TEAM FINE: hang fire, "Stuck in the Middle"
Title: Stuck in the Middle
Author: neevebrody
Team: Fine
Prompt: hang fire
Pairing(s): McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Word count: 5500
Summary: John is lost; can Rodney find him and bring him home… again?
Author’s Notes: The story is based on the Twilight Zone episode, "Where is Everybody?" Many thanks to my beta and editor, mischief5, and to my lovely team captain reddwarfer for the alpha read... their insights were spot on.
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- hang fire
: to delay doing something, or making a decision, waiting to see what will happen
: to remain unsettled or unresolved
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right
Here I am, stuck in the middle with you
It was straight up noon by the look of his shadow. The sun, a blistering hole in an otherwise flawless sky, charmed columns of gulch-dry heat from the road as he walked. Christ, he'd give a month's pay for just a breeze - that is, if he even had a job. Memories teased him. They swirled like the animal-pelt scented dust at his feet then vaporized like sweat from his brow. He didn't know how he'd come to be on the road, how long he'd been walking it or where it was taking him.
Another mile and the scrub gave way to signs of civilization - pavement, a town. Not a large town but it was somewhere and towns usually meant people. Up ahead, a small café swam into view as music drifted out over the dusty-boot colored landscape along with the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee. The tune seemed familiar but he couldn't place it, in that same way random thoughts flit around with no place to light.
A half-rusted faucet protruded from the weathered clapboard siding. What came out of it had a brownish cast and wasn't exactly cold, but he could live with that. He splashed it over his face and around his neck before sticking his head under the flow. Once the water started to run clear and cool, he scooped handfuls to his mouth. The first few he swished and spat on the ground along with the grit from the road, and then he drank.
Inside, a jukebox wailed happily in the corner, its lights flashing and a vinyl disc spinning in its belly. "Hello?" Chairs stood empty, some pulled out as if the occupants had left in a hurry. The tables were set as if lunch might be served any minute.
The thought of lunch sounded good to him or even breakfast since he had no idea when he'd last eaten. Behind a long counter where no one sat on the barrel-seated stools, a grill sizzled hot. A breadbox lay open near an eight-slotted toaster and steam rose from two full pots of coffee waiting to be served.
"You got a customer out front!" he yelled, taking a look behind the counter. On the floor in the open space that divided the seating and cooking areas, an oscillating fan hummed tonelessly, dutifully swaying its head from side to side to side.
"Anybody here?" he called out again, slapping his hand down on the sparkling countertop. "Hey!"
He stepped around the counter and stood in front of the fan. Scattering the warm, stale air was the best it could do, but the conjured breeze felt like icy fingers fusing the remaining water and sweat to his skin. He ran his fingers through his hair and looked around. Maybe the cook had to take a leak or was out back on a smoke break. "How about some breakfast?" he said, taking a heavy china cup from the stack. He filled it with coffee, sipping its richness as he went back around to sit on one of the stools.
The song ended and the jukebox shut off with a loud clunk. He waited.
"Pretty hungry out here… I'll take some ham and eggs, eggs over easy, hash browns." Spinning himself in a monotonous half-circle, he admitted, "It's the funniest thing… I don't know how long I've been on the road there… I never saw a car." He blew over the rim of the cup, took a sip, and laughed to himself. "Even funnier…I don't seem to know who I am."
The coffee churned in his empty stomach as he surveyed the situation. He eased off the stool and walked to the back of the café where the sight of another man caught him up short - just below the restroom sign standing between two huge arrows that pointed to the left and the right. The man was tall, tanned from what he could see of the face, dark hair and not bad looking. Water spotted the desert colored jumpsuit covering the rest of the lanky frame. He moved in closer to read the patch on the left breast pocket: Sheppard, U.S. Air Force.
Eying the face staring back at him, he raised his eyebrows and reached to touch his cheek, following the movement closely as if it might really be another person. But the muddy-green eyes sparked no recognition, nor the slender bridge of the nose, or the full, sun-parched lips.
"Sheppard," he said slowly, trying the name on for size. "Air Force." The words didn't seem to fit even though he felt a quickening of his pulse as he repeated them.
Abandoning breakfast and the café, he had a new mission. There had to be someone around who could help him. He had a name for starters and maybe there was a base nearby. He could have been in an accident, knocked unconscious, a concussion … and just happened to wake up walking that road.
Whatever it was, he sensed he was close to something. Close to finding help, close to getting back home, wherever home was. But as he passed several shops, he saw no one. Doors stood open. The enticing aroma of fresh bread followed him from the corner bakery and a well-dressed mannequin appeared to watch him as he passed Dave's Haberdashery. Its fair, chiseled features felt familiar though he didn't know why, but the accusatory stare was disturbing and he hurried from the storefront.
Crossing a side street, he looked to his right. "Hey!" A small van sat parked halfway down the alleyway. "Hey, buddy… Where is everybody?" he called, nearing the van and its passenger.
Shielding his eyes from the windshield's wicked glare, he said, "It's like everyone just disappeared." Saying that, he had the sense of people beamed up onto some type of spacecraft, but it was only a flicker and was gone as quickly as it had come.
"I'm hoping you can help me… I don't want you to think I'm some kind of nut or anything, but I don't… I can't seem to remember who I am." He pointed to the patch on his flight suit. "Is there an air base around here… I just need-"
The passenger ignored him.
"Listen, buddy…" He grabbed the door handle; it came open easily as the passenger slumped sideways and tumbled out into his arms.
The man felt hollow, and as the momentum carried Sheppard to his knees, he saw why. Neatly lettered across the side of van were the words, O'Neill's Store Mannequins. The fully-articulated one he held wore a blue shirt that matched its eyes and tan pants. He propped it up along the side of the van and sat down on the curb opposite. Like the one at the store, it was very realistic for a dummy. The hair looked as if it grew from the head and, noticing the wide-set mouth, he would swear he heard it speak.
He chuckled and shook his head. "Don't say it… what's a good-looking guy like me doing in a place like this?" The blue eyes seemed to ponder him. "Right. I wish I knew, pal… I wish I knew."
Resigned, he stood and hefted the mannequin to put it back. A cardboard tag hung from its left wrist. The tag contained the word McKay's, along with a set of symbols or characters that could have been Chinese for all his recognition of them, and the word "important" hand-printed at the top.
After setting the mannequin back in the seat, he checked the van for keys. "All right, McKay, where'd you stash 'em?" He found nothing in the glove box or the center console.
