FIC: Heaven Is A Place On Earth 5/6
Headers and such in part 1.
Heaven Is A Place On Earth 5/6
+++
They went to the hospital to confirm what Jeannie had said, and Dr. Keller herself confirmed the news, looking very uncomfortable when confirming the grim news. They went to Ronon’s precinct later, drilling him for information about anything they could legally do to prevent the disconnection. There was nothing, of course. Jeannie was next of kin, she was executor of the living will, John was a nobody.
Later, there was chaos in the apartment.
Rodney was walking about, alternating between walking through stuff and avoiding them all together. He talked all the while. Sometimes he continued the ‘I’m going to die’ thing he’d been having ever since he’d remembered who he was; sometimes he’d snap his fingers and start spouting off crazy ideas.
John ignored him, covering one of his ears as he talked on the phone. He was sitting on the couch, back straight and tense as if he was being drilled by a particularly nasty CO. In reality, he was only talking to Teyla, her voice soft and paused when she heard how nervous John was.
“Rodney!” shouted John, effectively shutting Rodney up. He stayed where he was, walking through the small coffee table that was in the middle of the semi circle of the bay windows at the corner of the sitting room. “Teyla, there has to be something, something to put his spirit back into the body, or maybe a way for other people to see him!” he said, Rodney nodding his approval at the idea.
“John, this is not science fiction.” Her words were firm but tranquil, trying futilely to relax John a bit. “I’m sorry I don’t have a magical solution for you, I really am.”
John gripped the phone tighter, consciously pacing his voice because he knew there was no point in getting angry with Teyla. “Teyla, he’s going to be disconnected tomorrow noon. He’s going to die, and I -”
Teyla sighed, and stayed silent for a bit. “Since only you can see him,” she said after a small while, and John perked up at her tone, “maybe you are approaching the matter from the wrong angle,” she said, sounding like she was thinking at the same time she was explaining John.
“What do you mean?” frowned John, curving his back, stretching the muscles, everything popping as he moved.
“You’ve been approaching this whole thing from the point of view of how to end this, but have you wondered at all why it began?”
“He was in a crash…”
Teyla sighed. “No, I’m not saying this correctly,” she said, and then her tone adopted that half-schoolteacher, half-mom tone her voice could get when explaining something she thought went over John’s head. “A conventional spirit, if there is such a thing, is a presence that can be felt by many people, some people even see them. Some people have chills running down their backs, some have an irrational urge to leave the room, others feel at incredible peace or very intimidated.”
John nodded. “Yeah, you say some people, meaning many. But I’m the only who can see Rodney. Why me?”
“That is exactly what I mean,” she said.
*
“Anything?” asked Rodney as John hung up and went to sit in front of him. It was night already, the last slivers of the sunset barely visible at the west. John sat down heavily, mentally weary more than physically.
“She thinks we should start wondering why I am the only one who can see you.
“Does she know I don’t have all week?” he said, and John grinned.
John sighed and waved a hand. “We’ll think of something - before tomorrow noon,” he said as Rodney opened his mouth. “I need a shower,” said John, and went to the bedroom.
He did need it, but the shower gave John the opportunity to be on his own for a bit, get his thoughts straight. He stood under the spray for a long time, enjoying the heat and the ability to not think that the shower brought him.
He was still tired when he finished showering, but at least he didn’t feel bone-weary. He wrapped a towel around his waist and went to the bedroom for his clothing, only to find Rodney sitting at the edge of the bed.
It stopped John momentarily, but he managed not to show his faltering. He went to the chest of drawers, getting out a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, putting them on with his back to the bed, consciously aware Rodney was in the same room.
“So,” he said when he was finished, faking cheerfulness. “Want to do something? Go somewhere, see anyone?”
Rodney was uncharacteristically composed, but John doubted he could question the guy about it - he was going to watch himself die tomorrow. “Actually, if it is my last night -” he said.
