TEAM PEACE: Feet of Clay, "The Weakness See"
Title: The Weakness See
Author: mamadeb ( interview)
Team: Peace
Prompt: Feet of Clay
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: For once, no one was attacking them.
Notes: Thank you to my incomparable beta, mecurtin.
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 and Team (Genre) information in the header above.
More details about the voting procedure can be found here.
**
John could hear Rodney cursing under his breath, issuing a constant stream of invective as first one and then another solution failed. "What if I do this to the force shield? Can I cloak us just a bit? Damn!" John himself was busy maneuvering the jumper around the blasts and energy streams that the other craft were aiming towards them. Sometimes he really hated Pegasus. It ruined everything.
***
"Sheppard! Sheppard!" John woke up from his nap, but there was no urgency in Rodney's voice, so he didn't do more than sit up. He'd heard that for some people waking up was slow and lethargic. He'd lost that ability a long, long time ago.
"What is it, Rodney?" He could have helped the whine in his voice, but why bother? It was only Rodney, and he was lying under a nice, shady tree on a perfect afternoon. An afternoon when he knew no one was going to be shooting at them or at Atlantis, so he could pretend to relax on a pretty part of an empty planet. Who cared if the sky, the sunlight and everything else was just subtly wrong? He was used to that. He preferred that.
"Oh, please. You've been sleeping an hour. In about five minutes, that shade is going to disappear completely and you'll - well, you won't get burned because you NEVER burn, which is entirely unfair but what about you isn't unfair?" Rodney stood over him, hands on his hips. "I'm not even going into the list because you'll start doing that 'aw, shucks' thing that always…well, anyway. I found something really cool. Want to see?"
"What did you find?" John got on his feet. If Rodney thought something was cool, it was going to be extremely cool and worth seeing, plus Rodney around something cool was always worth seeing. In fact, that was probably going to be the best part. Sometimes he flailed and got incoherent, and sometimes he fell into a state of wonder that dragged John along and made him want…but since he'd torn himself away to get John, it was probably something else.
They waved to Teyla and Ronon, who were relaxing before John packed them into the jumper and took them to another random part of the planet to see if there really were no people or other nasty things they couldn't control. If the place worked out, they had a potential alpha site, or maybe a place to resettle refugees. Or John could let himself indulge in the idea of self-sufficiency. Woolsey didn't want to hear any more of it than Elizabeth or Sam had, but it still seemed like the best possible idea to him. This planet might be perfect.
And this was a good time to think of such things. They were in a tiny pocket when the Wraith were licking their wounds or fighting among themselves and no one else was on the radar spoiling for a fight. John treasured these rare moments of peace, even if he knew they would end soon. No better time to put down a crop and maybe start a herd or two, if the season were right.
Rodney, meanwhile, didn't run so much as bounce. "You need to see this. You really do. It's the coolest thing EVER."
"You said that last week."
"Well, it WAS, last week. Last week, an Ancient device that made precision cuts without an error was remarkably cool. I mean, it burnt out two days ago because everyone wanted to use it, but it was a PHASER, darn it."
It was. It looked exactly like an old-school phaser, and it even heated rocks. "And this is cooler, Rodney?"
"This is so cool it makes Antarctica look like Florida cool."
There was a cave. There was always a cave. "McKay, what did I say about caves?"
"I was careful, I promise. I had a loaded weapon in one hand and a flashlight in the other, and I kept my eyes open. I have no desire to be eaten by a cavebear or a lion or a…a hungry tiger. They're not going to go into this cave at all."
"Why not?" John pulled out his gun and his light, stepping in front of Rodney because no one was more important than Rodney, least of all John Sheppard. Without Rodney, he told himself, the entire mission would fail, collapsing of … well, not having Rodney around to fix and maintain and invent. That was why he never thought twice about risking his life. He'd already made everyone else he trusted to do the job - Teyla and Ronon and Lorne - swear to protect Rodney in the increasingly likely event he was killed.
But there was nothing living in the cave larger or more menacing than Rodney himself, so John let him get ahead. "Because of that. " And there Rodney pointed to something extremely…well, cool.
