit down," Carson said. His hand was solid on Rodney's shoulder and then it was all weird again, he was walking but his eyes were telling him he was standing still.
"Christ," Rodney ground out. He lifted his hands to his face, angry and confused. The Ancient object dropped out of his hand and there was darkness, everything gone black again no no no - "Fuck! Get it back!" he cried, dropping to his knees, groping for the narrow shape.
His hand closed over it and everything came clear.
Everything.
"Be still!" he ordered, and stayed where he was.
Crouched low, rounded curve of heavy shoulders, hands on the floor, one clenched around something - the object, flexible as a strip of leather, warm against his skin. And there was Carson, yes, bending beside him, hand on his shoulder, face all wrought up in concern, mouth opening to speak. And Nurse Armin, frozen by a lab table, Dr. Biro peering curiously from the door of her office.
Movement again and Rodney gritted his teeth and stayed where he was, waiting.
Looking up, finally, turning his head blindly toward Sheppard and seeing himself, blank blue eyes, red face, messy hair that was getting too long.
"I can see whatever Colonel Sheppard is seeing," Rodney said.
He slowly, carefully, settled back onto his ass on the floor, clutching his half of the object and watching the camera-shutter flicker as John Sheppard blinked, once, twice, three times in a row and then sat down beside him, hand tight around the other half of the device.
*
John stayed with Rodney.
"Stop moving," Rodney ground out at one point, and John carefully didn't nod.
"Okay," he said, and sat obediently beside him, trying to look in whatever direction Rodney turned his head. Mostly, though, he just sat, while Beckett bustled around them both, beckoning others to bring him tools, occasionally moving them from one piece of equipment to another.
Rodney went without demur, though he barked his shins several times, reached into the wrong spaces to grasp things, banged elbows and hands as he reached for objects Beckett tried to hand him.
"Should I take it off?" John offered after a while, and Rodney, hand tight around his half of the device, made a face so devastated that John winced in reaction, glad Rodney couldn't see the wince, at least, even if his voice was stiff when he replied, "No, please. I don't care if it screws me up." He smiled, small and not quite solid. "It's worth it."
John smiled, too, and didn't let go of the device.
They experimented with it. The narrow leathery band at the back of the clip had to be against John's skin, it turned out. He clipped it to the waistband of his pants and slouched on the table again. Any part of Rodney's half (a long strip of the same leathery substance, like a wristband - a sort of sensory pad, Beckett said) could be against his skin, and he buckled it around his wrist after a while.
Elizabeth came in briefly; Radek stopped by, examining the device's two parts without moving them away from either Rodney or John. Teyla and Ronon both came in, disheveled with exercise, still sweaty. Teyla drew Rodney's forehead to her own, smiling. Ronon slapped his back hard enough that Rodney grunted, though he didn't move - he stayed still, smiling crookedly.
They all left. Beckett, John and Rodney continued to experiment.
When Rodney closed his eyes, it was like closing his eyes as a seeing person - there was still a certain amount of light. The same when John did it. When either one of them disengaged the device (Sheppard was already calling it a Seeing Eye Dog in his head), Rodney's vision went completely black again. Rodney could see what John's eyes were focused on, but he also had access to the full field of John's vision - if John was looking at a pencil, Rodney could be reading the writing beside it on the page. Depth perception and focus worked the same for Rodney as for John, but he could concentrate on the blurrier things in John's field of vision, picking out details John was unaware of.
Beckett couldn't use the device with Rodney - only two of the little green lights on the box would come up when Beckett held it, no matter how hard he thought on at it.
"So the Colonel is my seeing eye dog, basically," Rodney said, echoing John's thought.
"It would appear that way, yes," Beckett said.
He did scans of every size, shape and color, with the device in use and without. The "without" pictures were identical to the ones he'd done four days ago at Rodney's weekly check-up. The "with" pictures... Beckett hummed and murmured to himself, peering from one set of scans to another, enlarging certain sections on his computer screens, moving pictures around, clicking from one thing to another as John (and his passenger) watched over his shoulder.
"How does it work?" Rodney finally demanded. He was seated beside John on the exam table, banging his heels restlessly against the side of it.
"My first thought is that it's circumventing the damaged neurons completely," Beckett said, not looking away from the computers. "Which is what I had hoped your brain would do all on its own, but we've talked about that - there's some sort of neural blocking occurring, almost certainly as a result of whatever toxins were used in the dart. This device appears to have got around that, however, as I was saying, and it's feeding information directly from Colonel Sheppard's visual cortex to your optical nerve. I haven't quite got why it responds to your blinking as well as the Colonel's, but it may be a protective aspect, to allow the wearer some sort of control of input - a response to muscular movement as opposed to actual vision being cut off..."
John's stomach made a loud noise, and Beckett looked up.
"Perhaps you two should go and have a late dinner," he said, smiling. "If the Colonel's hungry, you must be famished, Rodney." John watched him stand, watched the fond smile he bestowed on Rodney and the way he gripped Rodney's bicep, warm and reassuring. John wondered if it was weird for Rodney, to see those things from such a removed angle. "It'll take me hours, if not days, to analyze what I've gotten from the scans today."
"Do you think -" Rodney stopped, and John saw him swallow, saw how he tried to smooth the emotion away from his face. John shifted his gaze to Beckett, trying to spare Rodney such a close view of his own expressions. "Never mind."
"I don't know if I can use this information to repair your vision, Rodney," Beckett said gently. "I'll have to do a lot more analysis, and it's not going to be as easy as waving a wand over your eyes, even if it is an Ancient wand." He patted Rodney's arm. "So go. Eat, then get some rest. I know the Colonel's had a long day," John snorted; he could still see mud on the floor from the team's post-mission exams, "and I'm certain that you have, as well."
"I'm sure you'll do your best for Rodney, Doc," John said, sliding off the table and turning to place his hand on Rodney's wrist.
Rodney came docilely enough, more a sign of his hunger than John's gift for leadership, he was pretty sure. He allowed John to lead him, calling back over his shoulder to Beckett to hurry it up with that miracle cure, and if he could give people the ATA gene, it shouldn't take him long to figure out a little thing like restoring sight to the blind.
"Geez, Rodney, no pressure," John said, pulling him out the door. "Give the guy a break, he'll do the best he can."
"I know," Rodney said. He walked smoothly enough, only stumbling once, when they entered the transporter. He overcompensated for the angle of John's vision, squashing close to him - warm and solid, John had time to register, before Rodney jerked away to step carefully into a corner of the transporter, hands out until he felt the walls, turning in the small space to face outward again. "Sorry," he muttered.
John tapped the transporter pad, keeping his gaze on the doors. "No problem," he said. "I think you're adjusting pretty well."
Rodney snorted a little. "It's disorienting as hell," he said. They stepped out of the transporter and walked toward the mess hall. "The weirdest thing is constantly seeing myself."
"It's not that bad," John said, smiling a little.
Rodney rolled his eyes, then lurched sideways into John. "Ooh, that was weird," he said.
John laughed.
They ate side by side. There were few people in the cavernous room; the lights were low, kitchen closed. John fetched food from the table always set out against the back wall: cereal and muffins, apple juice to drink. Mostly they were quiet, Rodney practicing reaching for things, although he was aware (as he snapped in response to John's question) that it would all go to hell the minute they weren't seated at this exact distance.
John finished his food and closed his eyes, twisting his neck from side to side.
"Give a guy some warning, would you?" Rodney said, groping after the cup he'd nearly knocked over.
John sighed. "What are you going to do when I want to sleep?" he said. "I don't mind being your seeing eye dog, but I have to sleep and work, too. I can't walk fourteen inches to your right all the time."
"I know," Rodney said, voice low, and John looked sharply at him. His head was down, chin nearly on his chest, and his eyes were closed. John allowed himself to keep his gaze on Rodney, listening as he went on. "This is nice and all, but it's no use, really. I'm no more sighted than I was three hours ago." He lifted his head and John looked away hastily. It was wrong, somehow, that Rodney should see himself looking so defeated.
Oh, he hadn't answered.
John patted Rodney's leg. "At least it gives Carson something to work on," he offered.