Back out on the sidewalk, his shadow had grown longer. He had no watch but needed only the rumbling of his stomach to direct his next course of action.
He stood at the back of the café with his second turkey and Swiss cheese sandwich, perusing the small telephone book he found beside the cash register. With change borrowed from the till, he looked up the number of O'Neill's Store Mannequins and dialed the old-fashioned pay phone. The line rang and rang before finally answering.
I'm sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed. This is the Pegasus special operator.
"Operator? Hey, I'm here at-where the hell am I…" Looking around, he located a menu. "I'm at Lorne's Diner, and I-"
I'm sorry, your call cannot be completed at this time. Please hang up and dial again. This is a recording.
He slammed the receiver on the cradle. The word Pegasus rang in his head as he headed back to the counter. He pushed his plate away and wondered if it was a division name, a mission… It was sure as shit something if the feeling in his gut meant anything. But his impetus lacked a real punch; the sad fact was, he didn't know what the feeling meant.
He grabbed the phone book and quickly thumbed through the pages. McHenry, McIntyre… There was only one listing under McKay - McKay, R. He followed the dashed line with his finger. Symbols, cyphers whatever he wanted to call them, seeing them twice had to be important and at least he remembered where he'd seen them before.
Downing another cup of coffee, he closed up the diner and returned to the alley. It was still there sitting in the passenger seat. The way his day had been going, Sheppard half expected it to have disappeared. "All right, McKay." He hauled the mannequin out again and wrapped his arm around the torso. "Let's you and me take a walk."
McKay's rigid body bobbed in time with Sheppard's long-limbed gait as they passed more storefronts and shops. Just as before, a look inside each one proved fruitless.
Further down the block, cigar smoke drifted from the open door of a tobacconist. "Now we're getting somewhere." But upon entering the shop, he was once again disappointed to find nothing but empty club chairs arranged in front of a walk-in humidor. Colorful boxes of fine cigars and tins of pipe tobacco lined the shelves inside. Near one of the chairs, an ornate stand ashtray held a bullet-shaped cigar with half an inch of gray ash on the end.
"Hello!" He pounded his fist on the counter and nearly banged the mannequin's head in the process. Still, he wasn't surprised when he got no response, only a monotonous droning sound that made his temples throb.
As he turned to leave the shop, McKay's arm caught on a wire rack filled with magazines and postcards. The magazines were devoted to fine tobacco, travel, and sports, but the postcards were identical: "See Pegasus" emblazoned across a view of a colorful valley with a large ring as the center focus.
Something about that ring bothered him. He couldn't explain it; the structure was… familiar but the why of it lay just out of his reach. "It's like trying to put a name with a face and coming up with Jack Shit," he told his companion, frowning when the blue-eyed sphinx was no help at all.
Flipping the card over, the caption stated simply, Scenic Cheyenne Valley. Was that where he was then? The phone book back at the diner had described the town as the "jewel of the Cheyenne."
He stepped out onto the sidewalk and took a long look around. "Well, if this is the jewel, McKay, I'd sure as hell hate to see the ass end." He'd seen nothing like the scenery on the postcard out on that road, but the more he stared at the ring, the more he felt he needed to go there.
"You up for this?" he asked the rigid mannequin, as if he fully expected an answer. Fixing his sights down the darkening street, he hitched McKay tighter under his arm. "There's something there… I feel it." Sheppard's voice followed them, a whisper on the wind, as he set off on the road out of town.
~~*~~
Cresting one more hill, the top of the ring loomed in the distance. He'd been walking for hours and still hadn't seen a green field or anything resembling the picture on the postcard. Only one thing had disturbed him as much as the mannequin at the men's store. Like a mirage, it seemed to have materialized from the waves of heat snaking their way skyward: a giant clown head, half-buried in sand and dry scrub leading a caterpillar line of rust-pitted yellow and blue kiddie-sized cars.
The thing would have looked suspicious, a piece of a different puzzle, except that he'd felt it belonged there, every bit as organic as the weeds that ran along the lengths of faded, paint-chipped pipes leading from the little train connecting it to a large chunk of disintegrating metal. He'd stared past the rust covered clown hat hanging precariously from the huge head, past the hideous, half-obliterated face and rust-marbled tongue lolling from the wide cartoonish mouth, afraid to look at it head-on. Even with the heat of the day, shivered with a sudden prickle of fear that the monstrosity was supposed to mean something to him, something deep and unforgettable.
He had tried to work up enough moisture to swallow down the kernel of a memory gathering at the back of his throat, and when he couldn't, he'd just spat it out onto the ground.
"I hate clowns," he'd told McKay, finally walking away. Still, it had called to him, wanted him to come back and face it, but he kept moving, his jaw set and cold sweat trailing down his back. Gone, too, was the sense of being lost in a vast nothingness. It was much more personal than that, he'd feared. Keeping step, he'd started to whistle, as if replacing the silence inside his head would somehow scare away the truth and keep McKay from seeing through his façade.
"Good news, pal, the end is in sight." He'd kept a good balance of blood flow by repositioning the mannequin several times, finally helping it along as he would a wounded man. Dragging it by the arm seemed disrespectful and, somehow, it never occurred to him to ditch McKay and carry on alone. Turning to the expressionless face, he added, "Fuckin' A."
As he neared the actual site of the ring, what lay before him could have come straight from the panels of a comic book. The derelict remains of a Sikorsky Pave Hawk lay on its belly, bermed in the dirt like some partially exposed fossil, its ancient bones bleached by the sun. He walked around it slowly, taking it all in. The faded markings were barely legible over the desert camo paint. He smiled ruefully at the charred tail section and noticed shards of the blades and other debris scattered about. Then he noticed the pack sitting in the sand beside the door.
Unlike the clown train or the helicopter, the pack seemed completely out of place. It looked new for one thing, not weathered or dirty. He bent McKay's legs and set him down against the faded fuselage before kneeling to inspect the pack. He shuffled through pouches of ready to eat meals and uncovered medical supplies, signal flares, a knife, and a gun. The 9mm was loaded and another search of the pack netted extra ammo.
Handling the gun calmed him like a drug straight into a vein. Still, he traversed the fifty or so yards to the ring with caution. The postcard had made it seem a lot larger and the way it was situated, it looked more like a gateway. In fact, the informality of its placement seemed to belie its importance. After the clown and the chopper, the ring was just another fixture in this nightmare - the entire milieu having been clumsily arranged without rhyme or reason, as if by some giant kid setting out all his toys in a sandbox.
