New SGA fic: Forget Me Not (3 of 5)

[maisierita]

Rodney is a creature of habit, finding comfort in routine, but he's not so slavishly devoted to it that he can't adapt to changes. His old routine mostly involved work, and John, and his new routine is pretty much the same, though entirely different. Work's the same, except for the way Rodney can no longer concentrate on anything and so gets nothing done, not that anyone seems to notice so long as he continues to talk really fast and deride everyone's intelligence. John's not the same at all, except in the way he's always there at the end of Rodney's day, with a smirk and a bad joke. It doesn't seem to matter to John that he can't quite remember Rodney from one day to the next; by the end of the week, he's remembering Rodney's face, if not his name.

John is scribbling with a stylus on a small pad of parchment when Rodney walks in to the clinic exactly one week after the incident in the park. "Hey," John says with a grin. "It's not dinnertime already, is it?"

"I have the afternoon off. I told you yesterday I'd be here early."

"Huh," John says with wide, disingenuous eyes. "I don't remember that."

"Yes, yes, ha ha, very funny, make fun of the memory-impaired."

"Aren't I allowed if I'm the one impaired?"

"Self-hatred is never funny."

"I don't hate myself, Rodney."

"Self-mockery, then. Did you just call me Rodney?"

"Yep."

"Chatting up the attendants again?"

John looks insufferably smug. "Nope."

"Okay, I know your memory hasn't kicked in, because if it did it would have been the first thing out of your mouth when I walked in the door, so, what's going on?"

John holds up the parchment with a flourish. "Got smart last night after you left."

Rodney takes the parchment. It has six small symbols on it, written in a neat line across the middle of the page. "What's this?"

John's grin falters. "It's your name. Isn't it?"

Rodney looks at the symbols some more, sharps lines and rounded curves, asymmetric characters separated by small spaces, very unlike the neat, connected script he writes his notes in. "I don't know. Is it?"

"Sure it is." John grabs the parchment back. "R-O-D-N-E-Y, see? I'm not sure why there's an e, but it didn't look right without it."

Rodney turns John's hand so they can both look at the writing, and gets a slightly sick feeling low and deep in his gut. "This isn't our alphabet, John. It's not how we write. I don't know those letters you just said."

John stares at him dubiously. "It's the only way I know how to write."

Rodney doesn't know the letters, but Raku never said anything about aphasia, and this isn't that, anyway, because John isn't confused, John knows exactly what he's written, and it's Rodney who can't read it, can't understand. And there is also pizza, that John named once without knowing why, that he named again the other day when Rodney brought it by. There is soccer, John's peculiar name for groundball, and there are curses that spring to John's lips that no one else knows, and John had four Treatments before this one, but can still defeat a security officer in a hand-to-hand fight.

Rodney grabs the parchment and stuffs it in a pocket. "Did you show it to anyone?" he asks urgently. He is whispering, even though there is no one else in the room. "The paper. Parchment. Did you show it to anyone?"

"What? No. Rodney, what's going on?"

"Don't tell anyone, all right? Just don't. Don't tell anyone, and for god's sake, don't write anything else down until they teach you how to do it properly."

"I did do it properly," John says grumpily, but he agrees anyway, and they don't speak again of the neat, indecipherable writing. Later that night, alone in bed and with a small light as the only illumination, Rodney stares at the parchment, traces the letters with his finger, trying to burn them into memory, or maybe drag them out of memory, because surely he knew how to write his name in this alphabet once. He is afraid to try it himself, though he's not sure whether the fear is because, with a stylus in his hand, the letters won't come easily at all, or because they will.

Over the next few days, as John settles more and more-"acclimates", John says, up and out of bed now and allowed limited freedom in the ward, though always with a wary security officer close by-it becomes obvious, to Rodney at any rate, that this Treatment, violent and accidental, is going to be no more successful than any of the others. He keeps this to himself, tucks the knowledge away deep in his chest, and never blinks when John starts spouting stupid, trite aphorisms again that Rodney now knows without question are words from some other lifetime.

Rodney doesn't think John knows he's doing it, and the doctors seem equally oblivious, so maybe it's just Rodney who recognizes the quotes for what they are, excerpts from a forgotten past. And that makes the secret, guilty panic in his chest a little stronger too, because he's got his own ghostly flashes of memory, and they are equally forbidden. Rodney's allowed to remember physics and math and science, but he's not allowed to remember his own life; his name is the only piece of it he's been permitted to keep, and even that was torn away by Treatment and had to be given back.