"We'll see," Rodney replied, but he sounded more like himself.
"Very funny," John said, and as Rodney sent him a death glare (surprisingly effective, despite his blindness), John poked him in the side.
"Hey!"
John's grin went thoughtful. "Anyway, even if Beckett doesn't get anywhere, this could be pretty useful. In emergencies, you know. Stuff like that."
"God, if I could get you in the lab for two hours a day," Rodney said, sighing with longing.
John cleared his throat hastily. That was a new tone of voice. "Sure," he said without thinking too much. He began stacking plates on the tray, standing up slowly to give Rodney time to react. "I could do that, probably."
He walked Rodney back to his quarters. They stood outside his door, and John watched Rodney's face flicker through panic, sadness, resignation. "You can take it off now, I guess," he said.
John hesitated. "I could, ah." Rodney's head moved, turned toward him blindly. "I could come in. Sit and read something on your computer while you fall asleep. If you want."
Rodney made a face. "You don't have to. I'm capable of falling asleep without you there to sing me lullabies."
John held his hands up. "Whoa, there, McKay, I didn't offer to sing, now." He waved one hand over the door sensor, grinning as Rodney huffed in irritation, Atlantis responding to his gene as much as to the motion, overriding Rodney's locks. "And I can't do this every night, but I can tonight, so," John lifted one shoulder, hopeful that Rodney would hear the shrug in his voice. "Take it or leave it."
It was Rodney's turn to hesitate. He gestured, finally, indicating the door. "Okay, then. It would be nice."
Rodney disappeared into the bathroom; John sat at the desk and appropriated the laptop.
"The guest password is 'Radek loves Elizabeth,' all one word, all lowercase," Rodney called. "Also, I can't tell you how weird it is to pee while I'm looking at my room."
"Close your damn eyes," John called back, typing it in.
"I had to," Rodney yelled. "I'm not so good with the wiping up accidents at the moment."
The toilet flushed, then the water ran. There were a few noises after that, and Rodney emerged wearing boxers and a t-shirt.
"That was one of the more bizarre conversations we've ever had," John said. "Also: 'Radek loves Elizabeth'?"
Rodney grinned. "Just waiting for Zelenka to ask to use it." He sat on the edge of the bed, then flopped back, sprawling on the bedspread.
John looked away, swallowing.
Silence. He settled into the desk chair, stiffening as it creaked, then relaxing. "Sorry," he said quietly.
"Don't worry about it," Rodney said. He shifted - getting under the covers - and sighed. John risked a glance. Rodney lay on his back, arms loose at his sides, eyes half-open, lips curved in a small, crooked smile, more relaxed than John had seen him in weeks.
"Good night," John said, turning his face toward the laptop, eyes unfocused, struggling not to react to Rodney, happy and loose and sprawled in a bed four feet away.
After a while it was easier; he accessed his e-mail from the network and read team reports until he heard a soft, snuffling snore, then two more.
John turned around in the chair, and he watched Rodney sleep for a few minutes before standing and leaving as quietly as he could. He pulled the device from his waistband as he walked, holding it in one palm, looking at it and then closing his fingers carefully around it and stepping into his quarters.
He laid it on his nightstand, ready for tomorrow.
*
Darkness again, the unrelieved darkness of the past six weeks.
Rodney sighed, wondering if he'd dreamed all that. He did still dream with vision - wondered what it would mean if he stopped completely. For the moment, he enjoyed even the weirdest ones. At least he saw faces in his dreams.
Groping for his headset, his hand landed on the band of the Ancient seeing-eye device.
Not a dream, then.
Rodney strapped the band around his wrist again; thought about radioing Sheppard, but he didn't know what time it was, and it would probably be easier to move around his quarters without having to tune out whatever the Colonel was seeing. So he showered and brushed his teeth, shaved carefully, fingers trailing over soapy skin, followed by the razor in the other hand. A quick check of his computer - 6:40 a.m., and he wondered what time he'd fallen asleep last night - led to checking his e-mail. The computer read it to him, radio tucked into his ear.
And suddenly he could see again.
He blinked and the jumbled images resolved into Sheppard's hands, clipping the device to his waistband. Rodney flushed at the unexpected glimpse of Sheppard's underwear, and tapped his radio to a new frequency, away from the one he'd designated as an interface with the computer systems. It wasn't that Sheppard couldn't break into the interface channel, but he'd gotten used to keeping them separate.
"Good morning," Rodney said dryly, and waited, sitting still at his desk as he watched Sheppard retrieve his headset from the nightstand.
"Hey, Rodney, you're awake," Sheppard said quietly.
"Yeah, a little while ago," Rodney said.
"You hungry?"
"Have we not established that I'm awake?" Rodney asked.
Sheppard laughed a little, low and intimate in his ear, and Rodney turned his head away, as if Sheppard could see his reaction. "Yeah, okay. How about I come get you?"
"Take your time, Colonel, I'll just be sitting here looking at whatever you're looking at," Rodney said, smirking.
"Roger that," Sheppard said, and Rodney did - stayed in his chair and watched Sheppard's progress through the corridor, watched the way people smiled at him, the way the wall panels glowed gently as he approached and passed. It was a little disorienting, seeing the sway of his strides this way, but no worse than watching a movie filmed with a hand-held camera. Distinctly disorienting, however, to be confronted with his own face when the door whooshed open before Sheppard, and Rodney blinked several times, as if that would clear his vision.
"That's very bizarre," he said to himself, and fell into step beside Sheppard, one hand touching the Colonel's wrist for guidance when the disorientation grew too strong.
After breakfast Rodney dragged Sheppard to the labs, where they walked from one whiteboard to another, Rodney growing progressively more irascible as he corrected errors, mocked inadequacies, and in a few cases simply erased huge chunks of calculation. Only Simpson protested, and Rodney's reply was (he sincerely hoped) scathing enough that no one else would ever challenge him again. Sheppard stood at his side the entire time, and Rodney was secretly delighted by the ability to shriek out "YOU HAVEN'T EARNED THE RIGHT TO ROLL YOUR EYES AT ME!" at Hewitt. It made him jump very satisfactorily.
That done, Rodney sat down with Radek and began going over blueprints and schematics that had been difficult to assess without being able to physically look at them. Sheppard was actually useful, there, putting in information about manpower and space usage needs that made Radek look at him with interest.
"What?" Sheppard said. "I'm not actually stupid."
"Yes, yes, you're a prodigy," Rodney said, patting his arm, and then had to remind Sheppard to look back at the computer screen, as all Rodney was seeing was his own face, and pleasant as that was, the glare was being wasted right along with Rodney's valuable time, so if the Colonel could please focus. Sheppard flipped him off, being sure to hold his hand up where Rodney would get a good view, and then turned his gaze back to the schematics.
Radek muttered something that sounded obscene, but Radek was always doing that.
"Rodney, I gotta go," Sheppard said finally, and Rodney saw his own face fall.
He controlled it admirably, though, he thought, and nodded. "I suppose so," he said. "Although really you're much more useful here than you will be off getting beaten up by Teyla, or barking orders at Lorne, or whatever it is you do all day."
"I know, it's nothing useful or worthy," Sheppard deadpanned. "Just protecting our asses from the Wraith, and Replicators, getting food, stuff like that."
"Ha," Rodney snorted.
"You ready?" Sheppard asked.
"I suppose so," Rodney said, unable to hide the unhappiness in his voice.
"Hey, I'll be back to hang out later, buddy," Sheppard said, and took off the belt-clip.
Blackness, and Rodney tried to hide his shudder, waving nonchalantly in Sheppard's general direction. "Have fun. I'm radioing Teyla to tell her to go extra hard on you."
"Don't cripple your seeing eye dog," Sheppard said, and Rodney was still for a moment, listening to his bootsteps recede.
"So if you are done being sad and pathetic," Radek said loudly at his left.
"You are the most annoying man I have ever met," Rodney said, and snapped his fingers impatiently. "Send those equations Simpson was so proud of to my laptop," he said. "I've got more career-destroying shredding - I mean, constructive criticism - to do."