“Don't say that," said John, tensing.
“I'd rather spend it here,” he said, looking up at John from his spot at the foot of the bed.
John nodded, sticking his hands into his pockets. “Of course.” John was disappointed, but kind of understood the man. “You want me to go, be alone? I can go to Ronon's.”
Rodney, of all things, stuttered. “I meant with you, John.”
“Oh.” John grinned. “Okay.”
*
John’s night would’ve taken a very clear and definite path if Rodney had been corporeal. John had done this so many times before - okay, not that many, he wasn’t a character out of Queer As Folk or anything - but he had done it enough times to know he’d have ended up in bed with Rodney, probably all night, and morning would’ve sneaked up on them when they were still wrapped around each other, lazily thinking of having another go.
As it was, they did end up in bed, mostly without saying a word - Rodney scooted up and lay on his back, John toed his shoes off and lay besides Rodney on his side. He let one of his hands play about, going through the air that was Rodney. Arm, chest, waist.
“Why do you think this happened?” Rodney asked, his hands shier than John’s. He could feel John, yet he didn’t feel a thing. It didn’t make any sense.
“Right now, I don’t care,” said John, his hand laying on the bedspread that was directly beneath Rodney’s waist, aching to circle it for real, to touch it at all.
“Sometimes I look at my sister and her kid, and I think… I think I would like that. Have someone to come home to.” He grinned nervously, “besides Schrödinger, that is.”
John chuckled, his daring hand venturing to go through Rodney’s cheek in a caress that wasn’t there. “I never thought that. I mean, I almost married once -”
Rodney’s face did a mixture between surprised and disbelief. “Really? To a woman?”
John rolled his eyes. “Yeah, about the same time I met Mitch,” he said smiling, and Rodney didn’t need words to know what fork in the road John followed on that decision. “But it all kind of happened. Never had the time to stop and think.”
Rodney’s hand ventured further - up John’s leg, through his groin and torso, hovering somewhere in the vicinity of his heart. “What was her name?”
“Nancy. And we were friends before, but the idea of coming home to someone was foreign, you know?”
Rodney nodded, dropping his hand.
“It has its appeals now,” said John, smirking. “I mean, I’ve been sharing this apartment with you for how long now?”
Rodney chuckled softly. “True.”
Out of the blue, a question. “D0 you think,” John said, “do you think you’ll remember any of this if - when you wake up?”
Rodney had been avoiding that same question for hours. “I don’t -” he took a breath and turned to look at John for the first time in minutes. “Frankly, I can’t understand how I could forget any of this.”
John smiled at that, his hand still roaming the air that was Rodney, voice barely above a whisper. “I really wish I could touch you.”
Rodney went back to staring off into space. His voice came a bit strangled. “Yeah.”
John woke up slowly, becoming aware he was awakening long before he opened his eyes. The sun was slipping through the half drawn curtains, dancing over his eyes and effectively killing all slumber remaining in John.
He sat up in bed suddenly, looking around for a watch, a clock anything. Stupid, he thought. How had he not set up an alarm? What if -
“It’s early,” came Rodney’s voice from where he was sitting at the foot of the bed and, wow, was he asleep to not have seen him.
“I should’ve set up an alarm,” he said, rubbing his face. “What time is it?”
“Barely ten. I have a plan,” said Rodney suddenly, looking impossibly smug.
John was instantly awake. “You do?”
Rodney smiled smugly. “You need to steal my body.”
John did a double take. “What? Rodney -”
Rodney stood up, walking about the room. “If they don't have my body, nobody will be able to disconnect me.”
John sat at the edge of the bed. “Rodney, you forget you're dependant on ventilators and machines I can’t even name, let alone operate.” He waved a hand in the general direction of the hospital. “I take you out of that room and I'll kill you quicker than the doctors would!”
Rodney stopped for a moment and actually looked offended. “Did you forget I’m a genius? I'll tell you what to do, you can get it all at the hospital.”