On the wall of the cave - PAINTED on the wall of the cave - was what looked like a computer console, with a keyboard in the familiar Ancient mode, and a large flat screen. More than that - it was painted in a near perfect illusion of three dimensions. "Wow. Look at that. You'd think - that monitor can't be working." Yeah, this was cool. Coolest thing ever? Not really.
"Ah, but that's the thing. You'd think it can't be working. Go on. Use it."
"I'm supposed to play computer on the wall? Are there fumes here?" John shook his head even as he walked towards the perfect painting and put his fingers on the keyboard. Like everyone else on Atlantis, he'd learned enough Ancient to use various things, and he knew what commands did what on Ancient computer. So, he entered a simple initiation protocol. "Whoa!" The keys were painted, but they also gave real feedback to his hands, and the screen looked exactly like any other screen where he'd used that protocol. "What the hell is going on here, McKay?"
Rodney was all but dancing. "See, Colonel? See? It's a real, functional computer made of paint. It's a virtual computer and it's working SO much faster than it did for me. Which means it's the gene because yours is, well. Yours. If I could duplicate this, make it work, it would be the most amazing thing in the history of amazing, and that's a lot because everything is amazing the first time. It would be - godlike. Yes. That's it. A computer you can't lose because you just paint it."
"Yeah, but look at this thing. It's perfect. We don't do perfect, McKay."
"Then we train someone. Lorne's an artist, right? Or we print it. Look, let me get a sample of that paint and we'll see."
"Hey, what if you take a sample and it stops working?"
"'Well, then, we'll need to get a really good artist, won't we?" Rodney carefully scraped a bit of paint off the edge of the "desk" with a stylus. He put it in a clear phial he'd fished from his vest. "There. That's probably not going to hurt. Try it, Colonel."
It was freaky - he tapped the cave wall, he felt something respond and the screen painted on the cave wall produced the images and words he expected. So he did more, just to see. He'd learned some protocols for managing his city because she was his city and he figured that there was no city, so they wouldn't do anything. But then Rodney pushed him away . "You idiot, can't you read?"
"Not really." He figured his Ancient reading level was first grade at best. However, he was used to doing this and knew what it looked like. "I'm configuring the weapons systems, right?"
Rodney looked at the screen. "Yeah, you are. But the thing is, you are. You shouldn't be doing that because there are no weapons and it's not connected to anything, but it says weapons enabled. Hey, let's see something. Do you know how to turn on lights? I'd do it myself, but you're geneboy."
"That's just not the coolest superhero name." He tapped in the command.
"Would you prefer Gene Lad?" And there was light in the cave.
"Cool! Always did want to be a Legionnaire. They had flight rings."
Rodney shook his head. "They still had lame names. And while, yes, very cool, this should not be possible. And, you know…maybe we shouldn't have done that. I think we woke something."
John stared at the painted monitor. Painted monitor screen. He finally realized that what should have been produced by something electronic was actually swirling paint. He looked at Rodney. Rodney looked at him. "Nanites?"
"Nanites." Rodney nodded.
They took off for the cave entrance, Rodney dropping his sample container on the way out. John, meanwhile, had pulled hand sanitizer out of his vest. He rubbed his hands with it before tossing it to Rodney, who caught it on the fly and did the same. "Were going to be quarantined, aren't we?" Rodney did not look happy.
"Yep. And stay away from Teyla and Ronon as much as possible. How are we such idiots?" He hit his radio with the back of his hand. It was probably futile, but he felt better. When Teyla responded, he shouted "Nanites!" In the distance, he could see her and Ronon head for their cloaked jumper.
"We…were…seduced…by…the…cool." Yeah, story of his life. Also the uncool. Rodney kept up with him, but even he could only go so far on fear and adrenaline.
They got into the jumper just after Ronon and Teyla. "You two, get into the other compartment. We both touched the nanites. Maybe you two should radio…" And that's when the ground behind them - the lovely, fertile, green, almost earthlike ground that John wanted to farm - changed into a ship. "Okay, no time for that."
