Tin Man (4/4)
He approached the bed cautiously, Teyla and Ronon flanking him. Sheppard didn't notice, preoccupied with a pencil and sheet of paper. His focus and determination was intense, as if he were solving a complex equation.
Amy, the head nurse in charge of Sheppard's care, nodded at them. “He woke up a little while ago. Dr. Kertesz hasn't conducted an examination since his last seizure. I'm not sure what you should expect.” Looking over her shoulder, she smiled maternally. “He found the notepad and pencil by his table and just started writing.” She turned back to them. “I'll let him know you’ve arrived.”
Walking over to his right side, she touched her patient's shoulder. “Colonel, your friends are here to see you.”
Hazel eyes blinked up at the nurse and did a slow sweep across his visitors, pausing at each face in concentration.
Teyla was first to step up with a warm a smile. “John?”
Sheppard blinked up in confusion, opening his mouth and pausing in uncertainty. “Tey-la?”
“Yes. It is good to see you. How do you feel?”
Sheppard stared at her. “I...” he squinted, rubbing a hand through his disheveled hair, sending tufts everywhere. “I...”
“He feels like stuttering,” Rodney interrupted, saving Sheppard from his inability to answer the question. Stepping closer, he quirked an eyebrow. “Please tell me you know who I am?”
With a slight eye roll, Sheppard managed a, “R'dey.”
Ronon gave him a nervous sideways glance at Sheppard's difficulty with words, but the guy had just had another seizure and that earned him a pass in Rodney's book. “And do you know who Conan is?”
“R'in,” Sheppard replied, then closed his eyes in frustration. “Fuck!”
Taking the spotlight away from his current speech disability, Rodney took interest in the yellow notepad. “Are you doodling anything interesting?”
Taking up the pencil again, small tremors pulsed through Sheppard's fingers. “M-y n-name.”
All Rodney saw were endless scribbles of a person who didn't know how to draw letters, but Sheppard continued with the effort, despite how his fingers trembled. The shaking started to increase in intensity until there was slight jerk, the graphite weaving a large wavy line. Sheppard's eyes slammed close and flicked open again in a glassy haze.
“Are you alright, John?”
Rodney was seconds away from hitting the call button until Sheppard looked up groggily. “T-la?"
“Yes, I am here.”
Sheppard completed a slow pan of the room on each of their faces again before contemplating his pencil in confusion. “W’at?”
“You were writing your name,” Rodney answered.
“Oh.” Sheppard stared at the pencil, his hand still trembling, then looked over at Ronon.
“H-hey.”
“Hey, buddy.”
Sheppard dragged his gaze back to the notepad as if he'd never seen it. This time his whole body spasmed with a single jolt and stilled again. Eyes snapping shut and opening again, Sheppard looked up disoriented. “T'la?”
Wiping a tear from her eye, Teyla took Sheppard's hand. “I am here, John.”
----
They stood outside the electromagnetic field, each with their assigned role, all three of them pushing away the anger and grief eating them up inside.
Rodney looked to Ronon and Teyla, each nodding when he gave the signal to allow them inside.
Ten greeted his visitors and Ronon strolled over in three quick steps. “Give me one reason why I shouldn't tear you apart?”
Flinching as if struck, Ten glanced over at the most familiar person and rubbed at the back of his neck in a very familiar manner. “Rodney, what's going on?”
Oh, my God. Ten had Sheppard's voice.
“Stop that.” Rodney commanded.
“Stop what?”
“Use your own voice,” Rodney answered.
“But this is my voice,” Ten defended. Stretching his long neck toward Teyla, he tilted his head. “Does it bother you?”
“It makes me upset,” Teyla responded softly.
“I'm sorry. I don't want to make you sad.” Teyla stepped closer and Ten held out his hand, gently placing the tips of his fingers on her shoulder. “Be careful, there are tools on the floor.”
Ronon kicked the tools out of the way and stared up menacingly at Ten's face. “Don't touch her.”
“It's alright. I'm fine.” Ronon flashed his teeth at Ten and backed away as Teyla inclined her head. “Thank you.”
Ten's smile was a thick band of light.
“Please, would you help us?”
“Of course, Teyla,” Ten replied still mimicking Sheppard's voice.