John sighed, going over their options and the time they had. “We really have no other way,” he said, finally accepting the fact.
Rodney hesitated for a second. “Look, this is -”
“I'll do it,” said John instantly, getting up and going to the bathroom.
“It's dangerous,” said Rodney from outside the bathroom door. “I mean, if you're caught…”
“I won't get caught,” he said. “I'll get Ronon in on this, he can flash his pretty badge around if we have any problem.”
“John.”
The bathroom door opened “I won't let you die Rodney. If I have to steal your body to keep you alive, then I will,” he said, and then went back inside to wash his face before heading on the difficult morning.
*
John had to give it to Ronon: you couldn’t get much more loyal than the guy was.
John phoned him after renting a van, speeding past stop lights and hills in ways Ronon would’ve frowned upon. He instantly agreed to help John in whatever it was he needed to do at the hospital, never even asking a question about it.
Once Ronon was with them and they set out for the hospital, Rodney realized Ronon had no idea they were going to steal his body, and kept pestering John to talk to him, which resulted in John swatting him away like a fly, only to have Ronon look at him like he was going to call a loony bin.
John's mind, though, his entire mind was already on the plan, on how to get in, how to get out. Rodney could tell them when the coast was clear, he could spy in closets and empty rooms to hide out if necessary.
They arrived to the hospital at a quarter past eleven, John obsessively checking his watch, planning possible excuses and escape routes. He kept checking his watch every five seconds, making sure he wasn’t arriving late.
They walked lazily and casually to a supply closet, remaining silent until they were there, locking the door behind them.
“How do you know all this?” whispered John so Ronon wouldn't hear him while they roamed the supply closets for what they needed.
“When you suffer from allergies and hypoglycemia you tend to learn quite a bit about the voodoo stuff,” said Rodney, pointing at a ventilator.
John stopped, ventilator in his hand. “Voodoo?”
“Medicine, whatever,” said Rodney as Ronon approached with a cart, where John dumped all the stuff on his hands.
“Okay, wait, stop,” said Ronon, leaning on the cart John was using to carry the stuff.
“What?” he asked.
“There’s only so much… I have to ask, John. What the hell are we doing here?”
Rodney shrugged, standing besides Ronon. John sighed. “You know the guy I was seeing?”
Ronon frowned. “What - oh, seeing as in literally,” he said. “Yeah, Teyla told me about him. She seems to believe you.”
“That’s because it’s true,” said John, knowing Ronon enough to know he would be skeptical about the whole thing, but troubled that Teyla believed John. “Ronon, Rodney’s in a coma. He is going to be disconnected in half an hour.”
“So what are we doing here?” asked Ronon, though his face betrayed he already suspected something.
“We’re going to steal his body,” said John, and Rodney winced and took a step away from Ronon.
Ronon looked like he suspected he was being played at. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not. If they don’t have his body he can’t die.”
“John,” he said, looking at the stuff on the cart, “you're stealing some guys' body. You're no doctor, you could kill him.”
“I'm not going to kill him, Rodney knows what to do, he told me.”
“He told… Look, you know I'm gonna help you in - well, anything. Even this. But you haven’t cared for anything in a year. Why is this suddenly so important?”
John stared at Rodney and remembered the past night, how not-touching him felt, how much he had wished Rodney had been corporeal. The wonderful thing was that John didn’t need to say anything to know Rodney was on the same page. He didn’t even need to read his body language, John just knew it.
Rodney smiled slightly, if a bit nervously, and John returned the smile. They both looked remarkably comfortable at being confronted with the knowledge.
“You love this guy,” said Ronon, bewildered, putting into words what John and Rodney might never have otherwise. John nodded minutely, still looking at Rodney, the type of nod Ronon might have missed if he hadn't been searching John's face for it.
John looked back at Ronon. “And he's dying in half an hour. Will you help me?”