He hit the controls and the force shield and they were up and out of the atmosphere, the nanite ship close behind. The orbital gate wasn't that far from their position, but John couldn't take a chance on being followed. He needed a nice long lead - even better if he could destroy them.
Not that he really wanted to destroy them if he could avoid it. They were only minding their own business before he and Rodney messed around with their computer. They were perfectly justified. Sometimes he wondered if maybe the Prime Directive wasn't actually a good idea instead of a dumb plot device.
Rodney would call that blasphemy -they'd argued this enough during Trek rewatches. Or he would have if John had had time to voice the problem at all. Because the nanite ship had opened fire on them, and he had to dodge those projectiles while getting his own weapons online, or at least keeping his shields up. And now he was mad because he was perfectly willing not to fight them if he and his people were allowed to leave.
And Rodney was playing with crystals and muttering under his breath about cloaking and shielding and then he couldn't control the jumper at all. "Rodney!"
"Sorry, sorry. Here, you have it again." And he did, but they'd some of their lead. And for all he knew, they were infested anyway. John couldn't think that way now, because he'd have to blow up the jumper himself. And while he wasn't important, the others were, and losing a jumper was bad, too. They weren't Voyager with the eternal shuttlecraft. And why was he thinking about bad Trek now?
"Got it! We're cloaked!"
"Cloaked?"
"Dial Atlantis NOW and get through as soon as you can. This is eating energy." And so John did, and so they did, broadcasting "Nanites" as they arrived. It seemed like moments later that John and Rodney were alone.
"I hate quarantine." John hitched up his orange scrubs in an attempt to make them fit and collapsed on a bed. Rodney didn't look at him. Rodney went to the other bed and turned to face the wall, saying nothing. He wasn't sulking. Rodney didn't sulk quietly. Or pout quietly. Or, well, anything quietly. Not that John was complaining, much. When Rodney talked, no one had to, and what he said was generally interesting or fun or useful. And in the rare times there were pauses, John knew how to fill them because the conversation made sense. So when he did complain, it was mostly for the fun of it and to see Rodney all flustered. Something about Rodney flustered made John happy and he wasn't going to think about it.
But this was not funny. It started out worrisome and after a half hour, it became scary. The orderlies came early with trays of food, knowing how Rodney was. Jennifer had even made sure that it was Rodney's favorites. Their relationship had only lasted a couple of months, but they'd parted as friends, for which John was grateful because he liked Jennifer and he didn't like not liking her, and he would have hated hating her.
But Rodney ignored it. He just kept lying there, facing the wall. The only real improvement was that he was now muttering to himself, which was at least more normal than silence.
"McKay? We have lunch." Rodney shrugged. "Roooodney, come on. You know you have to eat." John never really believed in the hypoglycemia, any more than he really believed in the severe citrus allergy, and also he looked up citrus allergy and asked Carson, and if Rodney really had one, he'd be dead. But a hungry Rodney was a cranky one - so maybe there was something to that blood sugar idea. Anyway, he had to do something. "You don't want to faint or die or something, do you, buddy?" He touched Rodney's shoulder.
Rodney rolled over at his touch. His eyes were red. "Why not? It's not like you'd think me more useless, is it?"
"What the hell, McKay?" He gave Rodney a push and sat next to him on the bed. "You're pretty much the definition of not-useless. You saved our asses today."
"It's my fault I had to do that, and I nearly didn't." Rodney sat up. His hair and ugly orange jumpsuit were rumpled. He ran a hand through his hair, which only made it worse, which was the story of John's life, too. "I nearly didn't save us, Colonel. I nearly killed us all today - and by all, I mean all of Atlantis, and maybe the Pegasus galaxy is still in trouble because of us." He sighed. "It's about time you knew that about me."
"Knew what, Rodney?" For reasons John couldn't quantify but were real never the less, he found himself stroking Rodney's shoulder. For reasons only Rodney knew, this wasn't rebuffed. So he kept doing it. Rodney had nice shoulders, which he shouldn't have been thinking.
"I'm a failure. I've always been a failure. Genius doesn't imply success and I fail. I failed so hard I went to Siberia. I got sent to Atlantis because you know how many genius physicists specializing in wormhole science there are?"