Some of the symbols set into the sections surrounding the structure matched the symbols he'd already seen. They were repeated on the small device next to the ring that looked like some cosmic dialing mechanism. And as ridiculous as that sounded in his head, he knew at once what he had to do.
He took the knife out of the pack, cut the tag from McKay's wrist, and returned to the device. When he pressed the first corresponding glyph, the device made a strange noise as it lit up. He pressed another and another, following the script on the tag, each time lighting the matching symbol on the ring. He sensed a strange vibration as his heart banged away at his ribcage. The vibration began at his feet and soon his hand poised over the next symbol shook with it. Maybe he'd been a tad hasty in judging the thing's power.
He hesitated, actually thinking it through for the first time. Lowering his hand, he backed off, heart and mind duking it out over the sense of urgency versus a little rational thought. As he pondered, the air around him shifted. Like the guttering of a huge candle, the device and ring went dark, leaving him standing there with nothing but the roar of silence between his ears.
"How about if I just click my boots together and say there's no place like home?"
The next time, he made it all the way through the dialing process. When he lighted the last of the symbols and pressed the center, the ring filled up and bulged out with a great kawoosh of energy that left behind a shimmery, calming pool. It was a beautiful contrast against the darkening sky. "So what now?" he asked, adrenaline speeding through his body. He licked his lips and stared into the endless blue. It seemed the answer was either roll the dice and go through or stay and go mad having one-sided conversations with McKay.
He wasn't yet ready to choose.
He studied the phenomenon, picked up a stone and threw it inside. It sailed through like breaking the surface of a pond. He crouched by the device and waited, but nothing happened. He looked around and found a bit of debris from the chopper. He threw that, too. Nothing. Watching the hunk of metal disappear gave him a strange feeling, a pulling from the inside as though the thing didn't intend to give him a choice.
"It's the craziest thing," he said, slumping down beside McKay. "Okay, not as crazy as sitting here talking to a dummy… but I feel connected to that thing somehow." He gazed out at the ring in the distance. "An urge to go through-like all the answers are on the other side."
Maybe that urge was only a halfhearted grab at some certainty. It didn't take a genius to figure something would surely happen to him if he went through, but what? And maybe he just didn't care anymore.
He stood and paced, muttering to himself now more than McKay. "…don't even know where I am now, so how would it be any different…" He shivered again; a clammy pall crept over him with an oppressive sense of being watched. Was this some kind of game? Secret experiment? His eyes shot to the mannequin, staring hard, trying to detect any movement, a breath, a twitch of muscle… anything. And then the feeling evaporated.
"Nothing personal," he said to McKay. "I keep hearing another voice in my head, telling me it's a way out but… but it's different, you know, not me… it doesn't feel right." He pressed both hands against his temples as the noise in his head shifted to a higher pitch.
"What do you think?" McKay was a congenial companion but he sucked at conversation. "Yeah, that's what I thought you'd say."
He walked back to the ring. The voices were beyond the blue now. It was mesmerizing, but still he found a way to resist. By the time he could work up his conviction again, the ring shut down and the blue was gone.
Returning to the chopper, he sat down and tried to gauge the time by the moon. "The sky's different," he mused, gazing up at the stars scattershot in a sea of deep indigo, and with a cold rush of elation and maybe envy, he had the feeling he'd flown among them. The feeling passed quickly, leaving a longing in its wake.
He contemplated his companion. He wished the mannequin was real, just for a few minutes so he could hear another human voice. Reaching over, he stroked his finger down the arm's cool, skin-like surface, picked up the hand and extended the fingers.
"Christ almighty!" Sheppard jerked his hand back and stared into the face of the mannequin. Five seconds before, it had been facing away.
He relaxed against the still-warm metal and muttered something about losing his mind. Closing his eyes, he just meant to rest them.
He awoke in a room bathed in stark, white light. McKay was there, sitting beside his bed, flesh and blood, his face flooded with relief. It bled through the dark circles and five o'clock shadow from hell. McKay took his hand and leaned in close, the press of his lips relaying desperation. They were soft, pulling at Sheppard's mouth as if drinking him in, teasing him open with a flick of tongue that deepened the kiss. He kissed back, clutching McKay with an urgency that sat like a stone in his chest, needy, as if one kiss held all the answers and all the deliverance his body yearned for.
A rosy mist gathered in the crisp, pre-dawn air like a thief. He opened his eyes to the stars hanging as faded jewels in the lightening sky, the taste on his lips and the warmth in his hands ebbing away. Grasping at the dream left him with the feeling of trying to dam water using a sieve.
He scrambled to his feet. No more hesitation; the ring was his transport, but to what, to where? Time travel? A portal to another dimension? He pressed a palm against his temple. At least it was a way out of this Kafkaesque existence. If he stayed, he'd crack up for sure.
He stared out at the ring. It was his resurrection or his destruction, and only time would tell which. Gathering up the pack and gun, he took a long look at the mannequin before helping it up, too. Safety in numbers, he thought.
With McKay propped casually against the base of the device, Sheppard dialed the address almost from memory. When the ring kawooshed, all the hair on his body stood on end.
He slung the pack over his shoulder and offered a weak salute to the faithful McKay. "So long," he said, stepping away.
The mannequin listed to one side, arm outstretched as if reaching for him. Had he actually seen the fingers extend, or did he want a reaction so badly that he only imagined it? Trying to process it, he looked back, but his feet kept moving, carrying him forward as a great force took him, drew him in, sucked the air from his lungs and tumbled him out into infinity.
~~*~~
John opened his eyes and gasped for breath. Pressing his fingers to his lips, he blinked into the brightly lit room. It took a few moments to orient to his new surroundings. No abandoned town, no Pave Hawk, no flight suit. Leads, wires, and tubes covered his white infirmary scrubs and reminded him of a subway map connecting him from crotch to crown to a bank of machines and monitors. He was in one of Atlantis' isolation rooms, but the glare prevented him from identifying any of the dark forms behind the observation glass.
McKay sat on a gurney located a few feet away, where leads and wires connected him to still more machines. The wave of déjà vu chilled him as they stared at one another.
"Rodney?"
"Oh, thank god!" The words came out in a rush of breath - about the same time it took Rodney to reach John's bedside. He looked exhausted. Dark circles hollowed his cheeks and he had a five o'clock shadow from hell, but his eyes were clear and filled with relief.