“We think you may be able to help John.”
“I would love to help him, he has given me so much.”
Rodney bristled, balling his fists in restraint.
“We know you never meant to cause John harm,” she said kindly, repeating Sheppard's name as often as possible. Reminding Ten that he was a living person. “And if you help us, we know we can work together again. You want to continue repairing the fighter ship with us, don't you?”
“Yes!” Ten's eye gleamed sapphire. “I haven’t been allowed to work with the other teams in many hours. I do not wish to remain in this confined space.”
“We welcome your expertise, but we need your assistance.”
“Of course.”
“You told Rodney the program you used to copy John's DNA was transmitted back to you?”
“Yes.”
“And how do you retrieve the data?”
Ten's mouth thinned.
“I told you he'd lie to us,” Ronon growled. “We should shut him down and extract what we need.”
“No! It is a part of me. You cannot extract it like that.”
“You've assimilated Sheppard's information with your own?” Rodney asked.
“Yes, it is part of my programming.”
Rodney felt his heart sink, but he kept his expression neutral. “What about sending the information back?”
Ten's eyes dimmed and his long articulated fingers bounced a staccato beat on his hip.
“Told you,” Ronon hissed at Rodney. “We're better off dissembling him. Take our chances.”
They were on a tight rope, risking a possible violent defensive reaction. Self-preservation was a deep-rooted human instinct.
“Ten wants to help,” Teyla stated. “He's always wanted to help. It was what he was designed for.”
Ten nodded, but his eyes morphed into large saucers of light. “Something is happening. I don't...I'm not sure what's going on.”
“It's called guilt,” Rodney chimed in. “Sheppard carries a lot of it around. Or is it just a bunch of ones and zeros?”
“It must be a problem in my new programming.”
“No, it's one the most intense emotions a human can ever experience. I'm not sure how that translates inside all of those circuit boards, but it hurts us.”
“It is difficult to re-route.”
“It goes away when you do something about it. Like telling us if you can transfer the data back to Sheppard.”
“That is... possible.”
“That's great news, Ten,” Teyla praised.
“But I will lose everything.”
“Yeah, using cut and paste kind of sucks that way,” Rodney snapped.
Teyla sent him a glare and he shut up.
“But I'm still installing the programming. Maybe we can wait for another solution?”
“John doesn't have time to wait,” Teyla told Ten, touching his giant metal wrist.
“I don't want to lose what I have. When I close my eyes, I see the most beautiful skies. Ones I've never seen before, causing my processors to run faster than normal and my internal temperature to increase.” Ten brushed his fingers over Teyla's hand. “When I say your name, I see you in a tent drinking tea and the way you light up when you hold your baby.”
Still smiling, his head pivoted toward Rodney. “When I say yours, I see flashes of numbers and this game with hand-carved pieces. And there are many other things . There's this multicolored triangle on a string that sails in the air and the sound of laughing.”
Ten opened his arms wide toward Ronon. “And with your name-”
“Shut up!” Ronon growled. “They don't belong to you!”
“Ronon is right. Those memories, the way they make you respond, they do not are not yours.”
Ten lowered his arms. “But...”
“Do you understand the concept of stealing?” Rodney challenged.
The bottom of Ten's head dipped to the top of his chest plate. “Yes. It’s when you take something without permission.”
“But do you know it's wrong?” Rodney pushed. “If you really do have part of John inside you, then you are aware of the difference between right and wrong.”
“Not only that, you would want to help him.” Teyla placed her tiny hand in Ten's. “That is what John does. He helps people, and he'll put his life on the line doing it.”
“Compassion,” Ronon grunted. “Have you learned what that is?”
“I must get back to attending to Fur,” Ten answered, dropping Teyla's hand and bending to pick up one of his tools.
Rodney hadn't noticed the pet and saw it snuggled inside a borrowed uniform jacket. Ten lowered himself to his knees and playfully ruffled the top of the dog's head.
“You said you would do whatever it took to save Fur. What you're doing isn't compassion. It's selfishness.”
Ten snapped his head around at Rodney. “What do you mean?”
“Is it humane to prolong his suffering just to keep him around? Are you doing it for him or for yourself?” Rodney accused.