"I…"
"Four. One is Sam, one is me, one is married and the last is divorced but has two kids. Carter was attached to SG-1, and they didn't allow anyone with spouses or children on the original mission. So they had to send me. Because I pretty much failed at life. I talked a good game - the one thing I don't fail at is talking. And also, I had to because someone has to keep this mission alive and it's on my shoulders. So I had to talk myself up so people would trust me." He wiped his eyes. "And YOU believed me. You don't believe in any of my medical conditions…"
"That's not true, Rodney. I believe in your blood pressure."
Rodney waved a hand. "That's a lie. But you seem to think I'm a god or something, who can pull tricks out of a hat and save our asses."
"Way to mix a metaphor, guy."
Rodney didn't seem to hear. "I'm not. I'm…a genius physicist who is in over his head everything single damn day and everyone is depending on me, and all I can do is FAIL. Look, I should have realized the computer was nanites, I should have realized we were waking them up and I never should have told you anything. Instead, I fell for the cool."
"You weren't the only one. Hell, I did the actual waking up. Again. I'm damn good at waking things up." Yeah, not the thing to bring up now, but it was always there.
"You were doing what I asked you to do. It's all on me. And you don't have people believing every word…"
John couldn't help it. Rodney looked so lost, so scared and so very worried. What he did next surprised him, of course, because it was so not his thing, but this wasn't Rodney's thing, either, so maybe it balanced. John wrapped him in his arms. "Rodney, it's fine. I don't think you're a god."
"No?"
"You're just like the rest of us idiots here. A mortal fuckup. And a good thing, too. I don't think I could love you perfect."
Okay, that was a mistake. Because those were not the words he meant to say. Those not words he'd ever meant to say. Rodney looked at him, eyes as wide as saucers. Before either could say anything, before John could think of anything to say, Jennifer came in, and not in a hazmat suit.
"Okay, boys. We're springing you."
"Nanites?" John tried to look only at her, and wondered if he was blushing.
"Dead. All of them. As near as I can figure, they died as soon as you left that solar system. They decomposed pretty rapidly, too. Lorne thinks they might be designed simply as a planetary defense system. So. You're perfectly safe. You can take your lunches with you." She looked at them, and then took out a digital thermometer. "Or maybe not. Rodney, open your mouth."
"I am NOT sick."
She popped the thermometer in. "We'll just see about that." It beeped. She looked at the display. "Okay. No fever. Okay, fine. I'm not letting you go until you eat something." She turned. "You, too, Colonel. It's not like you have any weight to spare anyway."
"Hey."
"Yeah, yeah. Talk my ear off, why don't you?" She turned to leave. "And I'm not above weighing you to figure out if you ate something. Eat." She left.
John took the cover off one tray. Pot roast and veggies. Salad. Chocolate cake. Still warm and smelling good. He pushed some of the steam towards Rodney. "Look, the sooner we eat, the sooner we can leave and forget…"
He stopped. He had to stop. Rodney was kissing him. Rodney was kissing him hard and deep and it was nicer than pot roast. "You idiot. I've been…I figured you … you are SO out of my league, and I didn't want YOU to be a failure, too. I mean, it's not crashing down from the heights of godhood, but it would have hurt so much less than just letting my fantasy…"
"You mean it wasn't the whole straight military guy thing?" He turned around to face Rodney so he could kiss him better.
"Like anyone really thought you were straight. You have more hair product than most of the women on the station." Rodney pulled out of his arms and sat at the table next to John.
"So you thought everyone thought you were a failure, and I thought everyone thought I was straight? See, we're both idiots." John laughed, and took a bit of lunch.
"I thought I had you all fooled into thinking I was this miracle worker. And now I have everything on me. One of these days, I'm going to fail completely, and then where will we be?" Rodney took the lid off the other tray and inhaled. John, now free to stare, smiled at it.
"We'd be probably be dead, and so we won't care, or, well, know. So let's not worry about it just yet, okay?"
Rodney did not look convinced, but he nodded. "Let's finish up. We have lost time to make up for." Rodney smiled around a piece of root vegetable. "Because I love that you're not perfect, either."