John is ... well, he's John, again, mostly, even if he doesn't remember Rodney from before the fight, even if he doesn't remember himself. The stranger of those first few days, the one with the hostile, wary expression and the cold, assessing gaze has all but vanished. Rodney can't decide if this is who John really is, or if it's just who he's supposed to be here. Maybe, Rodney thinks, maybe John on the outside was that guarded, dispassionate stranger, someone to whom everyone unknown was a potential threat. Maybe this is what Treatment is meant to do, to strip away the hard edges and leave just the softer core. Rodney supposes that there's a soft side to everyone, if you go far enough. But maybe Treatment isn't doing that at all; maybe Treatment is just cutting out the pieces that aren't wanted here, and the Treated are left to rebuild their personalities as best they can from the fragments that are left.

It's enough to make Rodney wonder what he was like before he was Treated, if he was as different then as John is different now. There's a possibility, probability even, that he and John knew each other before they were convicted, and he wonders, perversely, if John liked him back then, if he'd liked John, or if they were merely acquaintances unlucky enough to get caught up and convicted together.

It's pointless and futile and stupid, and it gets him exactly nowhere except around in circles, but sometimes at night there's no way to stop himself from thinking about it. He obsesses to the point that he actually accesses the compound mainframe one night, but his hacking skills don't get him any farther than the information available in the public databases. There's no information on any of the prisoners, no information even on the society that exists outside of the compound, except by oblique reference. Look hard enough, Rodney figures, and he could uncover clues about the people who built this prison that's hardly a prison, but he's not sure what good that does him.

~~

Exactly four weeks after the "unfortunate incident", as Raku has taken to calling it, Rodney walks into John's room in the clinic to find John sprawled in the chair, one leg hooked over the arm, the other stretched out in front. Rodney's back nearly goes into contortions just looking, but he doesn't say anything, because John will just tease him again about having an old man's body.

John grins at him and waves a piece of parchment in his face. "Come to spring me?"

Rodney has no idea what John is talking about. He puts the pot of food he is carrying down on the window sill. "What?"

"I've got my marching orders."

Rodney still has no idea what John is talking about. "I repeat, what?"

"Here." With a few deft folds, John turns the parchment into some sort of flying device, and tosses it across the room. It floats gently and precisely through the air, curving up to follow invisible air currents, then falls, neatly, at Rodney's feet. Rodney leans over and picks it up without comment-in general, it's best to ignore John's eccentricities; commenting on them just encourages him, and this hasn't changed one bit post-Treatment-and unfolds it, smoothing it out against his leg.

A quick scan is enough to get the gist, and to release a huge knot of tension from Rodney's chest that he hasn't realized was there. "They assigned you back to me."

"Yep." John springs to his feet, bouncy and eager. "Let's go. Do you realize it feels like I've spent most of my life inside this room?"

"Wait a minute, just wait for one minute. Don't you, I don't know, need to go to orientation or something?" Rodney has no memories of his own orientation, but he knows he went for the requisite week, knows that without it he'd have had no idea of how to accomplish the most daily activities, like finding where to get food and clothing and things like soap and toilet paper. He has a moment of panic that he is expected to teach these things to John now, that this is Raku's subtle way of taking revenge, though none of this is Rodney's fault, at all.

"Been there," John says cheerfully. "Every day this past week. I couldn't be more oriented. Except for the whole problem with remembering directions and things. You'll need to draw me a map if you actually expect me to leave your apartment and find my way back home again."

"What do you mean, you've been to orientation? I-you haven't said a word. The whole week! I thought you were, I don't know, making pots or something."

John squints at him. "Pots? Why would I be making pots?"

"Physical therapy! How am I supposed to know why?"

John squints some more. "But why pots? Have you ever seen anyone in here with a pot of any kind?"

"Ninety-five percent of the doors in this clinic are kept closed all the time," Rodney says sourly. "There could be thousands of pots here."

"Nobody asked me to make even one pot," John says. Then he cocks his head and lifts an eyebrow simultaneously, which would look ridiculous on anyone else, in fact looks ridiculous on John, but also looks stupidly endearing. Rodney thinks he might be biased in this regard. "I didn't tell you because I didn't want to get your hopes up. Until three days ago I thought they were sending me back to the mines. And then ... well, I didn't know until this morning they were letting me go back with you. The attendants kept making it sound like there was no chance of that, and Raku wouldn't answer any questions directly, so ..." He shrugs gracefully, one sculpted shoulder lifting up and down, muscles playing nicely under the pale blue of the clinic uniform.

Rodney thinks it is sweet that John didn't want to get his, Rodney's, hopes up. Rodney hadn't wanted to get his own hopes up either, and had been no more optimistic that John would be assigned back to him. Raku had been strangely mute on the topic, no matter how hard Rodney had pressed; Rodney wonders now if Raku had actually pulled favors to get this posting for John, if they will owe him now. If so, if there is to be some accounting in the future, Rodney will gladly pay it, because these past few weeks without John have made the compound feel like prison for the first time.