A voice boomed from above… "Welcome back, Colonel," but it wasn't Woolsey and Ronon never called him by his rank.
Back from where, John wondered. He had no clear memory of what preceded finding himself on that… but that was just a crazy dream. He'd been all alone, except Rodney was there, sort of, and then going through… "The stargate…" he said.
"You okay?" Rodney asked. "How do you feel?"
John could tell by the way Rodney hovered that it hadn't been a dream. "What happened to me?"
"You were ambushed on M7X-112."
"Our friends, the Ot'erans?"
"Ex-friends, well, at least until we get Aniias back in power. Right now, she and Woolsey are enjoying the finer things of Atlantis and plotting strategy with Teyla."
"Ronon?"
"He's fine... everyone's fine now-I mean, there were a few-a couple of marines were injured, but they're fine. We captured some of the rebels-they're down in the brig. "
"Rebels?"
"It seems not all of the good Ot'erans are happy with her Highness or the treaties with Atlantis. One of these factions managed to get their hands on some advanced hybrid technology and found a way to use it to rig up a mind control device. By the time we rescued you, they had you encased in some sort of organic cocoon, but we were able to tap into that rather easily to monitor your vital signs. They'd planned on using the device to force Aniias to abdicate, but you were the bigger bargaining chip."
"Yeah, and how'd that work out for them?" He tried to sit up straighter but his head seemed to be filled with cement.
"Not so good, actually-we put Ronon in charge of hospitality for the time being." Rodney glanced at his watch. "You've been out a couple of days now."
A couple of days? A dull throbbing began at John's temples. The radiation-level lighting didn't help either. "So, these rebels held my mind hostage? How?"
"You do remember the Wraith EM field experiment? The time you shot everybody because you saw something we didn't?"
John nodded because apologizing, again, would be as useless as pounding sand down a rat hole.
"Well, Zelenka is still trying to confirm it, but our best guess is the rebels rigged the cocoon to replicate the same sort of EM field, only instead of external manifestations of hallucinations and general hysteria, the device operates with a measure of control, whereby the control is confined internally-creating a projection method that keeps your conscious mind occupied, quite an ingenious bit of engineering. SG-1 ran into the same type of thing a few years ago."
Looking past Rodney, John noticed something on the floor. It was shiny and black and looked like shed skin. Wires or tendrils seemed to wriggle out of it and the two main ones at the head of the thing resembled the mouth of a lamprey, unless of courses it was just a trick of light. He broke out in a cold sweat as he realized what it was.
"… technology we used when you touched that crystal. Only, this time it wasn't dreams and we had to re-reengineer the tech to be able to tap into your conscious thought as controlled by the device."
John shivered thinking of the town and what he'd seen. "You saw what I saw?"
"Yes and no. Once we got you disconnected, you still didn't come around. The cocoon itself emits a low EM pulse at just the right frequency to act as a remote control-it puts you in a zombie-like state where your own mind is the projection… if that even makes sense. We were able to disrupt the pulse with sound waves so it was just a matter of getting inside and…"
All the talk made John edgy. He knew Rodney could get hyper due to lack of sleep, but this was chatty even for McKay. He glanced up at the window again and sensed a shift in the room, like a shadow passing just out of the corner of his eye. Who'd been watching them before? Were they still watching?
"… should have known you'd go into full Rambo mode. It was like working with blinders on." Rodney's voice softened. "But I didn't give up… I tried a few clever things to get your attention at first and finally decided to use the stargate - a metaphoric passage, if you will. Of course, it worked."
"Yeah, the clown train," John said, shifting his eyes. "Real clever."
"Is that what it was? That was totally you… and, may I say, creepy as hell."
John thought about the big, ugly head and the sound it made going around the track, and how it hadn't bothered any of the other kids. Then he decided to leave the rest of that memory crouched in the dark where it belonged. He was home and relatively safe, though that thing on the floor did ping his spidey sense a little. "You were… you've been here the whole time?" he asked.
"Of course…" He pointed to John's head. "Who better than someone who already knows what's up there?"
Now that was a scary thought. He looked into Rodney's eyes. They'd been here so many times; they still kept score. How many times afterward had he wished for the luxury of letting go, wanting nothing more than to pull Rodney in, plant his face in the crook of Rodney's neck, and melt into those strong shoulders?
And then Rodney took his hand - Rodney's was sweaty and warm - and the hair on the back of John's neck bristled as Rodney leaned in closer as if he were going to kiss him. Monitors began to beep and bleat as John's pulse quickened. A movie started to play inside his head like a dream, soft lips telegraphing Rodney's need, pulling gently, slowly opening him up, teasing him...
John shook it off and held Rodney back. "Jesus, not here…"
"What? No, it's okay. Everyone knows."
Rodney had a gleam in his eyes that John had never seen before. Every nerve in John's body screamed for attention. "They do?"
"Sure. That's why I'm not on the team anymore and probably how you ended up…"
John glanced up at the darkened window, his throat tightening. No way in hell he would have let Rodney off the team. Where were the nurses? Where was Keller? Why hadn't anyone come to check on him? Teyla and Ronon would be there if…
"Are you sure you're feeling okay? You don't look so good."
Watching Rodney talk, he recalled a mute Rodney who only spoke with his eyes; it made him doubt if it was really Rodney speaking now. John pretended to listen as he twirled his fingers around the IV tube, dry dust gathering in his throat, heart thumping hard against his chest setting off a new round of beeps.
"Hey, what are you…"
John jerked the tube, ripping it free. He swung his legs over the opposite side of the bed and had one foot on the floor before the door burst open and they were on him. Medical personnel poked at the machines and at him, forcing him back onto the bed.
"John!"
The glint of a needle caught the light as he fought to get away, but he didn't feel the stick. Even the pain in his head began to recede and the fight or flight reflex lost its stranglehold and dissolved. Everyone in the room seemed to disappear except Rodney.
Someone was pushing Rodney back. They were talking but John couldn't hear them. Instead, the words seemed to appear in front of him as if written on grimy glass.
"…sleep for a while… get some rest yourself, McKay."
As the corners of the room closed in, John saw an outstretched arm, a hand with the fingers extended. He cried, "McKay!" as if it required a herculean effort to break through the glass. It was all he had left.
The air grew heavy. His eyelids drifted shut, and as the room fell away, something warm caught his hand and held on tight.