Poll
Author: mamadeb ( interview)
Team: Peace
Prompt: Feet of Clay
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: For once, no one was attacking them.
Notes: Thank you to my incomparable beta, mecurtin.
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 and Team (Genre) information in the header above.
More details about the voting procedure can be found here.
**
John could hear Rodney cursing under his breath, issuing a constant stream of invective as first one and then another solution failed. "What if I do this to the force shield? Can I cloak us just a bit? Damn!" John himself was busy maneuvering the jumper around the blasts and energy streams that the other craft were aiming towards them. Sometimes he really hated Pegasus. It ruined everything.
***
"Sheppard! Sheppard!" John woke up from his nap, but there was no urgency in Rodney's voice, so he didn't do more than sit up. He'd heard that for some people waking up was slow and lethargic. He'd lost that ability a long, long time ago.
"What is it, Rodney?" He could have helped the whine in his voice, but why bother? It was only Rodney, and he was lying under a nice, shady tree on a perfect afternoon. An afternoon when he knew no one was going to be shooting at them or at Atlantis, so he could pretend to relax on a pretty part of an empty planet. Who cared if the sky, the sunlight and everything else was just subtly wrong? He was used to that. He preferred that.
"Oh, please. You've been sleeping an hour. In about five minutes, that shade is going to disappear completely and you'll - well, you won't get burned because you NEVER burn, which is entirely unfair but what about you isn't unfair?" Rodney stood over him, hands on his hips. "I'm not even going into the list because you'll start doing that 'aw, shucks' thing that always…well, anyway. I found something really cool. Want to see?"
"What did you find?" John got on his feet. If Rodney thought something was cool, it was going to be extremely cool and worth seeing, plus Rodney around something cool was always worth seeing. In fact, that was probably going to be the best part. Sometimes he flailed and got incoherent, and sometimes he fell into a state of wonder that dragged John along and made him want…but since he'd torn himself away to get John, it was probably something else.
They waved to Teyla and Ronon, who were relaxing before John packed them into the jumper and took them to another random part of the planet to see if there really were no people or other nasty things they couldn't control. If the place worked out, they had a potential alpha site, or maybe a place to resettle refugees. Or John could let himself indulge in the idea of self-sufficiency. Woolsey didn't want to hear any more of it than Elizabeth or Sam had, but it still seemed like the best possible idea to him. This planet might be perfect.
And this was a good time to think of such things. They were in a tiny pocket when the Wraith were licking their wounds or fighting among themselves and no one else was on the radar spoiling for a fight. John treasured these rare moments of peace, even if he knew they would end soon. No better time to put down a crop and maybe start a herd or two, if the season were right.
Rodney, meanwhile, didn't run so much as bounce. "You need to see this. You really do. It's the coolest thing EVER."
"You said that last week."
"Well, it WAS, last week. Last week, an Ancient device that made precision cuts without an error was remarkably cool. I mean, it burnt out two days ago because everyone wanted to use it, but it was a PHASER, darn it."
It was. It looked exactly like an old-school phaser, and it even heated rocks. "And this is cooler, Rodney?"
"This is so cool it makes Antarctica look like Florida cool."
There was a cave. There was always a cave. "McKay, what did I say about caves?"
"I was careful, I promise. I had a loaded weapon in one hand and a flashlight in the other, and I kept my eyes open. I have no desire to be eaten by a cavebear or a lion or a…a hungry tiger. They're not going to go into this cave at all."
"Why not?" John pulled out his gun and his light, stepping in front of Rodney because no one was more important than Rodney, least of all John Sheppard. Without Rodney, he told himself, the entire mission would fail, collapsing of … well, not having Rodney around to fix and maintain and invent. That was why he never thought twice about risking his life. He'd already made everyone else he trusted to do the job - Teyla and Ronon and Lorne - swear to protect Rodney in the increasingly likely event he was killed.
But there was nothing living in the cave larger or more menacing than Rodney himself, so John let him get ahead. "Because of that. " And there Rodney pointed to something extremely…well, cool.