*
The days settled into a pattern. Mornings with Rodney, trailing him around the labs, standing close enough that John could inhale his scent easily, keeping himself from looking at him too often, from giving away his fascination by swaying too close, touching more than could be explained by guidance. Afternoons, John spent in his office or on missions, working with new recruits, scribbling his signature on anything Lorne presented to him, and eventually meeting with Rodney in the infirmary for another set of scans to ensure that he and Rodney weren't damaging themselves with the SED (Seeing Eye Dog, of course) device. Afterward, they would eat, sometimes with Carson, other times settling at a table in the mess hall with Teyla, Ronon, Radek, or Elizabeth.
John couldn't stay with Rodney every night as he fell asleep.
He did once or twice, but mostly there was simply too much to do. Also, all the proximity was taking its toll, and often by the end of dinner, John needed to get away, take the device off and lie in his bed, hands running over his skin, eyes closed, imagining it was Rodney touching him. He knew Rodney's scent so well by now - coffee, soap, faint hint of aftershave - and stored up images of those quick, sensitive hands for the moments in his bed, half-dreaming, hard and wanting and more out of control than he'd ever wanted to be. He constructed a thousand (new) fantasies, scenarios in which Rodney lifted John's shirt, shoved pushy hands into his pants, mapped his body by touch alone. John never got very far into these stories - it took less and less, it seemed, to push him over the edge, even when he wanted to go slow. But Rodney was too close, too present, to escape, and John's defenses were being worn away.
Sometimes he fell asleep right after he came. Sometimes he lay awake, thinking about his own idiocy. Sometimes he got up and went back to work, or for a run.
*
When Carson summoned them both to the infirmary in the late afternoon, John was always sort of relieved. Another day without a Wraith attack, no Replicators to run from, no panic-inducing attacks. More time with Rodney.
"You want me to come get you?" he said to Rodney over the radio on the fourth day.
He was answered with a snort. "I think I can manage to get to the infirmary without you," Rodney replied, and the radio went abruptly silent in John's ear.
Okay, then.
Carson scanned them both again; the device didn't seem to be damaging either of them or causing any stress, which made the doc cheerful.
"Rodney," he said, helping him sit up on the MRI table, once the machinery had been retracted, "I may have good news. Dr. Yee has some ideas about how the device is working. Looking at the way it's bypassing the damaged neurons has led to some interesting ideas about retraining your own optical pathways."
"I thought my own brain was supposed to be able to do that," Rodney said.
"We had hoped so, as you know," Carson said, patting Rodney's leg. "But the brain is a mysterious place, and it's hard to say why some injuries can be compensated for, while others cannot. Dr. Yee and I are working on a, well, call it a neural stimulant, based on what the device seems to do. Basically, it's as if the toxins that damaged your eyesight left behind scar tissue. Watching the way the SED works is giving us ideas about breaking down the scar tissue and restoring the original pathways that allow you to see."
"How long..." Rodney stopped and swallowed, and John fought the urge to touch him.
"It won't be today or tomorrow, or even next week," Carson warned gently. "We do have an advantage here, in that the Ancient machines can run much more accurate simulations on potential side-effects. But even with that help, it'll take some time to get the balance of chemicals and carriers right."
Rodney was quiet for a moment, blinking quickly. "Just." He stopped and swallowed, and John looked at Carson, but that wasn't much better. So John looked instead at the wall behind Carson's head, until Rodney spoke again. "Take your time," he said, and he almost sounded normal. "We're doing fine. I'd rather you got it right, considering that we're talking about my eyes, here."
"That's it, Rodney," Carson, and patted Rodney's leg. "All right, off with the both of you, and I'll be getting back to my work."
They hopped off the table. "At least things have been quiet," John offered.
Rodney turned to him, a look of utter amazement on his face. "Oh my god, are you an idiot?" They walked out of the infirmary, Rodney bitching all the way to the mess that John was going to get them all killed by carelessly making statements like "that! That kind of rampant optimism is always what leads to the heroes' horrible deaths! Now the Wraith, the Replicators and the Genii are going to attack all at once, don't you know anything?"
"The Genii are our allies these days," John pointed out, stepping into the mess.
Rodney rolled his eyes (and lurched into John). "That's what they want us to think," he said.
~*~
PART TWO
Rating: NC-17
Summary: "I don't feel so good," Rodney gasped, slowing. John grabbed his arm. "Nearly there," he said.
14 Valentines, Day 14: V-Day
Notes: This part beta'd by the lovely and talented secrethappiness (did you know she can juggle bicycles? she totally can); any mistakes are mine and mine alone. Title from Susan Griffin, Happiness:
...This
is the paradox of vision:
Sharp perception softens
Our existence in the world.
~*~
"Ow!"
"Don't stop!"
"I'm not stopping," Rodney gasped, pounding along behind John. "I'm saying OW! They - hit me - with a rock or - something -"
"Dial the gate, dial the gate!" John roared; Teyla was already slapping the address. Ronon crouched beside the DHD, aiming over John and Rodney's heads, and began laying down cover fire as the event horizon shimmered into being.
"Teyla, go!" John yelled; she turned and let a few bullets fly at the screaming horde of Wraith worshippers in the woods behind them, then vanished through the silver shimmer.
"I don't feel so good," Rodney gasped, slowing. John grabbed his arm.
"Nearly there," he said. There was something sticking out of Rodney's shoulder. "Oh shit," John said, slapping it away - a small, feathered dart that fell to the ground behind them, irretrievable as they fled. "We're almost there," he panted again.
Two steps past the DHD Rodney slumped mid-step to the ground - an abrupt, shocking fall, graceless and heavy.
John struggled to pull him up, not thinking about the way his head flopped bonelessly back as John heaved him forward. "Ronon!"
They pulled him through the gate.
*
Everything hurt.
"Carson," Rodney managed through chattering teeth.
"I've got you," Carson said, calm face hovering over Rodney. Beyond him, the infirmary ceiling, Teyla, Ronon, Sheppard. "You're going to be fine, lad."
Rodney closed his eyes, shaking.
*
"Carson," Rodney said.
His voice sounded pathetic; he cleared his throat (dry and achy) and tried again. "Hey, is anybody -"
"Hey, Rodney." A brief touch on his arm. "Are you thirsty? Beckett said you might be thirsty."
"And they call me a genius," Rodney groused. "Yes, I'm thirsty."
A fumble and then Sheppard's hand was on his shoulder, tugging him upright as the bed hummed, lifting his torso. "Here you go," Sheppard said. Chilly plastic against his mouth; Rodney sipped: water, cool and perfect, sliding down his throat.
"Thank you," Rodney said. "Although if you'd just turn up the lights, I could get my own cup, I'm sure."
"Ah... what?"
The faint click of the cup set aside.
"It's pitch black in here," Rodney said. He lifted a weak hand. "Can't see my hand in front of my face."
There was a pause. "Let me ask the doc about those lights," Sheppard said.
*
"I want to go back to my quarters."
A hubbub of responses, Rodney silent among them, sitting up in the infirmary bed, arms folded, face uncharacteristically blank.
John stepped past Beckett and Elizabeth, past Heightmeyer and Dr. Biro. "I'll take you," he said, and Elizabeth turned on him.
"John, that decision is up to Carson," she said, reproof in her voice.
"It's up to me," Rodney said loudly. "I'm not sick anymore, and my vision isn't going to improve any time soon. I want to be in my own quarters, and I'm going. The only question is whether you're going to let Sheppard take me now, or leave me to fumble my way there by myself in the middle of the night."
John laid one hand on Rodney's arm. "Upsy-daisy," he said, and Rodney swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood.
They walked slowly, more out of deference to Rodney's still-shaky legs than his lack of vision.
"Upsy-daisy?" he said, and his fingers flexed on John's elbow.
John shrugged, telegraphing the motion through his arm. "It's a thing I say."
They walked in silence for a time; Rodney's fingers were a little too tight on John's arm, but John kept his mouth shut. At least Rodney was letting himself be led.
"What are they saying about me in the briefings?" Rodney asked abruptly.