**
Poll
Author: neevebrody
Team: Fine
Prompt: hang fire
Pairing(s): McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Word count: 5500
Summary: John is lost; can Rodney find him and bring him home… again?
Author’s Notes: The story is based on the Twilight Zone episode, "Where is Everybody?" Many thanks to my beta and editor, mischief5, and to my lovely team captain reddwarfer for the alpha read... their insights were spot on.
Once you've read the story, please take a moment to vote in the poll below. Ratings go from 1 (low) to 9 (high), so all you need to do is enter a single number in that range into each text entry box. You'll be able to see the prompt in the header above.
More details about the voting procedure can be found here.
- hang fire
: to delay doing something, or making a decision, waiting to see what will happen
: to remain unsettled or unresolved
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right
Here I am, stuck in the middle with you
It was straight up noon by the look of his shadow. The sun, a blistering hole in an otherwise flawless sky, charmed columns of gulch-dry heat from the road as he walked. Christ, he'd give a month's pay for just a breeze - that is, if he even had a job. Memories teased him. They swirled like the animal-pelt scented dust at his feet then vaporized like sweat from his brow. He didn't know how he'd come to be on the road, how long he'd been walking it or where it was taking him.
Another mile and the scrub gave way to signs of civilization - pavement, a town. Not a large town but it was somewhere and towns usually meant people. Up ahead, a small café swam into view as music drifted out over the dusty-boot colored landscape along with the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee. The tune seemed familiar but he couldn't place it, in that same way random thoughts flit around with no place to light.
A half-rusted faucet protruded from the weathered clapboard siding. What came out of it had a brownish cast and wasn't exactly cold, but he could live with that. He splashed it over his face and around his neck before sticking his head under the flow. Once the water started to run clear and cool, he scooped handfuls to his mouth. The first few he swished and spat on the ground along with the grit from the road, and then he drank.
Inside, a jukebox wailed happily in the corner, its lights flashing and a vinyl disc spinning in its belly. "Hello?" Chairs stood empty, some pulled out as if the occupants had left in a hurry. The tables were set as if lunch might be served any minute.
The thought of lunch sounded good to him or even breakfast since he had no idea when he'd last eaten. Behind a long counter where no one sat on the barrel-seated stools, a grill sizzled hot. A breadbox lay open near an eight-slotted toaster and steam rose from two full pots of coffee waiting to be served.
"You got a customer out front!" he yelled, taking a look behind the counter. On the floor in the open space that divided the seating and cooking areas, an oscillating fan hummed tonelessly, dutifully swaying its head from side to side to side.
"Anybody here?" he called out again, slapping his hand down on the sparkling countertop. "Hey!"
He stepped around the counter and stood in front of the fan. Scattering the warm, stale air was the best it could do, but the conjured breeze felt like icy fingers fusing the remaining water and sweat to his skin. He ran his fingers through his hair and looked around. Maybe the cook had to take a leak or was out back on a smoke break. "How about some breakfast?" he said, taking a heavy china cup from the stack. He filled it with coffee, sipping its richness as he went back around to sit on one of the stools.
The song ended and the jukebox shut off with a loud clunk. He waited.
"Pretty hungry out here… I'll take some ham and eggs, eggs over easy, hash browns." Spinning himself in a monotonous half-circle, he admitted, "It's the funniest thing… I don't know how long I've been on the road there… I never saw a car." He blew over the rim of the cup, took a sip, and laughed to himself. "Even funnier…I don't seem to know who I am."
The coffee churned in his empty stomach as he surveyed the situation. He eased off the stool and walked to the back of the café where the sight of another man caught him up short - just below the restroom sign standing between two huge arrows that pointed to the left and the right. The man was tall, tanned from what he could see of the face, dark hair and not bad looking. Water spotted the desert colored jumpsuit covering the rest of the lanky frame. He moved in closer to read the patch on the left breast pocket: Sheppard, U.S. Air Force.
Eying the face staring back at him, he raised his eyebrows and reached to touch his cheek, following the movement closely as if it might really be another person. But the muddy-green eyes sparked no recognition, nor the slender bridge of the nose, or the full, sun-parched lips.
"Sheppard," he said slowly, trying the name on for size. "Air Force." The words didn't seem to fit even though he felt a quickening of his pulse as he repeated them.
Abandoning breakfast and the café, he had a new mission. There had to be someone around who could help him. He had a name for starters and maybe there was a base nearby. He could have been in an accident, knocked unconscious, a concussion … and just happened to wake up walking that road.
Whatever it was, he sensed he was close to something. Close to finding help, close to getting back home, wherever home was. But as he passed several shops, he saw no one. Doors stood open. The enticing aroma of fresh bread followed him from the corner bakery and a well-dressed mannequin appeared to watch him as he passed Dave's Haberdashery. Its fair, chiseled features felt familiar though he didn't know why, but the accusatory stare was disturbing and he hurried from the storefront.
Crossing a side street, he looked to his right. "Hey!" A small van sat parked halfway down the alleyway. "Hey, buddy… Where is everybody?" he called, nearing the van and its passenger.
Shielding his eyes from the windshield's wicked glare, he said, "It's like everyone just disappeared." Saying that, he had the sense of people beamed up onto some type of spacecraft, but it was only a flicker and was gone as quickly as it had come.
"I'm hoping you can help me… I don't want you to think I'm some kind of nut or anything, but I don't… I can't seem to remember who I am." He pointed to the patch on his flight suit. "Is there an air base around here… I just need-"
The passenger ignored him.
"Listen, buddy…" He grabbed the door handle; it came open easily as the passenger slumped sideways and tumbled out into his arms.
The man felt hollow, and as the momentum carried Sheppard to his knees, he saw why. Neatly lettered across the side of van were the words, O'Neill's Store Mannequins. The fully-articulated one he held wore a blue shirt that matched its eyes and tan pants. He propped it up along the side of the van and sat down on the curb opposite. Like the one at the store, it was very realistic for a dummy. The hair looked as if it grew from the head and, noticing the wide-set mouth, he would swear he heard it speak.
He chuckled and shook his head. "Don't say it… what's a good-looking guy like me doing in a place like this?" The blue eyes seemed to ponder him. "Right. I wish I knew, pal… I wish I knew."
Resigned, he stood and hefted the mannequin to put it back. A cardboard tag hung from its left wrist. The tag contained the word McKay's, along with a set of symbols or characters that could have been Chinese for all his recognition of them, and the word "important" hand-printed at the top.