On the wall of the cave - PAINTED on the wall of the cave - was what looked like a computer console, with a keyboard in the familiar Ancient mode, and a large flat screen. More than that - it was painted in a near perfect illusion of three dimensions. "Wow. Look at that. You'd think - that monitor can't be working." Yeah, this was cool. Coolest thing ever? Not really.
"Ah, but that's the thing. You'd think it can't be working. Go on. Use it."
"I'm supposed to play computer on the wall? Are there fumes here?" John shook his head even as he walked towards the perfect painting and put his fingers on the keyboard. Like everyone else on Atlantis, he'd learned enough Ancient to use various things, and he knew what commands did what on Ancient computer. So, he entered a simple initiation protocol. "Whoa!" The keys were painted, but they also gave real feedback to his hands, and the screen looked exactly like any other screen where he'd used that protocol. "What the hell is going on here, McKay?"
Rodney was all but dancing. "See, Colonel? See? It's a real, functional computer made of paint. It's a virtual computer and it's working SO much faster than it did for me. Which means it's the gene because yours is, well. Yours. If I could duplicate this, make it work, it would be the most amazing thing in the history of amazing, and that's a lot because everything is amazing the first time. It would be - godlike. Yes. That's it. A computer you can't lose because you just paint it."
"Yeah, but look at this thing. It's perfect. We don't do perfect, McKay."
"Then we train someone. Lorne's an artist, right? Or we print it. Look, let me get a sample of that paint and we'll see."
"Hey, what if you take a sample and it stops working?"
"'Well, then, we'll need to get a really good artist, won't we?" Rodney carefully scraped a bit of paint off the edge of the "desk" with a stylus. He put it in a clear phial he'd fished from his vest. "There. That's probably not going to hurt. Try it, Colonel."
It was freaky - he tapped the cave wall, he felt something respond and the screen painted on the cave wall produced the images and words he expected. So he did more, just to see. He'd learned some protocols for managing his city because she was his city and he figured that there was no city, so they wouldn't do anything. But then Rodney pushed him away . "You idiot, can't you read?"
"Not really." He figured his Ancient reading level was first grade at best. However, he was used to doing this and knew what it looked like. "I'm configuring the weapons systems, right?"
Rodney looked at the screen. "Yeah, you are. But the thing is, you are. You shouldn't be doing that because there are no weapons and it's not connected to anything, but it says weapons enabled. Hey, let's see something. Do you know how to turn on lights? I'd do it myself, but you're geneboy."
"That's just not the coolest superhero name." He tapped in the command.
"Would you prefer Gene Lad?" And there was light in the cave.
"Cool! Always did want to be a Legionnaire. They had flight rings."
Rodney shook his head. "They still had lame names. And while, yes, very cool, this should not be possible. And, you know…maybe we shouldn't have done that. I think we woke something."
John stared at the painted monitor. Painted monitor screen. He finally realized that what should have been produced by something electronic was actually swirling paint. He looked at Rodney. Rodney looked at him. "Nanites?"
"Nanites." Rodney nodded.
They took off for the cave entrance, Rodney dropping his sample container on the way out. John, meanwhile, had pulled hand sanitizer out of his vest. He rubbed his hands with it before tossing it to Rodney, who caught it on the fly and did the same. "Were going to be quarantined, aren't we?" Rodney did not look happy.
"Yep. And stay away from Teyla and Ronon as much as possible. How are we such idiots?" He hit his radio with the back of his hand. It was probably futile, but he felt better. When Teyla responded, he shouted "Nanites!" In the distance, he could see her and Ronon head for their cloaked jumper.
"We…were…seduced…by…the…cool." Yeah, story of his life. Also the uncool. Rodney kept up with him, but even he could only go so far on fear and adrenaline.
They got into the jumper just after Ronon and Teyla. "You two, get into the other compartment. We both touched the nanites. Maybe you two should radio…" And that's when the ground behind them - the lovely, fertile, green, almost earthlike ground that John wanted to farm - changed into a ship. "Okay, no time for that."
He hit the controls and the force shield and they were up and out of the atmosphere, the nanite ship close behind. The orbital gate wasn't that far from their position, but John couldn't take a chance on being followed. He needed a nice long lead - even better if he could destroy them.