John slowed a little more. "They're worried about you," he said after a brief hesitation. "Carson's frustrated because he hasn't been able to isolate which neural pathways are disrupted, or figure out why your brain hasn't compensated. Biro wants to send you back to Earth, to some neurologist she knows at the SGC. Heightmeyer's worried that you won't talk to her. Radek hates running the labs."
"I won't go to Earth," Rodney said. "If Carson can't figure it out, it can't be figured out, and if they send me away and don't cure me, I'll never get back here."
"Yeah." John glanced at him, then away. It seemed wrong to look at Rodney when Rodney couldn't look back.
On the other hand.
John looked at Rodney for a while, and kept stealing glances for the remainder of the walk.
"...Here we are," John said.
Rodney waved his free hand at the sensor panel and stepped forward unerringly when the door hissed open. "You can come in if you want," he said.
John went with him, hand light on the small of his back. "Uh, it's kind of a mess," he said. "Hold on, I'll pick stuff up so you don't trip."
"You don't have to," Rodney snapped. "I think I can manage to walk around my own quarters."
"I can't manage to walk around your quarters," John said, rolling his eyes. He moved around Rodney's stiff figure, scooping up clothes and MRE packaging, tossing the one into the hamper by the bathroom, the other into the overflowing trashcan under the desk. He stuffed his boot into the can, compacting everything and then cursing as he shook his leg free. "Okay," he said, straightening. "You need anything else?"
"How do I look?" Rodney asked.
"What?"
Rodney lifted one hand, gestured vaguely in front of his face. "I mean, do my eyes look normal? Or, or what? How do I look?"
"You look fine," John said, stepping closer. "Your eyes look, uh, pretty much the same as always." Rodney stood still, chin jutting, bright blue gaze fixed just to the left of John's eyeline. "You look fine," John repeated.
"I just. I wondered." Rodney moved slowly toward his desk, hand outstretched. John resisted the urge to leap to his aid. Rodney's hand encountered the chair; he pulled it out and sat, reaching for his closed laptop. "You can go now," he said, pulling the computer toward himself.
"Okay," John said, turning toward the door. As he left Rodney was opening the computer, fingers sliding over the keyboard, orienting himself. His face was tilted down toward the screen, gaze unmoving as he tapped out a password.
*
Two weeks in and Rodney was back in the labs. He'd rigged a few items to be voice-activated and/or audio-responsive; a bastardized life-signs detector got him through the hallways, paired with one hand running along the walls. His laptop fed tin-voiced information into his headset, a constant mumble of electronic noise, barely audible to anyone else but telling Rodney what he did as his fingers flew over the keyboard.
He'd gotten Harrykissoon to rig up a whiteboard for him, narrow strips of tape in a grid so that he could write in a straight line, equations scrawled in handwriting that was, Radek informed him, just as illegible as before and please stop yelling when we point out the parts we can't read. "Is nothing new," Radek said, and Rodney could hear his eyeroll as clearly as he'd ever seen it.
Atlantis opened to him.
She rose to meet him, responding to his voice commands in the transporters, humming beneath his hands as he walked the corridors. His computer interfaced more smoothly with the Ancient database. The knick-knacks and tools his team still worked to identify, items found in abandoned labs and storage rooms and then set aside for cataloguing, responded more easily to him, although he still found that he needed John for others. They continued their pattern of meeting once a week to sort through items, John adding description to his light-switch duties, Rodney typing his descriptions into the laptop and adding his own details about size, shape, texture.
Some people avoided him.
Others did not. Teyla came to get him a week after he left the infirmary.
"I don't see myself stick-fighting," Rodney said dryly.
He could hear Teyla's small smile when she spoke. "Not yet, perhaps. But you have been sedentary, and you need to maintain the strength you have gained in the last year." Her hand on his arm was light, guiding without pulling, and he went along without protest. It was a relief, in a way, to have someone's touch there, guiding him. He'd pushed everyone away so hard in the beginning that now, two weeks later, some still stuttered when he spoke to them.
In the weight room, she took him from machine to machine, placing his hands on the levers, showing him how to adjust the weight. Her fingers were cool and certain on his, adjusting his grip and leading his hands to the proper places and grips.
"I don't see the point," he puffed, arms straining, pulling a bar down and letting it rise again slowly. "I won't be back in the field. Sheppard's going to have to find someone else for the team."
"That may be true," she said. "And it may not. However, exercise is healthy and you will be lacking in it, if, as you say, you are not going offworld. Also, Dr. Heightmeyer has told me before that it is a great reliever of anxiety and stress."
Rodney closed his eyes and did three more repetitions. "Thanks," he said later, and Teyla squeezed his arm before leaving him at his door.
"It is my pleasure," she said.
*
Ronon kept showing up in the mess hall at the same time as Rodney.
"They have blue jello," he rumbled behind Rodney, and Rodney jumped and turned, scowling, in his direction.
"Thank you so much for that information," he snapped. "I'm sure Private Leighty was just about to tell me that."
The private behind the table mumbled something affirmative, and Rodney reached gingerly out, fingers encountering jello cups. "Aha."
Later Ronon slipped him a second cup. "So Sheppard wants Zelenka to join the team until you can see again," he said.
The table creaked every time Ronon shifted his weight. It was annoying, and Rodney couldn't believe he'd never noticed it before. "Zelenka hates going offworld," he said. "He'd be good at it, though."
"I think he's too timid," Ronon said around a mouthful of... something.
"You know, I never thought I'd be grateful to lose my vision," Rodney said. "But at least I don't have to watch you eat anymore."
Ronon snorted a laugh. "Pot, kettle," he said. Rodney thought maybe he and Sheppard should quit bickering around Ronon, who spoke again: "If you say Zelenka would be good, he'd be good. You should talk to Sheppard about it."
"He can talk to me about it," Rodney said. He ate the second jello cup in silence, listening to Ronon's continued massacre of food from across the table.
"He doesn't want to talk about that with you," Ronon said, and Rodney could feel him stand, hear the bench give a moan of relief as he rose. "If you wanna tell him Zelenka's okay, you'll have to bring it up." A heavy hand landed on Rodney's shoulder. "Later, McKay."
"Uh, later," Rodney said.
*
John's door chimed and then hissed open. "Hey, Rodney. What's up?"
Rodney came into his quarters slowly, stopping just inside the door; John stood and reached for him, touching his wrist lightly. "Floor's clean, I promise," he said. He guided Rodney to the bed.
"I wanted to talk to you about Zelenka," Rodney said, sitting gingerly on the edge.
"Oh." John scratched his ear. "I, well, Elizabeth wants me to find someone temporary, until Beckett figures out how to fix your, uh, your eyes."
"I know that," Rodney said sharply. "She came to me about it a week ago. I told her Radek would be the best choice." He frowned at where John had been a moment ago, and John moved back there, intercepting Rodney's vacant gaze.
"I think he'd be okay, but he seems reluctant," John said. "I'm not sure what to tell him. I thought maybe -"
"He's scared," Rodney said bluntly. "He's always wanted to stay in the city more than he's wanted to get offworld, and now he's got me as a constant reminder of what can happen when people go out there - as if Gall and Abrams and Grodin and Collins and the rest weren't enough."
"Ronon doesn't think he'd be okay," John said slowly. He came and sat beside Rodney. "Teyla thinks he would. I think he would but I, well, I wanted to..." He shrugged, uncomfortable.
"You wanted to know what I thought but you were too chickenshit to ask me," Rodney finished for him.
"I guess." John looked at Rodney's face. It hadn't changed in six weeks. He wondered if it would, eventually - would his eyes lose their piercing brightness? Sink inward, sag? "You seem to be handling... things... well," he offered, the but unspoken.
Rodney laughed, low and bitter. "Don't be an asshole," he said. "I'm handling 'things,' as you so quaintly put it, terribly. I can't -" He stopped for a moment, took a deep breath. "I hate it," he said. "It's just - it's always dark. And I think I'm starting to forget what people look like." John was silent, but he shifted slightly so his shoulder pressed against Rodney's. Rodney sighed. "I've broken four chairs in my room," he said. "Not to mention a few of the less expensive items in the labs, throwing them at people. I've got bruises up and down my shins from bumping into stuff. At least, I think I've got bruises." He snorted humorlessly, pulling his trousers at the knees, displaying hairy shins, decorated with yellowing and fresh marks.