After setting the mannequin back in the seat, he checked the van for keys. "All right, McKay, where'd you stash 'em?" He found nothing in the glove box or the center console.
Back out on the sidewalk, his shadow had grown longer. He had no watch but needed only the rumbling of his stomach to direct his next course of action.
He stood at the back of the café with his second turkey and Swiss cheese sandwich, perusing the small telephone book he found beside the cash register. With change borrowed from the till, he looked up the number of O'Neill's Store Mannequins and dialed the old-fashioned pay phone. The line rang and rang before finally answering.
I'm sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed. This is the Pegasus special operator.
"Operator? Hey, I'm here at-where the hell am I…" Looking around, he located a menu. "I'm at Lorne's Diner, and I-"
I'm sorry, your call cannot be completed at this time. Please hang up and dial again. This is a recording.
He slammed the receiver on the cradle. The word Pegasus rang in his head as he headed back to the counter. He pushed his plate away and wondered if it was a division name, a mission… It was sure as shit something if the feeling in his gut meant anything. But his impetus lacked a real punch; the sad fact was, he didn't know what the feeling meant.
He grabbed the phone book and quickly thumbed through the pages. McHenry, McIntyre… There was only one listing under McKay - McKay, R. He followed the dashed line with his finger. Symbols, cyphers whatever he wanted to call them, seeing them twice had to be important and at least he remembered where he'd seen them before.
Downing another cup of coffee, he closed up the diner and returned to the alley. It was still there sitting in the passenger seat. The way his day had been going, Sheppard half expected it to have disappeared. "All right, McKay." He hauled the mannequin out again and wrapped his arm around the torso. "Let's you and me take a walk."
McKay's rigid body bobbed in time with Sheppard's long-limbed gait as they passed more storefronts and shops. Just as before, a look inside each one proved fruitless.
Further down the block, cigar smoke drifted from the open door of a tobacconist. "Now we're getting somewhere." But upon entering the shop, he was once again disappointed to find nothing but empty club chairs arranged in front of a walk-in humidor. Colorful boxes of fine cigars and tins of pipe tobacco lined the shelves inside. Near one of the chairs, an ornate stand ashtray held a bullet-shaped cigar with half an inch of gray ash on the end.
"Hello!" He pounded his fist on the counter and nearly banged the mannequin's head in the process. Still, he wasn't surprised when he got no response, only a monotonous droning sound that made his temples throb.
As he turned to leave the shop, McKay's arm caught on a wire rack filled with magazines and postcards. The magazines were devoted to fine tobacco, travel, and sports, but the postcards were identical: "See Pegasus" emblazoned across a view of a colorful valley with a large ring as the center focus.
Something about that ring bothered him. He couldn't explain it; the structure was… familiar but the why of it lay just out of his reach. "It's like trying to put a name with a face and coming up with Jack Shit," he told his companion, frowning when the blue-eyed sphinx was no help at all.
Flipping the card over, the caption stated simply, Scenic Cheyenne Valley. Was that where he was then? The phone book back at the diner had described the town as the "jewel of the Cheyenne."
He stepped out onto the sidewalk and took a long look around. "Well, if this is the jewel, McKay, I'd sure as hell hate to see the ass end." He'd seen nothing like the scenery on the postcard out on that road, but the more he stared at the ring, the more he felt he needed to go there.
"You up for this?" he asked the rigid mannequin, as if he fully expected an answer. Fixing his sights down the darkening street, he hitched McKay tighter under his arm. "There's something there… I feel it." Sheppard's voice followed them, a whisper on the wind, as he set off on the road out of town.
~~*~~
Cresting one more hill, the top of the ring loomed in the distance. He'd been walking for hours and still hadn't seen a green field or anything resembling the picture on the postcard. Only one thing had disturbed him as much as the mannequin at the men's store. Like a mirage, it seemed to have materialized from the waves of heat snaking their way skyward: a giant clown head, half-buried in sand and dry scrub leading a caterpillar line of rust-pitted yellow and blue kiddie-sized cars.
The thing would have looked suspicious, a piece of a different puzzle, except that he'd felt it belonged there, every bit as organic as the weeds that ran along the lengths of faded, paint-chipped pipes leading from the little train connecting it to a large chunk of disintegrating metal. He'd stared past the rust covered clown hat hanging precariously from the huge head, past the hideous, half-obliterated face and rust-marbled tongue lolling from the wide cartoonish mouth, afraid to look at it head-on. Even with the heat of the day, shivered with a sudden prickle of fear that the monstrosity was supposed to mean something to him, something deep and unforgettable.
He had tried to work up enough moisture to swallow down the kernel of a memory gathering at the back of his throat, and when he couldn't, he'd just spat it out onto the ground.
"I hate clowns," he'd told McKay, finally walking away. Still, it had called to him, wanted him to come back and face it, but he kept moving, his jaw set and cold sweat trailing down his back. Gone, too, was the sense of being lost in a vast nothingness. It was much more personal than that, he'd feared. Keeping step, he'd started to whistle, as if replacing the silence inside his head would somehow scare away the truth and keep McKay from seeing through his façade.
"Good news, pal, the end is in sight." He'd kept a good balance of blood flow by repositioning the mannequin several times, finally helping it along as he would a wounded man. Dragging it by the arm seemed disrespectful and, somehow, it never occurred to him to ditch McKay and carry on alone. Turning to the expressionless face, he added, "Fuckin' A."
As he neared the actual site of the ring, what lay before him could have come straight from the panels of a comic book. The derelict remains of a Sikorsky Pave Hawk lay on its belly, bermed in the dirt like some partially exposed fossil, its ancient bones bleached by the sun. He walked around it slowly, taking it all in. The faded markings were barely legible over the desert camo paint. He smiled ruefully at the charred tail section and noticed shards of the blades and other debris scattered about. Then he noticed the pack sitting in the sand beside the door.
Unlike the clown train or the helicopter, the pack seemed completely out of place. It looked new for one thing, not weathered or dirty. He bent McKay's legs and set him down against the faded fuselage before kneeling to inspect the pack. He shuffled through pouches of ready to eat meals and uncovered medical supplies, signal flares, a knife, and a gun. The 9mm was loaded and another search of the pack netted extra ammo.
Handling the gun calmed him like a drug straight into a vein. Still, he traversed the fifty or so yards to the ring with caution. The postcard had made it seem a lot larger and the way it was situated, it looked more like a gateway. In fact, the informality of its placement seemed to belie its importance. After the clown and the chopper, the ring was just another fixture in this nightmare - the entire milieu having been clumsily arranged without rhyme or reason, as if by some giant kid setting out all his toys in a sandbox.