"Let's go, then," Rodney says, absently refolding the paper along the creases and tossing it back to John (it does not fly as straight or as well, but John stretches easily and catches it without a word). "I brought dinner, but we can eat it at home."

John just grins at him, a quirky half smile, and follows Rodney obediently out the door. Rodney suggests taking public transport but John wants to walk. "I want to see this place, Rodney," and Rodney doesn't have the heart to tell him that there's nothing very exciting to see at all; any one part of the compound looks pretty much like every other. John drinks it all in anyway, wide-eyed, and Rodney has to keep reminding himself that from John's perspective, it's the first time he's ever been out of the clinic and seen the tall, stark towers that define their lives: apartments and labs and offices, infirmaries and commissaries and supply depots.

John's steps falter when they pass the first neatly squared-off public park. "Is there where it happened?"

"No." Rodney keeps walking, and John reluctantly follows. "Not this one. All the parks look the same, though."

He catches John looking over his shoulder as they keep moving, and John checks out every park after that one, looking for something, a memory perhaps, but if something looks familiar or sparks some recollection, he keeps it to himself.

"Jesus," John swears when they finally reach Rodney's apartment and Rodney toes open the door. Rodney does not comment on John's choice of swear words. He has already told John to be careful what he says around other people; John says he never says anything inappropriate around anyone else, that it's only around Rodney that he forgets. Or remembers. "You live here? Like this?"

Rodney takes a look around, realizing belatedly that perhaps he's let things slip a bit in the past month. It does look a little like a bomb hit the living room. It's even possible, Rodney thinks, that he got so used to having John clean up after him that it never occurred to him to do it on his own without John there. "Sorry," he says awkwardly, putting the pot of stew on the table and hurriedly grabbing some of the clothing off the floor. "I wasn't expecting you to come back with me tonight. Or I would have cleaned."

John looks dubiously at the piles of parchment strewn all over the floor, at the scientific journals littering the couch. "That's okay," he says faintly. "It'll give me something to do for the next couple of days." Rodney thinks for no particular reason of John's small room in the clinic, which was always as spotless as if nobody was staying there at all, John's small supply of clothing and grooming items always away and out of sight, the bed always made with those funny square corners John insists on, the towel folded neatly over the shower rod. He guesses John's fanatic orderliness is something inbred, because certainly Rodney's own Treatment hasn't imbued a tendency for it in him.

Then it's a little awkward, because John follows Rodney around the apartment as Rodney grabs for the worst of the mess, and it becomes an impromptu tour. For a minute, as Rodney shows off the rooms-"here's the lavatory. Wait, I'll just pick that up, hold on, see, there's the shower"-John gets that analytical look again, like he's filing everything away, assessing every possible entrance and exit to the small set of rooms. But then they're through the apartment-"Here, this half of the dresser is yours, and you keep some other stuff in the closet"-and by the time Rodney's got the stew on the stove, the assessment is over, and the new, old John has returned, settling into the kitchen like he never left, sniffing all the spices one by one, tasting the stew as it reheats and humming under his breath as he adds a dash of this and that.

It's quite late by the time they're done eating. John cleans the kitchen, refusing Rodney's offer to help-"It's not rocket science, Rodney. I'll figure out where everything belongs. Go relax."-while Rodney furtively scrubs the lavatory sink and eliminates every last crumbly speck of tooth powder from the mirror.

It is really only at the point that John emerges from the bathroom, loose clinic pants barely hanging on his hips, the shirt dangling from one hand, that Rodney thinks, "Oh," and looks around the small, single bedroom with something like dismay.

John tosses the shirt to the chair in the corner where, improbably, it lands neatly on the back, and crosses the room to where Rodney's sitting on the bed. Rodney looks up at John, who's looking back down at him, speculation and nervousness battling on his face. "Um," Rodney says, swallowing. "Okay, so it's like this."

John raises an eyebrow again and sinks down to his knees, nestled in between Rodney's thighs. "What's it like, Rodney?"

It's incredibly disconcerting having John between his legs, even though he's not doing anything except resting there. "Well, you've probably noticed that there's only the one bed."

"Soon as I came in," John says easily, and of course he would have noticed and not said anything. "I figured if I was supposed to sleep on the couch, you'd have pointed it out to me."

Stupidly, Rodney says, "You're way too tall to sleep on the couch," and then John is leaning in and kissing him, slowly and carefully. It's almost a little clinical, until John starts using tongue and then it's not clinical at all.

"Huh," John says, pulling back. He runs his tongue over his lips thoughtfully. With calm deliberation, he places his hands on Rodney's thighs, one on either side. The warmth of his fingers soaks right through the thin summer pajamas Rodney's wearing, but there's no pressure, just John's fingers resting lightly on trembling muscles. "Did we used to do this?"