Not that he really wanted to destroy them if he could avoid it. They were only minding their own business before he and Rodney messed around with their computer. They were perfectly justified. Sometimes he wondered if maybe the Prime Directive wasn't actually a good idea instead of a dumb plot device.
Rodney would call that blasphemy -they'd argued this enough during Trek rewatches. Or he would have if John had had time to voice the problem at all. Because the nanite ship had opened fire on them, and he had to dodge those projectiles while getting his own weapons online, or at least keeping his shields up. And now he was mad because he was perfectly willing not to fight them if he and his people were allowed to leave.
And Rodney was playing with crystals and muttering under his breath about cloaking and shielding and then he couldn't control the jumper at all. "Rodney!"
"Sorry, sorry. Here, you have it again." And he did, but they'd some of their lead. And for all he knew, they were infested anyway. John couldn't think that way now, because he'd have to blow up the jumper himself. And while he wasn't important, the others were, and losing a jumper was bad, too. They weren't Voyager with the eternal shuttlecraft. And why was he thinking about bad Trek now?
"Got it! We're cloaked!"
"Cloaked?"
"Dial Atlantis NOW and get through as soon as you can. This is eating energy." And so John did, and so they did, broadcasting "Nanites" as they arrived. It seemed like moments later that John and Rodney were alone.
"I hate quarantine." John hitched up his orange scrubs in an attempt to make them fit and collapsed on a bed. Rodney didn't look at him. Rodney went to the other bed and turned to face the wall, saying nothing. He wasn't sulking. Rodney didn't sulk quietly. Or pout quietly. Or, well, anything quietly. Not that John was complaining, much. When Rodney talked, no one had to, and what he said was generally interesting or fun or useful. And in the rare times there were pauses, John knew how to fill them because the conversation made sense. So when he did complain, it was mostly for the fun of it and to see Rodney all flustered. Something about Rodney flustered made John happy and he wasn't going to think about it.
But this was not funny. It started out worrisome and after a half hour, it became scary. The orderlies came early with trays of food, knowing how Rodney was. Jennifer had even made sure that it was Rodney's favorites. Their relationship had only lasted a couple of months, but they'd parted as friends, for which John was grateful because he liked Jennifer and he didn't like not liking her, and he would have hated hating her.
But Rodney ignored it. He just kept lying there, facing the wall. The only real improvement was that he was now muttering to himself, which was at least more normal than silence.
"McKay? We have lunch." Rodney shrugged. "Roooodney, come on. You know you have to eat." John never really believed in the hypoglycemia, any more than he really believed in the severe citrus allergy, and also he looked up citrus allergy and asked Carson, and if Rodney really had one, he'd be dead. But a hungry Rodney was a cranky one - so maybe there was something to that blood sugar idea. Anyway, he had to do something. "You don't want to faint or die or something, do you, buddy?" He touched Rodney's shoulder.
Rodney rolled over at his touch. His eyes were red. "Why not? It's not like you'd think me more useless, is it?"
"What the hell, McKay?" He gave Rodney a push and sat next to him on the bed. "You're pretty much the definition of not-useless. You saved our asses today."
"It's my fault I had to do that, and I nearly didn't." Rodney sat up. His hair and ugly orange jumpsuit were rumpled. He ran a hand through his hair, which only made it worse, which was the story of John's life, too. "I nearly didn't save us, Colonel. I nearly killed us all today - and by all, I mean all of Atlantis, and maybe the Pegasus galaxy is still in trouble because of us." He sighed. "It's about time you knew that about me."
"Knew what, Rodney?" For reasons John couldn't quantify but were real never the less, he found himself stroking Rodney's shoulder. For reasons only Rodney knew, this wasn't rebuffed. So he kept doing it. Rodney had nice shoulders, which he shouldn't have been thinking.
"I'm a failure. I've always been a failure. Genius doesn't imply success and I fail. I failed so hard I went to Siberia. I got sent to Atlantis because you know how many genius physicists specializing in wormhole science there are?"