And here was his friend, coming alive after a year for some guy Teyla swore was real. He nodded. “Come on.”
*
It all went swimmingly good. Rodney kept checking ahead of them, making them stop when there was a guard, some doctor or something suspicious.
It all went swimmingly good, of course, until security somehow got word of what they were doing and started chasing them.
They got into the elevator for stretchers, panting a bit from running. John punched the button for the second floor and the ground floor.
“They’re going to be waiting downstairs,” said Ronon. “Rodney here?” he asked.
John nodded. He’d been talking until then, criticizing Ronon for being obvious, spouting off excuses for them to use, but had gone instantly silent when he understood what it all implied - he was going to die, John would probably go to prison.
The elevator opened at the second floor. John kicked Ronon out.
Surprised, Ronon ended up outside the elevator. “John, what the hell!”
“They catch you, you lose your badge,” repeatedly punching the door close button. “Get out of here,” he said firmly.
“John -”
“We’ll be fine. Get out!” he all but shouted as the doors closed.
“We’re screwed, aren’t we?” said Rodney from a corner of the elevator as it descended again.
John nodded, not looking at Rodney but rather at his body. The ding of the elevator sounded, signaling arrival.
John managed to push the stretcher four meters out of the elevator before he was tackled from behind in a way that would’ve made any football fan proud. The floor flew past him for a while, he felt many hands on him, and Rodney shouted, “John!”
John tried to squeeze out of the hold the guards had on him, turning to see Rodney panicking over his own body, looking at the guard on his right… which had the ventilator tube it had previous been on Rodney’s body.
It all took a second. Rodney said, “I can feel it,” and John saw more guards coming down the hall, Jeannie and Keller behind him. John squeezed out of the guard’s hold, went to Rodney’s bedsides and kissed him, knowing it would be the last time he’d had the opportunity to do so. “I can feel it,” said Rodney again.
At the same time two guards held him from behind, Rodney flatlined.
Rodney’s spirit started flickering, he was speaking but John couldn’t hear him anymore. John looked up to see Keller running to the stretcher Rodney was lying on, shouting at someone to give her stuff to save Rodney; Jeannie had a hand to her mouth. Rodney’s spirit disappeared, and John shouted his name once.
Beep. Beep.
It stopped everyone. The guards loosened their hold just a bit, Keller looked down at Rodney, John stopped struggling. Jeannie looked down at her brother.
Rodney groaned. Rodney, the actual Rodney, the one who had been merely a body the past days, groaned as he woke.
“It can’t be,” said Keller, a syringe in her hand, a nurse approaching Rodney with a ventilator, both lowering everything down as they saw Rodney moving on the bed.
“Rodney? Mer?” said Jeannie, taking one of Rodney’s hands in hers.
Rodney groaned again and said weakly, “I think I have a migraine.”
Jeannie laughed and bent down to rest her forehead against Rodney’s hand, outright laughing. “Hi, Mer,” she said, “Welcome back.”
John was breathing again, smiling, even as the guards still held him tight. He saw Jeannie turn to where John was, grabbing on of his hands and all but shooing the guards away. She brought him to Rodney’s bed. John was past speech by then.
“Hey, Mer,” she said, and Rodney turned his eyes and focused his eyes on her. “John is here. Remember John?”
John smiled weekly, resting a hand on Rodney’s arm. “Hey, buddy,” he said.
Rodney frowned at him. He looked at Jeannie, then at John, all the while frowning. And John knew it before Rodney even spoke.
“Jeannie, who…?”
John had never felt his heart come crushing down quite like that. He’d never felt the fall, the void it left behind, but feel it he did. John withdrew his hand from Rodney’s arm.
“It’s okay, Mer,” said Jeannie, looking at John like she wanted to apologize or something.
The guards moved to hold John again, but both Jeannie and Keller sent them away, leaving John’s path to the door outside clear. And very lonely.