“You may not be able to save Fur, but you can save John,” Teyla pleaded. “If you wanted to learn what it was like to be human, then that is the greatest act you could do.”
---
Ronon glared at Rodney while he paced in Jennifer's office. “I wasn't kidding about taking him apart.”
“I'm well aware of that,” Rodney snarled, feeling frazzled. “Which is why you played 'bad cop.'”
But the whole good cop versus bad cop with him as the neutral party hadn't worked. Once Ten had set his sights on his fuzzy little pet, they might as well have been the paint on the wall.
“Can't you just re-program him?” Ronon asked.
“Right, because I hadn’t thought of that? I wouldn't even know where to begin, let alone figure out how to strip Sheppard's...”
Consciousness? How did ones and zeros transfer to a personality? Rodney continued pacing. But ones and zeros do transfer images, video, and data, don't they? It was the same concept. And what did Jennifer say? Once the virus copied what it needed, it accidental neutralized the healthy neurotransmitters.
“I say we take his pet,” Ronon suggested.
“We will do no such thing,” Teyla argued, both warriors facing each other.
“Why not?” Ronon growled, his frustration boiling over. “It's the only thing he cares about!”
“There must be some other way.” Teyla stood beside Rodney. “Didn't he say-”
“Doctor McKay?”
Rodney held up a finger and slapped his headset. “Yes?”
“It's Sergeant Davidson. The android said he would begin the transfer, but he needs us to lower the shield.”
He nearly pressed the earpiece into his skull. “Come again?”
“He said that all of the other transfers were completed when he was outside the shield. I don't know what he's-”
“What are you waiting for?” Rodney shouted. “Do it!”
“I'll need authorization to-”
“Fine, fine. I'll get Lorne.” Rodney cut the connection. Why did people have to make simple things complicated?
“I don't like this.”
Of course Ronon didn't.
Rodney ranted and raved with both Woolsey and Lorne, reminding them that they were dealing with an android unable to cope with or process real emotions and would they hurry the hell up and get with the program before Ten changed his mind.
“Dealing with an unpredictable android is the reason why we have to secure the jumper bay, Doc,” Lorne reminded him on the radio.
Jennifer entered her crowded office as he yelled at people to hurry up.
“Maybe we should slow down. I'm not sure if it's a good idea to have all of this data transferred back to Colonel Sheppard all at once.”
Rodney couldn't allow himself to think like that. “I'm not the one in charge of data storage.”
“If all the inactive neurons are blocked, then bombarding his brain with information might not work.”
Rodney shook his head. “You said the neurons were the lock and the neurotransmitters were the key. We're providing the key Sheppard needs. If we wait too much longer, what will happen with the virus?”
“If they stop transmitting, his brain would get rid of them, passing them through his spinal fluid.”
Grimacing at the gory details, Rodney added. “That or Woolsey will want to use an EP weapon and destroy the only things inside his brain capable of transferring everything back. Either way, can we afford to wait?”
-----
Rodney entered Sheppard's cubicle where Teyla and Ronon were already gathered around his bed.
“Will this hurt him?” Teyla whispered.
“I don't know,” Jennifer admitted.
“Wht's g’ing on?” Sheppard slurred, eyes darting around the room at everyone surrounding him.
He tried to sit straighter, but didn't have the strength to lift himself up.
Ronon took the chair in front of him. “Did I ever tell you about the time a Nerombi warlord wanted me to marry both of his wives?”
It was hard to tell if Sheppard even knew where he was or if he recognized Ronon. It didn't matter. He'd forget in about three minutes and they'd have to start over again.
“Doctor McKay. This is Lorne. We've got the jumper bay secured. The android said he'll commence in three minutes and mentioned it had to be done in a single transfer. ”
Rodney fought the urge to talk to Ten, to ask him a million questions before he was fundamentally changed. Did that make him a horrible friend?
But he didn't and he took a place by Sheppard's side, smiling even though the man was thankfully distracted by Ronon's tale, his eyes a dull shadow of their normal vibrancy. Teyla took a hold of one of John's hands to still the nonstop palsy that had rooted itself since that morning.
“Ten wants to know if you're ready?” Lorne radioed.