"I…"
"Four. One is Sam, one is me, one is married and the last is divorced but has two kids. Carter was attached to SG-1, and they didn't allow anyone with spouses or children on the original mission. So they had to send me. Because I pretty much failed at life. I talked a good game - the one thing I don't fail at is talking. And also, I had to because someone has to keep this mission alive and it's on my shoulders. So I had to talk myself up so people would trust me." He wiped his eyes. "And YOU believed me. You don't believe in any of my medical conditions…"
"That's not true, Rodney. I believe in your blood pressure."
Rodney waved a hand. "That's a lie. But you seem to think I'm a god or something, who can pull tricks out of a hat and save our asses."
"Way to mix a metaphor, guy."
Rodney didn't seem to hear. "I'm not. I'm…a genius physicist who is in over his head everything single damn day and everyone is depending on me, and all I can do is FAIL. Look, I should have realized the computer was nanites, I should have realized we were waking them up and I never should have told you anything. Instead, I fell for the cool."
"You weren't the only one. Hell, I did the actual waking up. Again. I'm damn good at waking things up." Yeah, not the thing to bring up now, but it was always there.
"You were doing what I asked you to do. It's all on me. And you don't have people believing every word…"
John couldn't help it. Rodney looked so lost, so scared and so very worried. What he did next surprised him, of course, because it was so not his thing, but this wasn't Rodney's thing, either, so maybe it balanced. John wrapped him in his arms. "Rodney, it's fine. I don't think you're a god."
"No?"
"You're just like the rest of us idiots here. A mortal fuckup. And a good thing, too. I don't think I could love you perfect."
Okay, that was a mistake. Because those were not the words he meant to say. Those not words he'd ever meant to say. Rodney looked at him, eyes as wide as saucers. Before either could say anything, before John could think of anything to say, Jennifer came in, and not in a hazmat suit.
"Okay, boys. We're springing you."
"Nanites?" John tried to look only at her, and wondered if he was blushing.
"Dead. All of them. As near as I can figure, they died as soon as you left that solar system. They decomposed pretty rapidly, too. Lorne thinks they might be designed simply as a planetary defense system. So. You're perfectly safe. You can take your lunches with you." She looked at them, and then took out a digital thermometer. "Or maybe not. Rodney, open your mouth."
"I am NOT sick."
She popped the thermometer in. "We'll just see about that." It beeped. She looked at the display. "Okay. No fever. Okay, fine. I'm not letting you go until you eat something." She turned. "You, too, Colonel. It's not like you have any weight to spare anyway."
"Hey."
"Yeah, yeah. Talk my ear off, why don't you?" She turned to leave. "And I'm not above weighing you to figure out if you ate something. Eat." She left.
John took the cover off one tray. Pot roast and veggies. Salad. Chocolate cake. Still warm and smelling good. He pushed some of the steam towards Rodney. "Look, the sooner we eat, the sooner we can leave and forget…"
He stopped. He had to stop. Rodney was kissing him. Rodney was kissing him hard and deep and it was nicer than pot roast. "You idiot. I've been…I figured you … you are SO out of my league, and I didn't want YOU to be a failure, too. I mean, it's not crashing down from the heights of godhood, but it would have hurt so much less than just letting my fantasy…"
"You mean it wasn't the whole straight military guy thing?" He turned around to face Rodney so he could kiss him better.
"Like anyone really thought you were straight. You have more hair product than most of the women on the station." Rodney pulled out of his arms and sat at the table next to John.
"So you thought everyone thought you were a failure, and I thought everyone thought I was straight? See, we're both idiots." John laughed, and took a bit of lunch.
"I thought I had you all fooled into thinking I was this miracle worker. And now I have everything on me. One of these days, I'm going to fail completely, and then where will we be?" Rodney took the lid off the other tray and inhaled. John, now free to stare, smiled at it.
"We'd be probably be dead, and so we won't care, or, well, know. So let's not worry about it just yet, okay?"
Rodney did not look convinced, but he nodded. "Let's finish up. We have lost time to make up for." Rodney smiled around a piece of root vegetable. "Because I love that you're not perfect, either."
Poll