+++
Finished in part 6
Heaven Is A Place On Earth 5/6
+++
They went to the hospital to confirm what Jeannie had said, and Dr. Keller herself confirmed the news, looking very uncomfortable when confirming the grim news. They went to Ronon’s precinct later, drilling him for information about anything they could legally do to prevent the disconnection. There was nothing, of course. Jeannie was next of kin, she was executor of the living will, John was a nobody.
Later, there was chaos in the apartment.
Rodney was walking about, alternating between walking through stuff and avoiding them all together. He talked all the while. Sometimes he continued the ‘I’m going to die’ thing he’d been having ever since he’d remembered who he was; sometimes he’d snap his fingers and start spouting off crazy ideas.
John ignored him, covering one of his ears as he talked on the phone. He was sitting on the couch, back straight and tense as if he was being drilled by a particularly nasty CO. In reality, he was only talking to Teyla, her voice soft and paused when she heard how nervous John was.
“Rodney!” shouted John, effectively shutting Rodney up. He stayed where he was, walking through the small coffee table that was in the middle of the semi circle of the bay windows at the corner of the sitting room. “Teyla, there has to be something, something to put his spirit back into the body, or maybe a way for other people to see him!” he said, Rodney nodding his approval at the idea.
“John, this is not science fiction.” Her words were firm but tranquil, trying futilely to relax John a bit. “I’m sorry I don’t have a magical solution for you, I really am.”
John gripped the phone tighter, consciously pacing his voice because he knew there was no point in getting angry with Teyla. “Teyla, he’s going to be disconnected tomorrow noon. He’s going to die, and I -”
Teyla sighed, and stayed silent for a bit. “Since only you can see him,” she said after a small while, and John perked up at her tone, “maybe you are approaching the matter from the wrong angle,” she said, sounding like she was thinking at the same time she was explaining John.
“What do you mean?” frowned John, curving his back, stretching the muscles, everything popping as he moved.
“You’ve been approaching this whole thing from the point of view of how to end this, but have you wondered at all why it began?”
“He was in a crash…”
Teyla sighed. “No, I’m not saying this correctly,” she said, and then her tone adopted that half-schoolteacher, half-mom tone her voice could get when explaining something she thought went over John’s head. “A conventional spirit, if there is such a thing, is a presence that can be felt by many people, some people even see them. Some people have chills running down their backs, some have an irrational urge to leave the room, others feel at incredible peace or very intimidated.”
John nodded. “Yeah, you say some people, meaning many. But I’m the only who can see Rodney. Why me?”
“That is exactly what I mean,” she said.
*
“Anything?” asked Rodney as John hung up and went to sit in front of him. It was night already, the last slivers of the sunset barely visible at the west. John sat down heavily, mentally weary more than physically.
“She thinks we should start wondering why I am the only one who can see you.
“Does she know I don’t have all week?” he said, and John grinned.
John sighed and waved a hand. “We’ll think of something - before tomorrow noon,” he said as Rodney opened his mouth. “I need a shower,” said John, and went to the bedroom.
He did need it, but the shower gave John the opportunity to be on his own for a bit, get his thoughts straight. He stood under the spray for a long time, enjoying the heat and the ability to not think that the shower brought him.
He was still tired when he finished showering, but at least he didn’t feel bone-weary. He wrapped a towel around his waist and went to the bedroom for his clothing, only to find Rodney sitting at the edge of the bed.
It stopped John momentarily, but he managed not to show his faltering. He went to the chest of drawers, getting out a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, putting them on with his back to the bed, consciously aware Rodney was in the same room.
“So,” he said when he was finished, faking cheerfulness. “Want to do something? Go somewhere, see anyone?”
Rodney was uncharacteristically composed, but John doubted he could question the guy about it - he was going to watch himself die tomorrow. “Actually, if it is my last night -” he said.
“Don't say that," said John, tensing.