Jennifer gave Rodney a nervous glance, her attention on her patient. The other nurse, Amy, hovered nearby.
It was all up to him. Rodney looked to Sheppard, knowing he'd been given all of the man's trust. “Lorne, tell Ten he has a go.”
Three seconds passed. Twenty, then thirty. Rodney wiped at the sweat at his forehead, wondering if it had really worked and praying he wasn't frying the rest of John's mind.
Ronon stopped telling his story, watching Sheppard as the trembling ceased wracking his hands.
“Colonel? How are you feeling?” Jennifer eyed the equipment but still touched his wrist to monitor his pulse. “John?”
Sheppard's eyes drifted closed, his head lolling to his shoulder.
Then his whole body jerked, shaking the bed. It jerked again.
“Everyone back away,” Jennifer ordered as she gently cushioned Sheppard's head with her hands. “Amy, I want you to push 2 megs of diazepam per minute and lets get him on oxygen.”
Rodney stood frozen as the seizure went on and on and on, helpless to do anything. Please, please, he begged to whomever would listen. Let this be the right decision.
“You guys need to clear the area,” another nurse ordered as she stormed into the cubicle.
“McKay!” Lorne yelled on the radio.
“What?” Rodney snapped back, staring at the curtain that blocked his view.
“We've got a situation here.”
----
Rodney watched the dot on the display screen as it left orbit.
“How did the hell did this happen?” he demanded.
“According to Major Lorne, as soon as Ten was finished, he simply headed toward the fighter ship,” Woolsey informed him. “I am waiting for further details. Apparently, it happened so fast that there was hardly any time to react.”
“He stole the ship?”
Woolsey joined him next to the monitor. “It would appear.”
“But he doesn't have the gene!”
“Who says he didn't create it?” Radek suggested.
Fuming, his emotions shot to hell, Rodney pinned Radek with a fiery glare. “I thought you said that there were still major issues to be worked out before it would fly?”
Glancing up from one of the consoles, Radek shook his head. “It is not flight ready. The engines will most certainly overheat and most likely explode. Ten knew that.”
Rodney's stomach flip-flopped. Ten didn’t know how to fly either, but maybe he’d learned enough during the repairs to get airborne. “Lorne!” he yelled into the radio.
“Lorne here.”
“Was Fur with Ten?”
“Who?”
“His pet? Did he take it with him?”
“I think.”
Spinning around, he snapped his fingers at Radek. “Get me a channel.”
“I can't. Communications were not restored.”
“Damn it!”
“Is he trying to return to his world?” Woolsey asked.
“No, the solar flares reached high M-class waves a couple of days ago. They would’ve wreaked havoc with all onboard systems.”
All Rodney could do was watch the dot move farther and farther away.
Then it disappeared.
---
John woke up to soft, insistent chatter and a set of bongos inside his head.
“I saw his eyes move.”
“Was it a twitch? Because I hate to break it to you, but his whole body tends to twitch.”
“No, he definitely blinked.”
“That's not much different from twitching.”
“He's listening to us.”
The chatter died down, but not the drumming, and John craned his head to the side, three images blurring into view. “Whatz...” he licked at dry lips, trying to form the right sounds. “Wats...”
“You're in the infirmary. On Atlantis...um, do you know where that is?”
Long beautiful spires of a city on the sea entered his mind, the image stealing his breath. “Yeah.”
“And do you know who I am?”
“Ysss, R'dy.” John grit his teeth, fighting annoyance at how the sounds got mixed up.
“Jennifer said it would take a while for you to regain your speech completely. Do not let it frustrate you.”
John nodded at Teyla, the motion setting off pounding drums, and he groaned.
“Want me to get Jennifer?” Ronon peered over him.
John shook his head. “Sta.”
“She probably already knows he's awake.” Rodney pointed at the monitoring equipment above John's head. “And who knows? Maybe we can get her to fix some of the more annoying parts of your winning personality while we're at it.”
John didn't think he had the ability to articulate to McKay just exactly what he thought about that idea, but there were more ways to communicate his feelings and he glared murderously.
Ronon smirked in approval.
John traced the crown of his head with his hand, hoping all that'd been lost would return. His hand shook at the thought, not from the beginnings of another spasm but from fear.