"We ..." Rodney is having a little trouble finding words. "Yes. We did. But not at first. And that doesn't mean ... you don't have to."

"I kind of thought I did," John says, and there it is, he cocks his head to one side again, hazel eyes dark and contemplative. "In orientation, they said you'd expect it."

"Well, I don't," Rodney says stubbornly. He has found his voice again, and plenty of words along with it. "We did this, yes, but that was before, when you knew who you were, more or less, and you knew who I was. It was your choice. It wasn't ... it wasn't because you had to. It wasn't because it was expected."

"That kind of sucks," John murmurs. "Because I've recently learned that I'm going to be locked up for the rest of my life for a crime I can't remember committing, and I'm going to be spending my days washing your dirty laundry, and the one bright spot about all of that is that there's supposed to be regular sex. Which I don't remember, but I have on good authority I'll really enjoy."

"You won't spend your days washing my laundry," Rodney says, stupid again, and wondering briefly who'd been talking to John about sex, and was that really part of the Class Two orientation? "I don't have that much clothing."

"Did I ever tell you that you talk too much?" John says, leaning in again.

"At least once a day," Rodney mumbles against John's lips, and then John's tongue is back and he can't say anything else at all for quite some time.

~~

John is not there when Rodney wakes up the next morning, and Rodney spends a minute panicking, convinced that he has somehow dreamed the whole thing, that in his impatience to get John back he's fabricated a reality in which it's happened. But then the smell of tava wafts into the bedroom, and Rodney relaxes. He goes into the kitchen and John is there, sipping at a cup of brewed tava beans, peering into the mug with interest. "I can't exactly say I missed this," he offers, swiveling to pour a cup for Rodney in one smooth, economical motion, "but it feels like I should have."

Rodney accepts the mug gratefully. The drink is hot and spicy, warming him from the inside out. "How did you know?" he asks, because he had left no instructions, no mortar and pestle on the countertop, no filters or beans.

John holds up a small bound notebook, looking a little guilty, though that is too strong a word for the quick expression that flits across his face. "I left myself notes. Sort of."

"Notes?" Rodney repeats, with interest. He takes the book from John's hands.

"They're mostly recipes," John says, sounding a little rueful. With the mug held up to his mouth, Rodney can't see his face.

Rodney flips the notebook open, but he can't understand anything in it. It is filled with the same neat, blocky writing as the fragment of parchment Rodney had snatched away in the clinic, and this, Rodney thinks, is significant. This is important, that John remembered these letters even before he was Treated again, that they came back to him so quickly afterwards.

Rodney sees his own name in and among the foreign text, the shape of the letters familiar to him after hours spent tracing them in the dim light of his bedroom, but they're just shapes, symbols he's been told have meaning. John remembers this, he tells himself fiercely, he remembered this before. You should remember it too. But staring at the script makes it no less incomprehensible, although there are things he guesses are numbers, and for them recollection stirs faintly, sluggishly. But of course, they are numbers, the alphabet of his work much more than any letters could be, so maybe that distant sense of familiarity should not be so much of a surprise.

"I've never seen this book," Rodney says, and he hopes his tone doesn't sound as accusatory to John as it does to his own ears. But he has been living in this apartment for weeks, fending for himself, and he has never stumbled across this, so how can John have found it so soon upon his return to a place he professes not to remember?

"You wouldn't have," John says, "unless you were in the habit of rummaging around below the sink behind the cleaning supplies." It goes without saying that Rodney is not; from John's expression, Rodney supposes John has a pretty good idea that Rodney doesn't even know what half of the bottle and jars beneath the sink contain. "I thought it might say something. About me."

It does, Rodney thinks, even if it's nothing but recipes and laundry tips. It says something because John wrote it in a language Rodney doesn't know, and John found it in its hiding place when it would never have even occurred to Rodney to look for it in the first place.

"But it doesn't say anything," John says with a sigh. "Except that I used to cook a lot, and I thought I was getting better it."

Rodney thinks, but doesn't ask, "What does it say about me?" because if John wanted him to know, he would tell him. And John, who when he looks sees everything that matters, has surely seen Rodney's finger stumble lightly across the characters of his own name; John must know that Rodney recognizes it. Rodney's name is there on the first page and there on the second, again on the third if not the fourth. Why, Rodney wonders, would his name appear in a book of recipes unless recipes are not all they are?

"Don't show it to anyone," Rodney says, and hands the book back with a mild twinge of regret. "They won't like knowing you've been writing it like this."