“I'd rather spend it here,” he said, looking up at John from his spot at the foot of the bed.
John nodded, sticking his hands into his pockets. “Of course.” John was disappointed, but kind of understood the man. “You want me to go, be alone? I can go to Ronon's.”
Rodney, of all things, stuttered. “I meant with you, John.”
“Oh.” John grinned. “Okay.”
*
John’s night would’ve taken a very clear and definite path if Rodney had been corporeal. John had done this so many times before - okay, not that many, he wasn’t a character out of Queer As Folk or anything - but he had done it enough times to know he’d have ended up in bed with Rodney, probably all night, and morning would’ve sneaked up on them when they were still wrapped around each other, lazily thinking of having another go.
As it was, they did end up in bed, mostly without saying a word - Rodney scooted up and lay on his back, John toed his shoes off and lay besides Rodney on his side. He let one of his hands play about, going through the air that was Rodney. Arm, chest, waist.
“Why do you think this happened?” Rodney asked, his hands shier than John’s. He could feel John, yet he didn’t feel a thing. It didn’t make any sense.
“Right now, I don’t care,” said John, his hand laying on the bedspread that was directly beneath Rodney’s waist, aching to circle it for real, to touch it at all.
“Sometimes I look at my sister and her kid, and I think… I think I would like that. Have someone to come home to.” He grinned nervously, “besides Schrödinger, that is.”
John chuckled, his daring hand venturing to go through Rodney’s cheek in a caress that wasn’t there. “I never thought that. I mean, I almost married once -”
Rodney’s face did a mixture between surprised and disbelief. “Really? To a woman?”
John rolled his eyes. “Yeah, about the same time I met Mitch,” he said smiling, and Rodney didn’t need words to know what fork in the road John followed on that decision. “But it all kind of happened. Never had the time to stop and think.”
Rodney’s hand ventured further - up John’s leg, through his groin and torso, hovering somewhere in the vicinity of his heart. “What was her name?”
“Nancy. And we were friends before, but the idea of coming home to someone was foreign, you know?”
Rodney nodded, dropping his hand.
“It has its appeals now,” said John, smirking. “I mean, I’ve been sharing this apartment with you for how long now?”
Rodney chuckled softly. “True.”
Out of the blue, a question. “D0 you think,” John said, “do you think you’ll remember any of this if - when you wake up?”
Rodney had been avoiding that same question for hours. “I don’t -” he took a breath and turned to look at John for the first time in minutes. “Frankly, I can’t understand how I could forget any of this.”
John smiled at that, his hand still roaming the air that was Rodney, voice barely above a whisper. “I really wish I could touch you.”
Rodney went back to staring off into space. His voice came a bit strangled. “Yeah.”
John woke up slowly, becoming aware he was awakening long before he opened his eyes. The sun was slipping through the half drawn curtains, dancing over his eyes and effectively killing all slumber remaining in John.
He sat up in bed suddenly, looking around for a watch, a clock anything. Stupid, he thought. How had he not set up an alarm? What if -
“It’s early,” came Rodney’s voice from where he was sitting at the foot of the bed and, wow, was he asleep to not have seen him.
“I should’ve set up an alarm,” he said, rubbing his face. “What time is it?”
“Barely ten. I have a plan,” said Rodney suddenly, looking impossibly smug.
John was instantly awake. “You do?”
Rodney smiled smugly. “You need to steal my body.”
John did a double take. “What? Rodney -”
Rodney stood up, walking about the room. “If they don't have my body, nobody will be able to disconnect me.”
John sat at the edge of the bed. “Rodney, you forget you're dependant on ventilators and machines I can’t even name, let alone operate.” He waved a hand in the general direction of the hospital. “I take you out of that room and I'll kill you quicker than the doctors would!”
Rodney stopped for a moment and actually looked offended. “Did you forget I’m a genius? I'll tell you what to do, you can get it all at the hospital.”