“We're not going anywhere,” Ronon's voice rumbled.
He searched their faces, eyes drifting to each one as they nodded in agreement.
“It will be a long road, but you will never be alone,” Teyla vowed.
His heart pounded along with the drumming in his head, and he knew he might lose it in front of them, unable to raise his walls like normal.
“Perhaps we'll give you a few minutes, but we will be right outside the curtain,” Teyla said, rising. Touching her head to his, she brushed away the moisture from his face. “It is good to have you back.”
----
“S’op starin'.”
“Seriously? You have coils hanging above your head. It's weird,” Rodney defended.
Sheppard glowerd at him, but it was difficult to take the threat seriously with circular rings hanging above his skull by a ridiculous contraption.
“I ‘ate this.”
Rodney did a double take and refrained from the obvious joke. “Well, too bad. That thing uses electromagnetic induction to depolarize the neurons in your brain to help reactivate all your pathways.”
Sheppard raised in eyebrow in question.
“Are you kidding me? Do you know how much sleep I lost trying to save you? I wasn't about to allow them to ruin all of my hard work without reading up on the therapy. Especially when it looks like something bought on eBay by crazed paranoids who don't want the government to read their warped minds.”
It'd been a week and they were still working on Sheppard's speech and helping with the severe mood swings. The virus was gone, thanks to a quick burst from an EP field. It would take weeks more for his brain chemistry to revert back to normal and start producing the right level of hormones. Not to mention healing the neurotransmitters and getting all the synapse to fire correctly again.
But they were getting there.
“W’at do ‘u hav’?”
Rodney stared down at the paper in his lap and picked it up. “I thought you might want to read this, and what I mean by that is I'll read it out loud. Ten wrote a note. I think it must have been after the three of us went to talk to him and when he agreed to transfer everything back.”
He cleared this voice.
“Thank you. Emotion without context is a program without instructions. Neither can be executed if they do not solve a problem. Merely functioning is not what I was programmed to do.”
Rodney felt his throat close a little and grabbed the glass of water on the table by the bed. “Nice, huh?”
Sheppard looked away and Rodney knew he risked another waterworks display that would undoubtedly scar the man who hated such things. He wouldn't put it pass Sheppard to have kept track so he could counter each one with more manly displays later.
“It's probably better this way. It's not like he could have returned home with all the solar activity, and after what he did to you, he'd be too much of a security risk to be allowed to roam around.”
“It was... hum'n.” Sheppard closed his eyes. “Hu-man…th-ing.”
Rodney looked at his friend with a sad smile. “I guess your right. In the end, he fulfilled his wish. His last act saved you and spared the one thing that meant more to him than I think he even realized....even if it was a bit more of a John Sheppard thing to do than I care for.”
Sheppard gave Rodney's shoulder a pat and gestured at his vocabulary flashcards.
“Alright, ready for another round? Maybe by next week we'll graduate to Pictionary. Hey, ow, don't hit me.”
Shuffling the cards, Rodney stared back down at the poem written below the note, thinking he would never discard another computer again.
---
I walked in faraway lands
Laughing, screaming, crying.
I touched the sky on metal wings
Breathing in sand, sea, and stars.
I walked in faraway lands
On legs of flesh and bone.
But the pain was not real
My body an empty shell.
I never stood
in those deserts
woods or waves.
I don't need to.
--Ten
-----
Fini-
Feedback is always appreciated.
Prompt:
Request: Something technology-related is killing John, and Rodney has to race a clock to figure it out -- John's trapped in a machine or infected with a nanite plague or replaced by a robot or had his brain stolen by aliens or something like that. (Feel free to rip off old episodes of Star Trek or SG-1 or whatever if there's one that strikes your fancy. :D) I love plotty, twisty stuff, especially if you have an idea for something mysterious and different to do to John, but just a simple, straightforward scenario with deadly peril and desperately worried team is also awesome! Other people being affected/infected is also fine if it suits the story, but not required (that is, I don't care if John is the only one or not). Though I would be fine with a happy ending, I'm also fine with the characters not being totally fixed at the end of the story, either. Whatever you think works best. And while I am not saying this is a must-have by any means, I always adore seeing Rodney go into hero mode, especially to save John; just sayin'. :D