"Yeah, okay." John turns the book over and over in his hands, and his face looks wistful. It makes Rodney ache a little bit, because he has never felt the burning desire John seems to feel to remember, and he feels now that it's a flaw, a loss. The flashes of memory he gets, tantalizing and frustrating, don't prompt in him the desire for deeper self-reflection; if in his former life he was the sort of man to earn a sentence here, he's not so sure he's worth remembering in more vivid detail. Except he wonders now if that's really how he feels, or if it's just how Treatment has made him feel, and even that thought is strange, because he thinks it should have occurred to him before now, and it is peculiar that it hasn't.

"I made eggs," John says, and he has, maybe when Rodney was sleeping, or maybe just now, when Rodney was lost in thought, but in any case, there are eggs, over easy, the yolks still runny and the whites firm and moist, and there is toast too, though Rodney is surprised he had any bread that has not developed mold.

"Is this in the book too?" Rodney asks around a mouthful of crunchy toast slathered with eggs.

"Toast?" John is not eating, but he's pulled the chair out across from Rodney and is sipping at his mug of tava. "No, they told us about toast in orientation."

Rodney stares. "They did not."

John grins. "No, but it would have been funny if they had. You have to go to work soon?"

"Very soon," Rodney admits. A glance at the chronometer shows that he is actually veering towards being late. "You'll be okay here?"

"Me and the mess will be fine," John says. The downcast expression in his eyes doesn't match the lightness of his voice. "We'll have a little quality bonding time. Can you draw me a map to the quartermaster's?"

"Sure." Rodney grabs a blank piece of parchment and a stylus, sketches out the streets and buildings with thick, broad strokes, labeling everything he can think of and drawing big arrows to the apartment and the quartermaster's. He wants to ask John if he will really be okay here by himself, but he doesn't have time to deal with the answer if it turns out to be no. "Ask if you get lost, all right?"

"I won't get lost," John says, studying the map. "My memory's impaired, but I'm not stupid. I can read a map."

"I know you can. I'm, uh, a little short on rations right now. Spent a lot buying food. I think I'm on account, actually."

John shrugs. "I've got plenty. They were accumulating the whole month I was in the clinic. Even as a Class Two, that's enough for me to get a couple of steaks."

Rodney perks up. "Steaks?" He shovels the last few bites of egg into his mouth, to John's disapproving look. Rodney's poor table manners have always been a matter of contention between them-John's fastidiousness at the table and his insistence that Rodney act accordingly is yet another instance where John completely and utterly fails to act like a servant.

"It's Third Day. Bisa steaks. According to the book, you like them grilled." He sounds a little hopeless, but is trying hard to hide it. "First time out by myself. It'll be a real adventure."

~~

Minutes later, Rodney's ready to leave, and John is in the kitchen cleaning, ignoring him. Rodney feels a little guilty leaving John in the apartment, because John is clearly having some trouble getting comfortable with the idea of staying here alone. But Rodney knows something that John does not: John was very comfortable home alone in Rodney's apartment before, cooking and cleaning and doing laundry and whatever other things people who stayed home all day did; Rodney is fairly confident that John, once he starts actually doing all those things, will find out that he is still very comfortable with the situation.

So Rodney leaves John home, and catches a transport at the very last second, getting into the lab close enough to on time so that he won't get docked. And then he thinks a little bit about John home in the mess Rodney has made, but he doesn't think about it too long, because when John first came to live with him, Rodney would be treated to a display of cleansing every night, John showing off exactly what he'd cleaned and organized, making sure Rodney appreciated the improvement. Obviously, no one would take such pride in something as mundane as cleaning if he didn't on some level enjoy it. This ties in neatly with John's observed (fanatical) level of neatness, so Rodney is not unduly concerned about John's frame of mind.

Then Rodney gets involved with the particle accelerator modifications, and stops thinking about John at all, until he gets off the transport at the end of the day and he realizes that he doesn't have to cook dinner or go to the clinic. John will be waiting for him at home, with dinner ready. This puts him in a good mood, and he hurries up a little to get home just a few minutes faster.

The smell of bisa steaks hits him before he's up the stairs, and it's with a warm feeling of contentment that he opens the door to his apartment. "John? I'm home."

John emerges from the kitchen, wiping his hand on his towel, a smear of grease across his cheek and flour all over his shirt. "You're early," he says, surprised but not petulant. "You never made it to the clinic before 1915, 1930 even."

"I had to cook for you when you were at the clinic. It took time," Rodney says defensively. "But I get off work at 1745. Transport only takes ten minutes."

"You should have told me," John says, heading back into the kitchen. "Dinner's not quite ready." There's the squeak of the oven door opening and closing. "Almost, though."

The table is set and all the journals and parchments have been stacked into neat piles around the room. It is homey and familiar and right, and Rodney sits down to dinner feeling that all is right with the world. It's only better that night, when John does something in bed that took him weeks to figure out the first time around, and Rodney, when he can talk again, says suspiciously, "Was that in that journal of yours?"