"Yep," John said, leaning to look. "Definitely bruised." He sat back up before he could reach - run his hands gently down Rodney's shins, and Christ, how pathetic. That even his shins should look good. John snorted inwardly.
Rodney let his pants fall again. "I'm handling it like shit," he said. "Heightmeyer keeps telling me it takes time. Jesus." He dropped his face into his hands, muffling his voice. "Like I don't know that."
John touched his shoulder. "I know."
Rodney sat still and silent, hunched beside John for a long moment. Eventually he straightened. His face was just the same - pale and dry, no sign of whatever emotions had shaken him a moment before. It was unnerving, and John wondered how many of Rodney's volatile expressions had been reflections of what he saw around himself. "I don't want Radek taking my place on the team," Rodney said steadily. "But you need a scientist again - you and Teyla and Ronon can't keep risking yourselves without a scientist to save your asses." He smiled, sort of - an uneven quirk of his mouth. "Ask Radek. I'll make sure he says yes."
"Thanks," John said.
They sat quietly for a moment.
"Um," John said.
Rodney turned his face toward him. "What?"
"Are you really forgetting what people look like?" John asked, tentative. He blew out a puff of air. "Forget it. Sorry, I totally suck at this."
"Welcome to the club," Rodney said, voice tight. "Why'd you ask?"
"I was thinking about the movies, where people touch, uh, touch faces to get a picture of how they look," John said, too quickly. "I just wondered if that would really work."
"Huh," Rodney said. "I don't know. Hold still." And just like that he raised his hand, fingers on John's ear, sliding around to touch his cheekbones, nose, the arch of his eyebrows, over his cheeks again, ghosting across his lips and chin.
John struggled to keep still, to breathe normally. It was unsettling, weird, and he wished he'd never said anything. Watching Rodney's head tilt, his eyelids half-closed as he concentrated, as the blunt, soft pads of his fingertips ran over John's face - it was creepy.
He didn't want Rodney to stop.
"I don't know," Rodney said, dropping his hand into his lap. "I mean, I guess it feels like you, like you look. But I'm not sure I could pick anybody out of a lineup that way." His mouth twisted, wry. "Thanks anyway."
"No problem," John said, and stood up.
Rodney stood hastily, too. "So, uh, light-switch duties Tuesday, right? Right. In the afternoon. After Radek's first mission with you guys. I'll talk to him tomorrow." He sniffed. "Tell him to write his will, get his affairs in order."
"You're all about the morale." John led him to the door, glancing at Rodney's tight jaw as it whooshed open.
"Yes, yes. The science staff calls me Miss Mary Sunshine," Rodney said.
John snorted. "Miss Meredith Sunshine," he said, and before Rodney could respond, he pushed him outside, gently. "See you tomorrow, McKay," John said.
Rodney stepped outside, lips twitching - fighting back a smile? Then he turned and lifted his right hand to pat John's cheek twice, unerring and a little sharp. "You need a shave," he said, and smirked, turning away, life-signs detector already in his other hand, strides not much less confident than they'd been before.
John rolled his eyes and watched Rodney walk away.
"Go to bed, Colonel," Rodney called, and John grinned and stepped back into his quarters, doors sliding audibly shut behind him.
*
"You're late," Rodney said when John finally hailed him on Tuesday, stepping into the lab.
"I'm also not covered in swamp slime, and you should be grateful," Sheppard replied.
"Yes, yes," Rodney said. "Radek told me all about it. Way to break him in easy."
He could practically hear Sheppard's smirk. "Hey, he came back with all his pieces, didn't he?" He touched Rodney's arm lightly; Rodney jumped. Sheppard was one of the few people who touched Rodney of his own volition, and Rodney couldn't quite remember if Sheppard had always touched him like this - a brush of his fingers across Rodney's hands, tap on the shoulder, hand at the small of his back to guide him, just for an instant. Ronon had ignored Rodney's acid rebuffs from the start, and touched him no more or less than he ever had; Teyla ended most of their weight-room sessions by bringing his forehead down to her own. But Radek had changed his habit of dragging Rodney physically into a new project by the sleeve, and Elizabeth didn't squeeze his arm anymore. Beckett touched him only professionally, moving him around the equipment for his weekly MRIs or adjusting him in the chair to get the best optical scans. It was Rodney's own fault, he knew - he'd actually yelled at Elizabeth once, in the first days, when she'd offered to lead him to the transporter - but perversely he resented the lack at the same time - without sight to connect him to the world, to the people around him, touch had suddenly jumped in importance.
"All right," Rodney said nervously. He reached out, brushing Sheppard's arm on accident, and pulled the first item from its box. "Simpson and Kusanagi put this box together. It's everything that either needs a really strong gene to operate, or is out of juice. We don't know which." He handed the object to Sheppard, then poised his fingers on the keyboard.
"Okay, silver, sort of, um, egg-shaped, 8.636 centimeters at its longest point, 5.08 centimeters across, 25.654 centimeters diameter at widest point. Weighs..." A pause as Sheppard put it on the scale. "Fourteen-point-five-four ounces." Another pause. Rodney had the urge to place his hand on Sheppard's arm, feel him turn the silver egg in his hands - tendons and muscles lean and flexing in his forearms... "There are two striations on the surface - they look almost like stress fractures, though, not really like part of the object. I'm going to -" a minute pause, then a cracking noise. "Uh, okay, so this one's broken," Sheppard said ruefully.
"Hand it over," Rodney said, snapping impatiently. Sheppard placed several pieces into his hands. "Good work," Rodney said. "That was probably the Ancient food replicator or something." He touched each piece - smooth curves of outer shell, and dozens of tiny springs and cogs. "Or, wait." Rodney held it, turning his head up and to the left as he thought, finger pushing the debris around on his palm absently. "Maybe not." He gestured. "One of the disposal bags, if you don't mind." Sheppard rustled and then his hand cupped the underside of Rodney's, guiding him to pour the pieces into the bag with a faint, tinny chime. Sheppard's hand was warm and calloused under his, rough and steady. "A music box," Rodney said. "Or a children's toy. Probably." He pulled his hand away and typed it in, then turned on the stool to face Sheppard again. "Next."
And so it went. Two of the items came to life; one seemed to be a medical scanner of some stripe, and Rodney set it carefully aside for Carson to look at later. The other just... glowed, not appearing to do anything, until John set it down again. The rest of the items remained inert, and were stowed away accordingly. They were nearly to the bottom of the box when Sheppard said "Hey there," in a cheerful tone.
"What's happening?" Rodney asked sharply.
"This little gadget perked right up when my hand even got near it," Sheppard said. Rodney could hear him moving - a barely audible rustle, and then "Hmm, it looks like it has two parts."
"What is it?" Rodney asked. This was the part he hated, although Sheppard was better than most people about talking as he went - Rodney had never known him to talk so much, until he himself had had to shut up and listen. "Colonel?"
"Well, I don't know what it is," Sheppard said, considering. "There's this part -" He grasped Rodney's hand and placed a flattish, irregular box in it, about the size of a deck of cards. "It's got a clip on it, and there are three lights - " he curled his fingers behind Rodney's, guiding them to touch: Rodney felt smooth bumps, perfectly round, tiny. "They're all glowing green right now." He pulled his hand back. "Oh, only two are green when I take my hand away." He poked it again. "Yep, I guess it likes me better."
Rodney rolled his eyes and batted Sheppard's fingers away. "What's the other part?" Rodney asked, hands busy examining the box. A belt clip? Or a clip of some other kind? "We should measure these before we start messing around with them. Hey. There's a pad here," he added, thumb slipping along a narrow line down the back of the clip; it felt different, softer, almost like leather.
"The other part is - " Sheppard lifted the box from his hand, placed the softer second half of the device into his palm. "Here, feel for yourself. I don't know what it is, except it sort of seems to go with the first one. And it was wrapped around it."