Some of the symbols set into the sections surrounding the structure matched the symbols he'd already seen. They were repeated on the small device next to the ring that looked like some cosmic dialing mechanism. And as ridiculous as that sounded in his head, he knew at once what he had to do.
He took the knife out of the pack, cut the tag from McKay's wrist, and returned to the device. When he pressed the first corresponding glyph, the device made a strange noise as it lit up. He pressed another and another, following the script on the tag, each time lighting the matching symbol on the ring. He sensed a strange vibration as his heart banged away at his ribcage. The vibration began at his feet and soon his hand poised over the next symbol shook with it. Maybe he'd been a tad hasty in judging the thing's power.
He hesitated, actually thinking it through for the first time. Lowering his hand, he backed off, heart and mind duking it out over the sense of urgency versus a little rational thought. As he pondered, the air around him shifted. Like the guttering of a huge candle, the device and ring went dark, leaving him standing there with nothing but the roar of silence between his ears.
"How about if I just click my boots together and say there's no place like home?"
The next time, he made it all the way through the dialing process. When he lighted the last of the symbols and pressed the center, the ring filled up and bulged out with a great kawoosh of energy that left behind a shimmery, calming pool. It was a beautiful contrast against the darkening sky. "So what now?" he asked, adrenaline speeding through his body. He licked his lips and stared into the endless blue. It seemed the answer was either roll the dice and go through or stay and go mad having one-sided conversations with McKay.
He wasn't yet ready to choose.
He studied the phenomenon, picked up a stone and threw it inside. It sailed through like breaking the surface of a pond. He crouched by the device and waited, but nothing happened. He looked around and found a bit of debris from the chopper. He threw that, too. Nothing. Watching the hunk of metal disappear gave him a strange feeling, a pulling from the inside as though the thing didn't intend to give him a choice.
"It's the craziest thing," he said, slumping down beside McKay. "Okay, not as crazy as sitting here talking to a dummy… but I feel connected to that thing somehow." He gazed out at the ring in the distance. "An urge to go through-like all the answers are on the other side."
Maybe that urge was only a halfhearted grab at some certainty. It didn't take a genius to figure something would surely happen to him if he went through, but what? And maybe he just didn't care anymore.
He stood and paced, muttering to himself now more than McKay. "…don't even know where I am now, so how would it be any different…" He shivered again; a clammy pall crept over him with an oppressive sense of being watched. Was this some kind of game? Secret experiment? His eyes shot to the mannequin, staring hard, trying to detect any movement, a breath, a twitch of muscle… anything. And then the feeling evaporated.
"Nothing personal," he said to McKay. "I keep hearing another voice in my head, telling me it's a way out but… but it's different, you know, not me… it doesn't feel right." He pressed both hands against his temples as the noise in his head shifted to a higher pitch.
"What do you think?" McKay was a congenial companion but he sucked at conversation. "Yeah, that's what I thought you'd say."
He walked back to the ring. The voices were beyond the blue now. It was mesmerizing, but still he found a way to resist. By the time he could work up his conviction again, the ring shut down and the blue was gone.
Returning to the chopper, he sat down and tried to gauge the time by the moon. "The sky's different," he mused, gazing up at the stars scattershot in a sea of deep indigo, and with a cold rush of elation and maybe envy, he had the feeling he'd flown among them. The feeling passed quickly, leaving a longing in its wake.
He contemplated his companion. He wished the mannequin was real, just for a few minutes so he could hear another human voice. Reaching over, he stroked his finger down the arm's cool, skin-like surface, picked up the hand and extended the fingers.
"Christ almighty!" Sheppard jerked his hand back and stared into the face of the mannequin. Five seconds before, it had been facing away.
He relaxed against the still-warm metal and muttered something about losing his mind. Closing his eyes, he just meant to rest them.
He awoke in a room bathed in stark, white light. McKay was there, sitting beside his bed, flesh and blood, his face flooded with relief. It bled through the dark circles and five o'clock shadow from hell. McKay took his hand and leaned in close, the press of his lips relaying desperation. They were soft, pulling at Sheppard's mouth as if drinking him in, teasing him open with a flick of tongue that deepened the kiss. He kissed back, clutching McKay with an urgency that sat like a stone in his chest, needy, as if one kiss held all the answers and all the deliverance his body yearned for.
A rosy mist gathered in the crisp, pre-dawn air like a thief. He opened his eyes to the stars hanging as faded jewels in the lightening sky, the taste on his lips and the warmth in his hands ebbing away. Grasping at the dream left him with the feeling of trying to dam water using a sieve.
He scrambled to his feet. No more hesitation; the ring was his transport, but to what, to where? Time travel? A portal to another dimension? He pressed a palm against his temple. At least it was a way out of this Kafkaesque existence. If he stayed, he'd crack up for sure.
He stared out at the ring. It was his resurrection or his destruction, and only time would tell which. Gathering up the pack and gun, he took a long look at the mannequin before helping it up, too. Safety in numbers, he thought.
With McKay propped casually against the base of the device, Sheppard dialed the address almost from memory. When the ring kawooshed, all the hair on his body stood on end.
He slung the pack over his shoulder and offered a weak salute to the faithful McKay. "So long," he said, stepping away.
The mannequin listed to one side, arm outstretched as if reaching for him. Had he actually seen the fingers extend, or did he want a reaction so badly that he only imagined it? Trying to process it, he looked back, but his feet kept moving, carrying him forward as a great force took him, drew him in, sucked the air from his lungs and tumbled him out into infinity.
~~*~~
John opened his eyes and gasped for breath. Pressing his fingers to his lips, he blinked into the brightly lit room. It took a few moments to orient to his new surroundings. No abandoned town, no Pave Hawk, no flight suit. Leads, wires, and tubes covered his white infirmary scrubs and reminded him of a subway map connecting him from crotch to crown to a bank of machines and monitors. He was in one of Atlantis' isolation rooms, but the glare prevented him from identifying any of the dark forms behind the observation glass.
McKay sat on a gurney located a few feet away, where leads and wires connected him to still more machines. The wave of déjà vu chilled him as they stared at one another.
"Rodney?"
"Oh, thank god!" The words came out in a rush of breath - about the same time it took Rodney to reach John's bedside. He looked exhausted. Dark circles hollowed his cheeks and he had a five o'clock shadow from hell, but his eyes were clear and filled with relief.