Rodney can feel John's grin against his skin, but he doesn't answer.

~~

The thing is, Rodney thinks to himself one Fourth day towards the end of the season, it should be getting better. John's been back for weeks now, and they've got their patterns re-established. But as time goes on, John's getting more and more restless, more tense and irritable. He always keeps his temper in check with Rodney but it's an obvious effort, and sometimes, Rodney thinks, John's glad to see him leave in the morning, which is a change Rodney doesn't welcome at all.

John's always glad when Rodney comes home, though, and the apartment has never been this brutally clean. When everything has been organized down to the microscopic level, John decides to repaint the walls and ceilings. It takes him longer than it should because he's spending more time in the kitchen; the ingredients they get don't vary all that much but John's meals are getting more and more complex, the experimental combinations more and more outrageous.

In bed at night, John's equally inventive and outrageous, like he's determined to wring every drop of sensation out of their bodies. He throws himself into their bedplay with as much focused energy as he does everything else; sometimes it's actually too focused, too much energy. Sometime Rodney wishes they could go back to nights of lazy, gentle sex, the kind that don't make him feel like he's entered a sex competition without knowing about it.

"What's going on?" he asks John finally, after a two-hour marathon in bed that has left him sated and exhausted and a little overwhelmed. John's sitting up, pulling on some pants-the dirty pots soaking in the sink are his excuse-and every muscle in his back is tense. Rodney reaches out to touch him. "It doesn't matter about the pots."

"I can't sleep with dirty dishes in the sink," John says obdurately, but the tension in his back tells Rodney that this is a lie, or a sort of lie. John is pathologically clean these days, in ways that makes the old John look like a slob, but dirty pots in the sink do not classify as something to keep him up at night, because in the sink the mess is contained and the cleaning therefore deferrable.

"They'll still be there in the morning," Rodney says, trying for lighthearted, but this is the wrong thing to say, because John's muscles tighten up even further, and the next breath he draws in is deep and ragged, like it hurts.

"I don't like waking up to dirty dishes," John says. "It's like I'm falling behind before I've even started."

"You're just going to be cleaning all day anyway," Rodney says, regretting the words the second they're out of his mouth, because John, impossibly, goes even more tense and rigid. I didn't mean it like that, Rodney wants to say, but doesn't. I didn't mean that the way it sounded.

There is a silence that is filled with a hundred apologies Rodney can't bring himself to utter before John speaks in clipped, precise words, "It will only take a little while. But if you tell me to come to bed now, I'll come to bed."

And ... ouch, Rodney thinks. Because most days, John never acknowledges that he's the servant here, even though it's obvious in a hundred different ways. Theoretically, Rodney's no happier having a servant than he ever was, but practically, he's grown complacent about it, because it's John, who is nothing like a servant at all; he's more like a roommate or a spouse. Rodney never gives him orders, doesn't even give him lists of things to do. John does what wants to do-which, yes, maybe those are mostly things for Rodney, the things he feels he needs to do, but it's still like a partnership, isn't it? Except maybe to John it's not like a partnership at all. Maybe he's cooking and cleaning for Rodney not because he wants to, but because that's his job and he doesn't have a choice.

"You don't have to come to bed if you don't want to," Rodney says, feeling chilled, even though he hates the thought of going to bed alone. "If you want to clean the pots, clean the pots." John doesn't move or say anything, and Rodney very much wishes he could see his face. "I could help you."

"Jesus," John swears, suddenly angry, fury radiating off him in waves. He surges to his feet. Rodney still can't see his face. "I don't want your help with the damn pots." Then he leaves, and Rodney's left behind, coming to the slow, unwelcome conclusion that John is utterly unhappy here, that all the tension and irritability and desperate, punishing sex are because John is miserable and he doesn't know what to do about it.

Rodney lies awake for a long time, guilty and miserable, listening to the sound of water running for far, far longer than it should take to wash every single pot Rodney owns. In the morning, he guesses, the pots will be scrubbed clean and shining like new: John's peace offering and penance molded in burnished copper.

It's nearly 2800 by the time John comes to bed, all that restless energy finally scoured away. He climbs quietly into bed, but doesn't say anything, not even when Rodney rolls over to face him, inches away.

In the dark, it's easier to say what he couldn't earlier. "Sorry," Rodney whispers, and even though that one word is not nearly big enough to encompass the enormity of what he wants to convey, it is a start.

John doesn't answer, but he breathes out a long, slow sigh, and laces his fingers through Rodney's. It's as close to acknowledgment and acceptance as Rodney's going to get.

~~

"Look," Rodney says to Raku the very next morning after a tense breakfast in which Rodney made multiple attempts at inane conversation, and John sipped his tava in silence and nodded occasionally without any sign that he was actually listening. "You've got to find John some other assignment. He's going crazy, trapped in my apartment all day."