And Rodney was, was seeing something - grey and black, blue, amber, a jumble of shapes, blurry colors his brain named even though it couldn't make sense of them.
"Oh," he said, and his voice sounded gut-punched. He moved, grasped for the Colonel's arm to steady himself, saw a corresponding movement, but it was wrong and he still didn't know what he was seeing - he blinked several times, rapid-fire black-white-black-white. "Don't move," he said.
"Rodney, what's wrong?" Sheppard asked, voice taut. "What's going on?"
"I can -" Rodney blinked again, turned his head and saw movement again. "Hold on." He closed his eyes for a moment - darkness, but not as complete as it had been. He opened his eyes again slowly, one hand tight on Sheppard's arm, the other clenched around the soft form of the second object, slick against his sweaty palm. "I'm, I'm seeing something," he said.
"Holy shit," Sheppard breathed. "What do you see?"
"I don't know," Rodney snapped. "It's not making sense, maybe because it's been so long, I don't -"
Sheppard's arm moved - he lifted it and Rodney heard the click as he tapped his radio. "Carson, this is Sheppard, are you there?"
Rodney ducked - there had been another motion, close, toward his face, but -
"Here, Colonel, is something the matter?"
"Rodney and I are coming to the infirmary, we've got - there's something going on with his eyes," Sheppard said tersely. "We'll be there in a couple of minutes." He dropped his hand, twisting it to hold Rodney's wrist again. "Come on, let's go."
"It's not blurry anymore," Rodney murmured to himself.
"What're you seeing?" Sheppard asked, pulling him up.
Everything swooped. "I don't know," Rodney said again, frustrated, stumbling as Sheppard drew him forward. "It was blurry at first, but now all the edges are sharp and clear, it's just, I can't - " He huffed angrily. "I don't know what it means." He bumped into Sheppard's side as they walked, dizzy and beginning to feel a little nauseous. "Slow down," he said. "Everything's moving. And sometimes it goes black for a second, then comes back - like a flicker, like a camera aperture opening and closing, but it's - ungh, slow down - it's irregular."
"Are you seeing around?" Sheppard demanded, halting for a moment. "Are you seeing... walking by things?"
Rodney closed his eyes to get his bearings, then opened them again, slowly. "It would appear so," he said. "Since it all just stopped moving."
"You can't see it when you close your eyes, can you?" Sheppard said. He'd moved again, and again there was the sense of motion, stopping an instant later. Sheppard's voice came from right in front of him. "What're you seeing right now?"
Rodney growled. "What part of I don't know is unclear to you, Colonel?" he demanded. "It's just - shapes. Colors, like, like..." He stopped. "Be still." He lifted his hand; he saw motion. "Skin," he said, low, and put his fingers up. Yes, there was the Colonel's face, solid and real under his fingertips. But the sight was wrong... He sighed and dropped his hand. "I just - I can't tell, yet." He reached for Sheppard's hand - fumbled it, let Sheppard grip his wrist again. "Let's go."
He closed his eyes a couple of times as they walked, fighting dizziness. Each time, though, he forced them open again; by the time the doors to the infirmary hushed open for them, his stomach had adjusted to what his eyes seemed to be telling him, and he was fine. Stomach-wise, at least. Other things were adjusting as well; he thought that maybe he could tell he was looking at doors, walls, windows, beds, people, and his brain had begun filtering out the weird, abrupt moments where the vision blinked out and then back.
"What've we got here, then?" Carson asked, hurrying up to them.
"Carson!" Rodney said. He reached for his arm. Movement again and he felt an abrupt moment of disorientation. "I can see -" but his aim was off and he had to swing his arm to the left to touch Carson's arm. "I thought I could see," he corrected, scowling.
"Come and sit down," Carson said. His hand was solid on Rodney's shoulder and then it was all weird again, he was walking but his eyes were telling him he was standing still.
"Christ," Rodney ground out. He lifted his hands to his face, angry and confused. The Ancient object dropped out of his hand and there was darkness, everything gone black again no no no - "Fuck! Get it back!" he cried, dropping to his knees, groping for the narrow shape.
His hand closed over it and everything came clear.
Everything.
"Be still!" he ordered, and stayed where he was.
Crouched low, rounded curve of heavy shoulders, hands on the floor, one clenched around something - the object, flexible as a strip of leather, warm against his skin. And there was Carson, yes, bending beside him, hand on his shoulder, face all wrought up in concern, mouth opening to speak. And Nurse Armin, frozen by a lab table, Dr. Biro peering curiously from the door of her office.
Movement again and Rodney gritted his teeth and stayed where he was, waiting.
Looking up, finally, turning his head blindly toward Sheppard and seeing himself, blank blue eyes, red face, messy hair that was getting too long.
"I can see whatever Colonel Sheppard is seeing," Rodney said.
He slowly, carefully, settled back onto his ass on the floor, clutching his half of the object and watching the camera-shutter flicker as John Sheppard blinked, once, twice, three times in a row and then sat down beside him, hand tight around the other half of the device.
*
John stayed with Rodney.
"Stop moving," Rodney ground out at one point, and John carefully didn't nod.
"Okay," he said, and sat obediently beside him, trying to look in whatever direction Rodney turned his head. Mostly, though, he just sat, while Beckett bustled around them both, beckoning others to bring him tools, occasionally moving them from one piece of equipment to another.
Rodney went without demur, though he barked his shins several times, reached into the wrong spaces to grasp things, banged elbows and hands as he reached for objects Beckett tried to hand him.
"Should I take it off?" John offered after a while, and Rodney, hand tight around his half of the device, made a face so devastated that John winced in reaction, glad Rodney couldn't see the wince, at least, even if his voice was stiff when he replied, "No, please. I don't care if it screws me up." He smiled, small and not quite solid. "It's worth it."
John smiled, too, and didn't let go of the device.
They experimented with it. The narrow leathery band at the back of the clip had to be against John's skin, it turned out. He clipped it to the waistband of his pants and slouched on the table again. Any part of Rodney's half (a long strip of the same leathery substance, like a wristband - a sort of sensory pad, Beckett said) could be against his skin, and he buckled it around his wrist after a while.
Elizabeth came in briefly; Radek stopped by, examining the device's two parts without moving them away from either Rodney or John. Teyla and Ronon both came in, disheveled with exercise, still sweaty. Teyla drew Rodney's forehead to her own, smiling. Ronon slapped his back hard enough that Rodney grunted, though he didn't move - he stayed still, smiling crookedly.
They all left. Beckett, John and Rodney continued to experiment.
When Rodney closed his eyes, it was like closing his eyes as a seeing person - there was still a certain amount of light. The same when John did it. When either one of them disengaged the device (Sheppard was already calling it a Seeing Eye Dog in his head), Rodney's vision went completely black again. Rodney could see what John's eyes were focused on, but he also had access to the full field of John's vision - if John was looking at a pencil, Rodney could be reading the writing beside it on the page. Depth perception and focus worked the same for Rodney as for John, but he could concentrate on the blurrier things in John's field of vision, picking out details John was unaware of.
Beckett couldn't use the device with Rodney - only two of the little green lights on the box would come up when Beckett held it, no matter how hard he thought on at it.
"So the Colonel is my seeing eye dog, basically," Rodney said, echoing John's thought.
"It would appear that way, yes," Beckett said.
He did scans of every size, shape and color, with the device in use and without. The "without" pictures were identical to the ones he'd done four days ago at Rodney's weekly check-up. The "with" pictures... Beckett hummed and murmured to himself, peering from one set of scans to another, enlarging certain sections on his computer screens, moving pictures around, clicking from one thing to another as John (and his passenger) watched over his shoulder.
"How does it work?" Rodney finally demanded. He was seated beside John on the exam table, banging his heels restlessly against the side of it.
"My first thought is that it's circumventing the damaged neurons completely," Beckett said, not looking away from the computers. "Which is what I had hoped your brain would do all on its own, but we've talked about that - there's some sort of neural blocking occurring, almost certainly as a result of whatever toxins were used in the dart. This device appears to have got around that, however, as I was saying, and it's feeding information directly from Colonel Sheppard's visual cortex to your optical nerve. I haven't quite got why it responds to your blinking as well as the Colonel's, but it may be a protective aspect, to allow the wearer some sort of control of input - a response to muscular movement as opposed to actual vision being cut off..."