John sighed, going over their options and the time they had. “We really have no other way,” he said, finally accepting the fact.
Rodney hesitated for a second. “Look, this is -”
“I'll do it,” said John instantly, getting up and going to the bathroom.
“It's dangerous,” said Rodney from outside the bathroom door. “I mean, if you're caught…”
“I won't get caught,” he said. “I'll get Ronon in on this, he can flash his pretty badge around if we have any problem.”
“John.”
The bathroom door opened “I won't let you die Rodney. If I have to steal your body to keep you alive, then I will,” he said, and then went back inside to wash his face before heading on the difficult morning.
*
John had to give it to Ronon: you couldn’t get much more loyal than the guy was.
John phoned him after renting a van, speeding past stop lights and hills in ways Ronon would’ve frowned upon. He instantly agreed to help John in whatever it was he needed to do at the hospital, never even asking a question about it.
Once Ronon was with them and they set out for the hospital, Rodney realized Ronon had no idea they were going to steal his body, and kept pestering John to talk to him, which resulted in John swatting him away like a fly, only to have Ronon look at him like he was going to call a loony bin.
John's mind, though, his entire mind was already on the plan, on how to get in, how to get out. Rodney could tell them when the coast was clear, he could spy in closets and empty rooms to hide out if necessary.
They arrived to the hospital at a quarter past eleven, John obsessively checking his watch, planning possible excuses and escape routes. He kept checking his watch every five seconds, making sure he wasn’t arriving late.
They walked lazily and casually to a supply closet, remaining silent until they were there, locking the door behind them.
“How do you know all this?” whispered John so Ronon wouldn't hear him while they roamed the supply closets for what they needed.
“When you suffer from allergies and hypoglycemia you tend to learn quite a bit about the voodoo stuff,” said Rodney, pointing at a ventilator.
John stopped, ventilator in his hand. “Voodoo?”
“Medicine, whatever,” said Rodney as Ronon approached with a cart, where John dumped all the stuff on his hands.
“Okay, wait, stop,” said Ronon, leaning on the cart John was using to carry the stuff.
“What?” he asked.
“There’s only so much… I have to ask, John. What the hell are we doing here?”
Rodney shrugged, standing besides Ronon. John sighed. “You know the guy I was seeing?”
Ronon frowned. “What - oh, seeing as in literally,” he said. “Yeah, Teyla told me about him. She seems to believe you.”
“That’s because it’s true,” said John, knowing Ronon enough to know he would be skeptical about the whole thing, but troubled that Teyla believed John. “Ronon, Rodney’s in a coma. He is going to be disconnected in half an hour.”
“So what are we doing here?” asked Ronon, though his face betrayed he already suspected something.
“We’re going to steal his body,” said John, and Rodney winced and took a step away from Ronon.
Ronon looked like he suspected he was being played at. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not. If they don’t have his body he can’t die.”
“John,” he said, looking at the stuff on the cart, “you're stealing some guys' body. You're no doctor, you could kill him.”
“I'm not going to kill him, Rodney knows what to do, he told me.”
“He told… Look, you know I'm gonna help you in - well, anything. Even this. But you haven’t cared for anything in a year. Why is this suddenly so important?”
John stared at Rodney and remembered the past night, how not-touching him felt, how much he had wished Rodney had been corporeal. The wonderful thing was that John didn’t need to say anything to know Rodney was on the same page. He didn’t even need to read his body language, John just knew it.
Rodney smiled slightly, if a bit nervously, and John returned the smile. They both looked remarkably comfortable at being confronted with the knowledge.
“You love this guy,” said Ronon, bewildered, putting into words what John and Rodney might never have otherwise. John nodded minutely, still looking at Rodney, the type of nod Ronon might have missed if he hadn't been searching John's face for it.
John looked back at Ronon. “And he's dying in half an hour. Will you help me?”