Raku looks puzzled. "Serving you is his task, Rodney. It's what he will be evaluated on. If he's not doing a good job-"

"He's doing a fantastic job. I seriously doubt there is anyone here who is doing a better job. It's just not the right job for him. Can't you get him back on sanitation detail?"

This is something Rodney would never in a million years have guessed he would ever do: beg for John to go back to cleaning someone else's dirty toilets. But here he is, asking if not quite begging. In retrospect, Rodney realizes that having a reason to leave the apartment, somewhere to go, something to do (even if it is gross and smelly) is important to John in a way Rodney never considered menial labor could be. But in those early days with Rodney, John had never complained about going back to the mines, even though it left him filthy and exhausted, and later on he'd actually been happy on the days he'd had time enough to report for sanitation duty.

At the time, Rodney had supposed, foolishly, that John's willingness to go and do extra work-dirty, dangerous, unpleasant work, even-was because he wanted to be promoted, and working in a more visible support role was a means toward that end. But now Rodney thinks he had it wrong, because John's lost the desperate need to make Class Three-maybe because he doesn't remember the mines and has no real sense of what life is like there-but he still has the same drive to be doing something more.

Raku shakes his head slowly. "He was downranked after the fight, Rodney. He doesn't qualify for sanitation duty anymore."

"Downranked? Why? That wasn't his fault! We've been through this!"

"It has nothing to do with whose fault it was. We have rules. Procedures. John's situation is complicated."

"I'm sure it is. But-"

"The Council wanted to put him back in the mines, Rodney. In the Class One pits."

"What?" Rodney is horrified. "People die in the pits all the time."

"Not all the time," Raku says with a frown. "Not nearly so often as rumor would have you believe. But it is an arduous life. That's why I fought so hard to prevent it. In my opinion his original crime does not nearly justify that sentence. I argued that he'd made significant progress with you, and that he would continue to progress if he was permitted to return to your service. Ultimately the Council agreed with me, but I had to fight to keep him out of the mines for supplementary service." Raku sighs. "If you are saying he would prefer to return I am sure we could arrange-"

"No." Which is a lie, because Rodney is sure now that John would in fact prefer to return to the mines for a few hours a week, even if it means coming home covered with silian dust again, so long as it means getting out of Rodney's apartment for a little while. But that's because John doesn't remember the mines. It's because he's desperate. Rodney remembers, and moreover is more concerned with John's welfare than John is himself, so going back to the mines is out.

"Then I don't know what else I can do for him," Raku says. "Please understand that the Council will not jeopardize our entire penal system for the sake of one man. The hope is that in your service John will continue to stabilize and will eventually be given the opportunity for another assignment that is not so limiting."

Rodney nods, reluctantly, as if he agrees, but he is lying again. He thinks he has lied more in the past day than he has all the rest of his life, at least the small portion of his life he can remember. John will not stabilize in Rodney's service, unless it is towards the person he once was. Rodney guesses John is calmer in his presence than away from it, but that, Rodney thinks, is because on some level Rodney is familiar to John in a way the rest of the people here are not.

Raku says they are from the same place, very far away; Rodney is starting to wonder if it is so far away that they will never really fit in here, no matter how many times they are Treated. Certainly John in Rodney's presence is more prone to swearing in a foreign language that neither of them remembers, and John has again taken up practicing with the short sticks, stretching and bending and reaching, curling his body through movements that come from somewhere else, some place far away from this one.

Whether it's actually a direct result of them living together, Rodney can't say for sure. He's got nothing that counts as proof. But Rodney didn't have his first flash of memory until after John came to live with him, and Rodney is certain that is not coincidence.

It's proximity that makes it happen, Rodney guesses; not physical proximity necessarily, but emotional proximity, living with someone, sharing experiences. The body remembers; memories aren't erased, they've just been misplaced. The brain, resentful, tries to get back what's been lost; it's like hunting through a haystack for a needle (whatever a haystack is; it's just a word, like pizza, with nothing concrete to attach to it, but the metaphor is clear in Rodney's head, and he's sure John would know what it means): you can look and look forever and never find anything except by random luck, but if you've got a magnet and the needle's made of steel, then all of a sudden you've got a chance of success. And if there are a hundred needles in that haystack, a thousand, a lifetime full of them, then you're going to find something with the magnet, even if it's not the particular needle you were looking for.

Treatment doesn't work well on John. Why, Rodney doesn't know, but it's inarguable, incontrovertible: John remembers things Treatment would have him forget. The information's still there-Rodney knows it's there in his own head, too-and John's learning how to access it, over and over, finding alternate pathways, routes across the broken bridges littering his neural landscape.

