Table ficlet 'Compassion' (G) by Anneko
Author: Anneko
Title: Compassion
Rating: G
Summary: It was the last thing John suspected.
Author's Note: uh... I think I'm noteless.
Disclaimer: They're not mine (would that they were!).
Feedback: gives me a lovely day.
It's not just them in the cell, it's John and Rodney and a girl, scared and trembling with a tear-striped dirty face. Teyla he thinks got away, and the guards are working Ronon over somewhere else, he doubts with too much success.
"Hey," He says, reaching out to her, but she clings to the bars and hides her face, shaking harder, and John has no idea what he should do with himself.
"Here." Rodney pulls a powerbar out of his pocket and slides it across the floor, 'til it touches her bare foot.
She turns giant round eyes on him. The word 'lamplike' flutters across John's mind. And she takes it. Tears the wrapper with her tiny hands and eats it. After that she scoots eight inches closer to Rodney, darting looks at him.
"It's okay. We'll get out of this." Rodney said, and his voice was so *quiet* John couldn't quite believe that this was happening. Sure, she wasn't a little kid, but she was still a person, a practically-a-woman person, so how come Rodney was doing better than John?
He never looked her in the eye. They both stared at the same little pattern of scratches in the floor, while Rodney talked in soothing tones about how John was actually much smarter than he looked, and how they had friends on the outside who knew they needed help. Rodney never made a move towards her, except for the initial offering of food, but by the time rescue comes, they're side by side, knees touching, using a small rock to expound on the scratches in the floor, making them into pictures, some kind of game. John is too entranced by the odd new gentleness of Rodney to approach or join in.
When something not too far away explodes, she clings to Rodney, and John envies her a bit, though he tries not to think about why. When Teyla and Ronon come to pick them up, they have the girl's father, a big man with a red beard and long hair who holds her close and pets her head like she's a cat, and she whispers something to him that makes him beam, and that night, Rodney is treated like a hero. For being *nice*. Which anyone who knew Rodney would say was a monumental effort on his part, and maybe, for Rodney McKay, being nice is the kind of feat that deserves a medal, because Rodney McKay is not a nice man.
But John isn't so sure anymore.
---/-/---
FIN
=^_^=
Anneko
Title: Compassion
Rating: G
Summary: It was the last thing John suspected.
Author's Note: uh... I think I'm noteless.
Disclaimer: They're not mine (would that they were!).
Feedback: gives me a lovely day.
It's not just them in the cell, it's John and Rodney and a girl, scared and trembling with a tear-striped dirty face. Teyla he thinks got away, and the guards are working Ronon over somewhere else, he doubts with too much success.
"Hey," He says, reaching out to her, but she clings to the bars and hides her face, shaking harder, and John has no idea what he should do with himself.
"Here." Rodney pulls a powerbar out of his pocket and slides it across the floor, 'til it touches her bare foot.
She turns giant round eyes on him. The word 'lamplike' flutters across John's mind. And she takes it. Tears the wrapper with her tiny hands and eats it. After that she scoots eight inches closer to Rodney, darting looks at him.
"It's okay. We'll get out of this." Rodney said, and his voice was so *quiet* John couldn't quite believe that this was happening. Sure, she wasn't a little kid, but she was still a person, a practically-a-woman person, so how come Rodney was doing better than John?
He never looked her in the eye. They both stared at the same little pattern of scratches in the floor, while Rodney talked in soothing tones about how John was actually much smarter than he looked, and how they had friends on the outside who knew they needed help. Rodney never made a move towards her, except for the initial offering of food, but by the time rescue comes, they're side by side, knees touching, using a small rock to expound on the scratches in the floor, making them into pictures, some kind of game. John is too entranced by the odd new gentleness of Rodney to approach or join in.
When something not too far away explodes, she clings to Rodney, and John envies her a bit, though he tries not to think about why. When Teyla and Ronon come to pick them up, they have the girl's father, a big man with a red beard and long hair who holds her close and pets her head like she's a cat, and she whispers something to him that makes him beam, and that night, Rodney is treated like a hero. For being *nice*. Which anyone who knew Rodney would say was a monumental effort on his part, and maybe, for Rodney McKay, being nice is the kind of feat that deserves a medal, because Rodney McKay is not a nice man.
But John isn't so sure anymore.
---/-/---
FIN
=^_^=
Anneko