And here was his friend, coming alive after a year for some guy Teyla swore was real. He nodded. “Come on.”
*
It all went swimmingly good. Rodney kept checking ahead of them, making them stop when there was a guard, some doctor or something suspicious.
It all went swimmingly good, of course, until security somehow got word of what they were doing and started chasing them.
They got into the elevator for stretchers, panting a bit from running. John punched the button for the second floor and the ground floor.
“They’re going to be waiting downstairs,” said Ronon. “Rodney here?” he asked.
John nodded. He’d been talking until then, criticizing Ronon for being obvious, spouting off excuses for them to use, but had gone instantly silent when he understood what it all implied - he was going to die, John would probably go to prison.
The elevator opened at the second floor. John kicked Ronon out.
Surprised, Ronon ended up outside the elevator. “John, what the hell!”
“They catch you, you lose your badge,” repeatedly punching the door close button. “Get out of here,” he said firmly.
“John -”
“We’ll be fine. Get out!” he all but shouted as the doors closed.
“We’re screwed, aren’t we?” said Rodney from a corner of the elevator as it descended again.
John nodded, not looking at Rodney but rather at his body. The ding of the elevator sounded, signaling arrival.
John managed to push the stretcher four meters out of the elevator before he was tackled from behind in a way that would’ve made any football fan proud. The floor flew past him for a while, he felt many hands on him, and Rodney shouted, “John!”
John tried to squeeze out of the hold the guards had on him, turning to see Rodney panicking over his own body, looking at the guard on his right… which had the ventilator tube it had previous been on Rodney’s body.
It all took a second. Rodney said, “I can feel it,” and John saw more guards coming down the hall, Jeannie and Keller behind him. John squeezed out of the guard’s hold, went to Rodney’s bedsides and kissed him, knowing it would be the last time he’d had the opportunity to do so. “I can feel it,” said Rodney again.
At the same time two guards held him from behind, Rodney flatlined.
Rodney’s spirit started flickering, he was speaking but John couldn’t hear him anymore. John looked up to see Keller running to the stretcher Rodney was lying on, shouting at someone to give her stuff to save Rodney; Jeannie had a hand to her mouth. Rodney’s spirit disappeared, and John shouted his name once.
Beep. Beep.
It stopped everyone. The guards loosened their hold just a bit, Keller looked down at Rodney, John stopped struggling. Jeannie looked down at her brother.
Rodney groaned. Rodney, the actual Rodney, the one who had been merely a body the past days, groaned as he woke.
“It can’t be,” said Keller, a syringe in her hand, a nurse approaching Rodney with a ventilator, both lowering everything down as they saw Rodney moving on the bed.
“Rodney? Mer?” said Jeannie, taking one of Rodney’s hands in hers.
Rodney groaned again and said weakly, “I think I have a migraine.”
Jeannie laughed and bent down to rest her forehead against Rodney’s hand, outright laughing. “Hi, Mer,” she said, “Welcome back.”
John was breathing again, smiling, even as the guards still held him tight. He saw Jeannie turn to where John was, grabbing on of his hands and all but shooing the guards away. She brought him to Rodney’s bed. John was past speech by then.
“Hey, Mer,” she said, and Rodney turned his eyes and focused his eyes on her. “John is here. Remember John?”
John smiled weekly, resting a hand on Rodney’s arm. “Hey, buddy,” he said.
Rodney frowned at him. He looked at Jeannie, then at John, all the while frowning. And John knew it before Rodney even spoke.
“Jeannie, who…?”
John had never felt his heart come crushing down quite like that. He’d never felt the fall, the void it left behind, but feel it he did. John withdrew his hand from Rodney’s arm.
“It’s okay, Mer,” said Jeannie, looking at John like she wanted to apologize or something.
The guards moved to hold John again, but both Jeannie and Keller sent them away, leaving John’s path to the door outside clear. And very lonely.
+++
Finished in part 6