Raku and the others placed John with Rodney because they think it will settle him, but it's that proximity problem again: the more time John spends with Rodney, the more his neurons stretch and flare and contort, twisting and turning and stretching to make new connections among themselves. Rodney makes a comment and there's a part of John's brain that flares up in recognition, burns bright; it's like a beacon lighting up, and there's another part that's been searching for that beacon for months and now can finally find it, so then boom, the connection's reforged.

It's working on Rodney too, not as quickly maybe, not as predictably, not as well, but it's the only thing that makes sense, the only way to explain the flashes of memory that come more easily and more often the longer John is there. Over time, maybe they'll get it all back. A few seasons from now, or maybe many seasons from now, they'll have their present, their now, but they'll also have their then. But only if John can stay with Rodney, only if John doesn't implode first.

Raku is staring at him silently, thoughtfully. "They are always short of day laborers in the fields," he says after a little thought. "The work is grueling, and half shifts are not permitted. It is harder in many ways than working in the mines."

"But no silian dust?" Rodney is hopeful.

"No," Raku says. "No silian dust."

"I'll ask him," Rodney says. But he already knows the answer.

~~

"The fields, huh?" John says that night. "Hot out there." But he doesn't mean it. Rodney is the one who minds the heat; John strips off his shirt and turns his face to the sun, with blatant disregard for what Rodney claims are the harmful effects of solar radiation. And John-god, just the mention that he might have something else to do one or two days a week, even if it's hard physical labor, hoeing fields, pulling weeds, milling grain-John is already out there, in his head.

"But think of the perks," Rodney says, like he's trying to convince John, like he believes John needs convincing. "Rumor is all your meals are fresh prepared on the farm. And once a week you can get your rations in fruits and vegetables."

"We get plenty of fruits and vegetables," John says. "We could get more, but you don't eat them."

"Fruits and vegetables," Rodney says, "are good in moderation, but should not be confused with your four basic food groups."

"Three of which are some form of tava beans," John says dryly.

"Hey," Rodney says. "Tava is the one substance which makes me consider-"

"-the possibility that there is a God," John finishes, rolling his eyes. "Sorry, Rodney. No disrespect intended."

"None taken," Rodney says, and means it. His mind is whirling, because John had known what he was going to say, even though Rodney would swear, swear, that he's never said this thing before. Which proves nothing that Rodney hasn't already suspected anyway: he and John knew each other before they were convicted; he and John had known each other well. Well enough to know each other's habits, to finish each other's sentences. But Rodney doesn't even think John realizes he's doing it. Maybe it's because Rodney's been here from the beginning this time, right after Treatment. There's been no time for John to establish individual patterns and habits separate and distinct from Rodney. He's just fallen right back into patterns of behavior that he can't even remember.

Rodney stares for a minute at John, who's turned back to the scale drawing of the apartment he's been working on in preparation for further home repairs and renovations.

After a minute, John twitches and looks up. "What? Do you need me to do something?"

"No," Rodney says. "Well, yes. What's the first law of thermodynamics?"

John raises an eyebrow up high. "Law of conservation of energy? You really want me to teach you basic physics?"

"No, no. I was just checking. Some moron in the lab today had never heard of it."

"My advice would be to keep him away from the particle accelerators, then," John says, and goes back to his drawing.

Rodney stares a little longer at John, who is now pretending not to notice. Because it wasn't only one moron in the lab who hadn't heard of the first law, it was all of the morons in the lab. And they'd looked at him like he was the crazy one, skeptical enough that Rodney had started doubting himself. But John had known, and John, who whatever he had been in his previous life, hadn't been an astrophysicist, had called it basic physics.

Which means what, Rodney wonders. Maybe nothing. Or maybe that he and John are from somewhere so far away, that even basic physics are different there.

Which is ridiculous, he thinks. Because physics is the same everywhere. It doesn't change from country to country or continent to continent.

John pokes him. "Okay, now you're starting to scare me."

Rodney jerks his head up. "Huh?"

"With the creepy stalker staring. If there's something you want to ask me, or something you want me to do ... it is my job, after all."

"No. I was just thinking."

John taps his stylus against the paper. "If you don't want me to work in the fields-"

"I didn't say that. I didn't even think that."

"It's all right, Rodney. I know it's going to be inconvenient for you-"

"Inconvenient for me? You're the one who's going to have to get up at 500 to catch the transport."

"Yeah, but I won't be here to cook for you."

"All right, for one? I survived on my own for several seasons before you came to live here. Two, I survived on my own for a month when you were in the clinic and, if you recall, I cooked for you. And three, I don't eat all my meals at home even when you are here. I will be absolutely fine without you."

John stares at him very hard, like he's trying to ferret out the lie, but then he shrugs one shoulder and says, like he doesn't really believe it, "If you say so."

Part 4