John's stomach made a loud noise, and Beckett looked up.
"Perhaps you two should go and have a late dinner," he said, smiling. "If the Colonel's hungry, you must be famished, Rodney." John watched him stand, watched the fond smile he bestowed on Rodney and the way he gripped Rodney's bicep, warm and reassuring. John wondered if it was weird for Rodney, to see those things from such a removed angle. "It'll take me hours, if not days, to analyze what I've gotten from the scans today."
"Do you think -" Rodney stopped, and John saw him swallow, saw how he tried to smooth the emotion away from his face. John shifted his gaze to Beckett, trying to spare Rodney such a close view of his own expressions. "Never mind."
"I don't know if I can use this information to repair your vision, Rodney," Beckett said gently. "I'll have to do a lot more analysis, and it's not going to be as easy as waving a wand over your eyes, even if it is an Ancient wand." He patted Rodney's arm. "So go. Eat, then get some rest. I know the Colonel's had a long day," John snorted; he could still see mud on the floor from the team's post-mission exams, "and I'm certain that you have, as well."
"I'm sure you'll do your best for Rodney, Doc," John said, sliding off the table and turning to place his hand on Rodney's wrist.
Rodney came docilely enough, more a sign of his hunger than John's gift for leadership, he was pretty sure. He allowed John to lead him, calling back over his shoulder to Beckett to hurry it up with that miracle cure, and if he could give people the ATA gene, it shouldn't take him long to figure out a little thing like restoring sight to the blind.
"Geez, Rodney, no pressure," John said, pulling him out the door. "Give the guy a break, he'll do the best he can."
"I know," Rodney said. He walked smoothly enough, only stumbling once, when they entered the transporter. He overcompensated for the angle of John's vision, squashing close to him - warm and solid, John had time to register, before Rodney jerked away to step carefully into a corner of the transporter, hands out until he felt the walls, turning in the small space to face outward again. "Sorry," he muttered.
John tapped the transporter pad, keeping his gaze on the doors. "No problem," he said. "I think you're adjusting pretty well."
Rodney snorted a little. "It's disorienting as hell," he said. They stepped out of the transporter and walked toward the mess hall. "The weirdest thing is constantly seeing myself."
"It's not that bad," John said, smiling a little.
Rodney rolled his eyes, then lurched sideways into John. "Ooh, that was weird," he said.
John laughed.
They ate side by side. There were few people in the cavernous room; the lights were low, kitchen closed. John fetched food from the table always set out against the back wall: cereal and muffins, apple juice to drink. Mostly they were quiet, Rodney practicing reaching for things, although he was aware (as he snapped in response to John's question) that it would all go to hell the minute they weren't seated at this exact distance.
John finished his food and closed his eyes, twisting his neck from side to side.
"Give a guy some warning, would you?" Rodney said, groping after the cup he'd nearly knocked over.
John sighed. "What are you going to do when I want to sleep?" he said. "I don't mind being your seeing eye dog, but I have to sleep and work, too. I can't walk fourteen inches to your right all the time."
"I know," Rodney said, voice low, and John looked sharply at him. His head was down, chin nearly on his chest, and his eyes were closed. John allowed himself to keep his gaze on Rodney, listening as he went on. "This is nice and all, but it's no use, really. I'm no more sighted than I was three hours ago." He lifted his head and John looked away hastily. It was wrong, somehow, that Rodney should see himself looking so defeated.
Oh, he hadn't answered.
John patted Rodney's leg. "At least it gives Carson something to work on," he offered.
"We'll see," Rodney replied, but he sounded more like himself.
"Very funny," John said, and as Rodney sent him a death glare (surprisingly effective, despite his blindness), John poked him in the side.
"Hey!"
John's grin went thoughtful. "Anyway, even if Beckett doesn't get anywhere, this could be pretty useful. In emergencies, you know. Stuff like that."
"God, if I could get you in the lab for two hours a day," Rodney said, sighing with longing.
John cleared his throat hastily. That was a new tone of voice. "Sure," he said without thinking too much. He began stacking plates on the tray, standing up slowly to give Rodney time to react. "I could do that, probably."
He walked Rodney back to his quarters. They stood outside his door, and John watched Rodney's face flicker through panic, sadness, resignation. "You can take it off now, I guess," he said.
John hesitated. "I could, ah." Rodney's head moved, turned toward him blindly. "I could come in. Sit and read something on your computer while you fall asleep. If you want."
Rodney made a face. "You don't have to. I'm capable of falling asleep without you there to sing me lullabies."
John held his hands up. "Whoa, there, McKay, I didn't offer to sing, now." He waved one hand over the door sensor, grinning as Rodney huffed in irritation, Atlantis responding to his gene as much as to the motion, overriding Rodney's locks. "And I can't do this every night, but I can tonight, so," John lifted one shoulder, hopeful that Rodney would hear the shrug in his voice. "Take it or leave it."
It was Rodney's turn to hesitate. He gestured, finally, indicating the door. "Okay, then. It would be nice."
Rodney disappeared into the bathroom; John sat at the desk and appropriated the laptop.
"The guest password is 'Radek loves Elizabeth,' all one word, all lowercase," Rodney called. "Also, I can't tell you how weird it is to pee while I'm looking at my room."
"Close your damn eyes," John called back, typing it in.
"I had to," Rodney yelled. "I'm not so good with the wiping up accidents at the moment."
The toilet flushed, then the water ran. There were a few noises after that, and Rodney emerged wearing boxers and a t-shirt.
"That was one of the more bizarre conversations we've ever had," John said. "Also: 'Radek loves Elizabeth'?"
Rodney grinned. "Just waiting for Zelenka to ask to use it." He sat on the edge of the bed, then flopped back, sprawling on the bedspread.
John looked away, swallowing.
Silence. He settled into the desk chair, stiffening as it creaked, then relaxing. "Sorry," he said quietly.
"Don't worry about it," Rodney said. He shifted - getting under the covers - and sighed. John risked a glance. Rodney lay on his back, arms loose at his sides, eyes half-open, lips curved in a small, crooked smile, more relaxed than John had seen him in weeks.
"Good night," John said, turning his face toward the laptop, eyes unfocused, struggling not to react to Rodney, happy and loose and sprawled in a bed four feet away.
After a while it was easier; he accessed his e-mail from the network and read team reports until he heard a soft, snuffling snore, then two more.
John turned around in the chair, and he watched Rodney sleep for a few minutes before standing and leaving as quietly as he could. He pulled the device from his waistband as he walked, holding it in one palm, looking at it and then closing his fingers carefully around it and stepping into his quarters.
He laid it on his nightstand, ready for tomorrow.
*
Darkness again, the unrelieved darkness of the past six weeks.
Rodney sighed, wondering if he'd dreamed all that. He did still dream with vision - wondered what it would mean if he stopped completely. For the moment, he enjoyed even the weirdest ones. At least he saw faces in his dreams.
Groping for his headset, his hand landed on the band of the Ancient seeing-eye device.
Not a dream, then.
Rodney strapped the band around his wrist again; thought about radioing Sheppard, but he didn't know what time it was, and it would probably be easier to move around his quarters without having to tune out whatever the Colonel was seeing. So he showered and brushed his teeth, shaved carefully, fingers trailing over soapy skin, followed by the razor in the other hand. A quick check of his computer - 6:40 a.m., and he wondered what time he'd fallen asleep last night - led to checking his e-mail. The computer read it to him, radio tucked into his ear.
And suddenly he could see again.
He blinked and the jumbled images resolved into Sheppard's hands, clipping the device to his waistband. Rodney flushed at the unexpected glimpse of Sheppard's underwear, and tapped his radio to a new frequency, away from the one he'd designated as an interface with the computer systems. It wasn't that Sheppard couldn't break into the interface channel, but he'd gotten used to keeping them separate.