A voice boomed from above… "Welcome back, Colonel," but it wasn't Woolsey and Ronon never called him by his rank.
Back from where, John wondered. He had no clear memory of what preceded finding himself on that… but that was just a crazy dream. He'd been all alone, except Rodney was there, sort of, and then going through… "The stargate…" he said.
"You okay?" Rodney asked. "How do you feel?"
John could tell by the way Rodney hovered that it hadn't been a dream. "What happened to me?"
"You were ambushed on M7X-112."
"Our friends, the Ot'erans?"
"Ex-friends, well, at least until we get Aniias back in power. Right now, she and Woolsey are enjoying the finer things of Atlantis and plotting strategy with Teyla."
"Ronon?"
"He's fine... everyone's fine now-I mean, there were a few-a couple of marines were injured, but they're fine. We captured some of the rebels-they're down in the brig. "
"Rebels?"
"It seems not all of the good Ot'erans are happy with her Highness or the treaties with Atlantis. One of these factions managed to get their hands on some advanced hybrid technology and found a way to use it to rig up a mind control device. By the time we rescued you, they had you encased in some sort of organic cocoon, but we were able to tap into that rather easily to monitor your vital signs. They'd planned on using the device to force Aniias to abdicate, but you were the bigger bargaining chip."
"Yeah, and how'd that work out for them?" He tried to sit up straighter but his head seemed to be filled with cement.
"Not so good, actually-we put Ronon in charge of hospitality for the time being." Rodney glanced at his watch. "You've been out a couple of days now."
A couple of days? A dull throbbing began at John's temples. The radiation-level lighting didn't help either. "So, these rebels held my mind hostage? How?"
"You do remember the Wraith EM field experiment? The time you shot everybody because you saw something we didn't?"
John nodded because apologizing, again, would be as useless as pounding sand down a rat hole.
"Well, Zelenka is still trying to confirm it, but our best guess is the rebels rigged the cocoon to replicate the same sort of EM field, only instead of external manifestations of hallucinations and general hysteria, the device operates with a measure of control, whereby the control is confined internally-creating a projection method that keeps your conscious mind occupied, quite an ingenious bit of engineering. SG-1 ran into the same type of thing a few years ago."
Looking past Rodney, John noticed something on the floor. It was shiny and black and looked like shed skin. Wires or tendrils seemed to wriggle out of it and the two main ones at the head of the thing resembled the mouth of a lamprey, unless of courses it was just a trick of light. He broke out in a cold sweat as he realized what it was.
"… technology we used when you touched that crystal. Only, this time it wasn't dreams and we had to re-reengineer the tech to be able to tap into your conscious thought as controlled by the device."
John shivered thinking of the town and what he'd seen. "You saw what I saw?"
"Yes and no. Once we got you disconnected, you still didn't come around. The cocoon itself emits a low EM pulse at just the right frequency to act as a remote control-it puts you in a zombie-like state where your own mind is the projection… if that even makes sense. We were able to disrupt the pulse with sound waves so it was just a matter of getting inside and…"
All the talk made John edgy. He knew Rodney could get hyper due to lack of sleep, but this was chatty even for McKay. He glanced up at the window again and sensed a shift in the room, like a shadow passing just out of the corner of his eye. Who'd been watching them before? Were they still watching?
"… should have known you'd go into full Rambo mode. It was like working with blinders on." Rodney's voice softened. "But I didn't give up… I tried a few clever things to get your attention at first and finally decided to use the stargate - a metaphoric passage, if you will. Of course, it worked."
"Yeah, the clown train," John said, shifting his eyes. "Real clever."
"Is that what it was? That was totally you… and, may I say, creepy as hell."
John thought about the big, ugly head and the sound it made going around the track, and how it hadn't bothered any of the other kids. Then he decided to leave the rest of that memory crouched in the dark where it belonged. He was home and relatively safe, though that thing on the floor did ping his spidey sense a little. "You were… you've been here the whole time?" he asked.
"Of course…" He pointed to John's head. "Who better than someone who already knows what's up there?"
Now that was a scary thought. He looked into Rodney's eyes. They'd been here so many times; they still kept score. How many times afterward had he wished for the luxury of letting go, wanting nothing more than to pull Rodney in, plant his face in the crook of Rodney's neck, and melt into those strong shoulders?
And then Rodney took his hand - Rodney's was sweaty and warm - and the hair on the back of John's neck bristled as Rodney leaned in closer as if he were going to kiss him. Monitors began to beep and bleat as John's pulse quickened. A movie started to play inside his head like a dream, soft lips telegraphing Rodney's need, pulling gently, slowly opening him up, teasing him...
John shook it off and held Rodney back. "Jesus, not here…"
"What? No, it's okay. Everyone knows."
Rodney had a gleam in his eyes that John had never seen before. Every nerve in John's body screamed for attention. "They do?"
"Sure. That's why I'm not on the team anymore and probably how you ended up…"
John glanced up at the darkened window, his throat tightening. No way in hell he would have let Rodney off the team. Where were the nurses? Where was Keller? Why hadn't anyone come to check on him? Teyla and Ronon would be there if…
"Are you sure you're feeling okay? You don't look so good."
Watching Rodney talk, he recalled a mute Rodney who only spoke with his eyes; it made him doubt if it was really Rodney speaking now. John pretended to listen as he twirled his fingers around the IV tube, dry dust gathering in his throat, heart thumping hard against his chest setting off a new round of beeps.
"Hey, what are you…"
John jerked the tube, ripping it free. He swung his legs over the opposite side of the bed and had one foot on the floor before the door burst open and they were on him. Medical personnel poked at the machines and at him, forcing him back onto the bed.
"John!"
The glint of a needle caught the light as he fought to get away, but he didn't feel the stick. Even the pain in his head began to recede and the fight or flight reflex lost its stranglehold and dissolved. Everyone in the room seemed to disappear except Rodney.
Someone was pushing Rodney back. They were talking but John couldn't hear them. Instead, the words seemed to appear in front of him as if written on grimy glass.
"…sleep for a while… get some rest yourself, McKay."
As the corners of the room closed in, John saw an outstretched arm, a hand with the fingers extended. He cried, "McKay!" as if it required a herculean effort to break through the glass. It was all he had left.
The air grew heavy. His eyelids drifted shut, and as the room fell away, something warm caught his hand and held on tight.
**
Poll