"Good morning," Rodney said dryly, and waited, sitting still at his desk as he watched Sheppard retrieve his headset from the nightstand.
"Hey, Rodney, you're awake," Sheppard said quietly.
"Yeah, a little while ago," Rodney said.
"You hungry?"
"Have we not established that I'm awake?" Rodney asked.
Sheppard laughed a little, low and intimate in his ear, and Rodney turned his head away, as if Sheppard could see his reaction. "Yeah, okay. How about I come get you?"
"Take your time, Colonel, I'll just be sitting here looking at whatever you're looking at," Rodney said, smirking.
"Roger that," Sheppard said, and Rodney did - stayed in his chair and watched Sheppard's progress through the corridor, watched the way people smiled at him, the way the wall panels glowed gently as he approached and passed. It was a little disorienting, seeing the sway of his strides this way, but no worse than watching a movie filmed with a hand-held camera. Distinctly disorienting, however, to be confronted with his own face when the door whooshed open before Sheppard, and Rodney blinked several times, as if that would clear his vision.
"That's very bizarre," he said to himself, and fell into step beside Sheppard, one hand touching the Colonel's wrist for guidance when the disorientation grew too strong.
After breakfast Rodney dragged Sheppard to the labs, where they walked from one whiteboard to another, Rodney growing progressively more irascible as he corrected errors, mocked inadequacies, and in a few cases simply erased huge chunks of calculation. Only Simpson protested, and Rodney's reply was (he sincerely hoped) scathing enough that no one else would ever challenge him again. Sheppard stood at his side the entire time, and Rodney was secretly delighted by the ability to shriek out "YOU HAVEN'T EARNED THE RIGHT TO ROLL YOUR EYES AT ME!" at Hewitt. It made him jump very satisfactorily.
That done, Rodney sat down with Radek and began going over blueprints and schematics that had been difficult to assess without being able to physically look at them. Sheppard was actually useful, there, putting in information about manpower and space usage needs that made Radek look at him with interest.
"What?" Sheppard said. "I'm not actually stupid."
"Yes, yes, you're a prodigy," Rodney said, patting his arm, and then had to remind Sheppard to look back at the computer screen, as all Rodney was seeing was his own face, and pleasant as that was, the glare was being wasted right along with Rodney's valuable time, so if the Colonel could please focus. Sheppard flipped him off, being sure to hold his hand up where Rodney would get a good view, and then turned his gaze back to the schematics.
Radek muttered something that sounded obscene, but Radek was always doing that.
"Rodney, I gotta go," Sheppard said finally, and Rodney saw his own face fall.
He controlled it admirably, though, he thought, and nodded. "I suppose so," he said. "Although really you're much more useful here than you will be off getting beaten up by Teyla, or barking orders at Lorne, or whatever it is you do all day."
"I know, it's nothing useful or worthy," Sheppard deadpanned. "Just protecting our asses from the Wraith, and Replicators, getting food, stuff like that."
"Ha," Rodney snorted.
"You ready?" Sheppard asked.
"I suppose so," Rodney said, unable to hide the unhappiness in his voice.
"Hey, I'll be back to hang out later, buddy," Sheppard said, and took off the belt-clip.
Blackness, and Rodney tried to hide his shudder, waving nonchalantly in Sheppard's general direction. "Have fun. I'm radioing Teyla to tell her to go extra hard on you."
"Don't cripple your seeing eye dog," Sheppard said, and Rodney was still for a moment, listening to his bootsteps recede.
"So if you are done being sad and pathetic," Radek said loudly at his left.
"You are the most annoying man I have ever met," Rodney said, and snapped his fingers impatiently. "Send those equations Simpson was so proud of to my laptop," he said. "I've got more career-destroying shredding - I mean, constructive criticism - to do."
*
The days settled into a pattern. Mornings with Rodney, trailing him around the labs, standing close enough that John could inhale his scent easily, keeping himself from looking at him too often, from giving away his fascination by swaying too close, touching more than could be explained by guidance. Afternoons, John spent in his office or on missions, working with new recruits, scribbling his signature on anything Lorne presented to him, and eventually meeting with Rodney in the infirmary for another set of scans to ensure that he and Rodney weren't damaging themselves with the SED (Seeing Eye Dog, of course) device. Afterward, they would eat, sometimes with Carson, other times settling at a table in the mess hall with Teyla, Ronon, Radek, or Elizabeth.
John couldn't stay with Rodney every night as he fell asleep.
He did once or twice, but mostly there was simply too much to do. Also, all the proximity was taking its toll, and often by the end of dinner, John needed to get away, take the device off and lie in his bed, hands running over his skin, eyes closed, imagining it was Rodney touching him. He knew Rodney's scent so well by now - coffee, soap, faint hint of aftershave - and stored up images of those quick, sensitive hands for the moments in his bed, half-dreaming, hard and wanting and more out of control than he'd ever wanted to be. He constructed a thousand (new) fantasies, scenarios in which Rodney lifted John's shirt, shoved pushy hands into his pants, mapped his body by touch alone. John never got very far into these stories - it took less and less, it seemed, to push him over the edge, even when he wanted to go slow. But Rodney was too close, too present, to escape, and John's defenses were being worn away.
Sometimes he fell asleep right after he came. Sometimes he lay awake, thinking about his own idiocy. Sometimes he got up and went back to work, or for a run.
*
When Carson summoned them both to the infirmary in the late afternoon, John was always sort of relieved. Another day without a Wraith attack, no Replicators to run from, no panic-inducing attacks. More time with Rodney.
"You want me to come get you?" he said to Rodney over the radio on the fourth day.
He was answered with a snort. "I think I can manage to get to the infirmary without you," Rodney replied, and the radio went abruptly silent in John's ear.
Okay, then.
Carson scanned them both again; the device didn't seem to be damaging either of them or causing any stress, which made the doc cheerful.
"Rodney," he said, helping him sit up on the MRI table, once the machinery had been retracted, "I may have good news. Dr. Yee has some ideas about how the device is working. Looking at the way it's bypassing the damaged neurons has led to some interesting ideas about retraining your own optical pathways."
"I thought my own brain was supposed to be able to do that," Rodney said.
"We had hoped so, as you know," Carson said, patting Rodney's leg. "But the brain is a mysterious place, and it's hard to say why some injuries can be compensated for, while others cannot. Dr. Yee and I are working on a, well, call it a neural stimulant, based on what the device seems to do. Basically, it's as if the toxins that damaged your eyesight left behind scar tissue. Watching the way the SED works is giving us ideas about breaking down the scar tissue and restoring the original pathways that allow you to see."
"How long..." Rodney stopped and swallowed, and John fought the urge to touch him.
"It won't be today or tomorrow, or even next week," Carson warned gently. "We do have an advantage here, in that the Ancient machines can run much more accurate simulations on potential side-effects. But even with that help, it'll take some time to get the balance of chemicals and carriers right."
Rodney was quiet for a moment, blinking quickly. "Just." He stopped and swallowed, and John looked at Carson, but that wasn't much better. So John looked instead at the wall behind Carson's head, until Rodney spoke again. "Take your time," he said, and he almost sounded normal. "We're doing fine. I'd rather you got it right, considering that we're talking about my eyes, here."
"That's it, Rodney," Carson, and patted Rodney's leg. "All right, off with the both of you, and I'll be getting back to my work."
They hopped off the table. "At least things have been quiet," John offered.
Rodney turned to him, a look of utter amazement on his face. "Oh my god, are you an idiot?" They walked out of the infirmary, Rodney bitching all the way to the mess that John was going to get them all killed by carelessly making statements like "that! That kind of rampant optimism is always what leads to the heroes' horrible deaths! Now the Wraith, the Replicators and the Genii are going to attack all at once, don't you know anything?"
"The Genii are our allies these days," John pointed out, stepping into the mess.
Rodney rolled his eyes (and lurched into John). "That's what they want us to think," he said.
~*~
PART TWO
Rating: NC-17
Summary: "I don't feel so good," Rodney gasped, slowing. John grabbed his arm. "Nearly there," he said.
14 Valentines, Day 14: V-Day