Fic: True, Whole, and Nothing But (Skew Lines series)
This was a huge pain to write. I really struggled with it. It was supposed to be subtle and slow-building, but it probably just came out slow and either too obscure or too obvious, I'm not sure which. Subtlety has never been my strength.
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Title: Skew Lines 4: True, Whole, and Nothing But
Author: Quasar
Rating: R
Pairing: McShep
Warnings: mention of non-con
Spoilers: Through 'McKay and Mrs. Miller'
Length: 7,000 wds
Summary: The best thing about Rodney McKay is that he's honest, mostly.
Author's Note: Episode tag for 'McKay and Mrs. Miller' and part of my Skew Lines series. Reading the previous installments in the series is strongly recommended.
John was looking forward to having Rodney back after three weeks of peace and boredom. Meeting Rodney's sister was bound to be amusing, as well. He extended his hand and his very best smile. "John Sheppard."
Already flustered from the transport, she stammered and shook his hand.
"Yeah -- she's my sister, and she's married." Rodney's voice was clipped with annoyance.
"I'm just saying . . . " As he made his excuses, John couldn't help but be a little smug. Rodney was so transparently jealous. And -- a nickname? Having Rodney's sister here was going to be great.
It wasn't until the others all trooped off to the lab that it occurred to John to wonder: which of them was Rodney jealous of?
-----
The white hand spreads over his chest, sending searing pain to every cell in his body. John jerks convulsively against his bonds --
-- and wakes to the bronzed walls and white curtains of the Atlantis infirmary. The red cotton shirt and soft blanket don't hide the bandages on his chest, but when he tries to investigate he realizes his wrists are fastened down with broad leather cuffs, echoing his dream, echoing his memory.
He swallows hard and concentrates on breathing. Atlantis. Not an underground cell. No gag. No Kolya. No Wraith.
"Hello?" His voice comes out as a croak. "Anybody there?"
Carson appears almost at once. "How are you feeling, Colonel?"
He's shaky and thirsty and his muscles ache and he needs to piss, but Carson doesn't need those details. "Fine, except for the part about being tied up. What is this?" He tugs at the restraints.
"How much do you remember?"
"Well, uh --" Being captured. Being fed on. Escaping. The reverse feeding, which turns out to be as painful as the regular kind. Returning to Atlantis with a headache. "You said I had a lot of the enzyme in my system. I remember feeling . . . pretty crummy." He remembers feeling nuts, actually: ready to explode if he couldn't have more freedom, more action . . . more enzyme. The memories are jumbled. "Did I really tell Teyla to go fuck herself? And sock McKay in the face?"
Carson starts undoing the restraints. "I don't know about the first, but Rodney has a lovely shiner this morning."
"Aw, shit." There's something else, too, at the tip of his mind . . . McKay standing over the bed and looking down at him with a grim expression. "Is he pissed?"
"More upset about throwing his back out than about the black eye. I tried one of the Ancient healing devices on him -- the one we found a few months ago, that only works if both patient and doctor have the ATA gene? It brought the swelling down in his face and back, but it couldn't fix everything. He'll be on restricted duty for a few days."
McKay looking down at him with one eye swollen half shut and his crooked mouth turned down even more than usual. McKay watching John intently as he reaches under the blanket and strokes --
Whoa. Okay, that memory can't be real, can it?
McKay's head bobbing over John's groin as pleasure strikes through his nerves like lightning.
Wow. If that is a real memory, it's pretty damn close to one of John's favorite fantasies.
"Colonel?"
"Hmm? Oh, sorry, just . . . I had some weird dreams last night." Hands free, John immediately reaches for his chest.
Carson slaps his fingers away. "Leave those dressings alone."
John glares and shifts his hands to rub at his neck instead.
"Stiff?"
"Mmm." John turns a nod into a full neck roll.
"I'm not surprised. That was quite a dose of enzyme ye got. But fortunately ye weren't on it long enough to become fully addicted." Carson plays with the monitor beside the bed. "Well, your vitals look normal enough, but I'll need to check your blood levels to be sure. If that's good, ye'll be out of here in time for lunch."
"Great." John stretches with a wince. Yep, he can feel every bruise from every one of yesterday's fights. "Can I go to the bathroom first? I'm a little, uh . . ."
"Aye, I expect your kidneys have been working overtime. Go ahead."
John's still thinking about Rodney and blowjobs, operating on autopilot. It's not until he's washing his hands that John checks the mirror and freeze. For a moment there he sees an old, old man. And somehow that seems more familiar than his own face.
-----
John was surprised, when he stopped by the mess for a cup of coffee, to find Jeannie Miller sitting at one of the tables, contemplating her danish with a familiar downward turn to her mouth.
"Hey. You're up early." He slid into a seat just around the corner of the table.
She shrugged and half-smiled. "I normally get woken up by a small child. Before Madison, I used to sleep in as long as I could."
"Yeah, Rodney's like that. We won't see him for a few hours."
"That's Mer for you." Her smile faded and she frowned at the pastry some more.
John sipped at his coffee. "So, he's managed to piss you off already, huh?"
She chuckled humorlessly. "It's not like I didn't know what he was like, getting into this. He never could stand to let me do anything first, or admit I might be better at something. But I guess he made me think it would be different this time. 'Share the credit. Dad would be so proud.'"
John winced at the bitter tone. "Yeah, uh, he's not really so big on sharing credit."
"Nope."
"So what's with this pet name you have for him?"
Instead of distracting her, the change of subject just seemed to make her more exasperated. "It isn't a pet name, it's his real name. His first name. Meredith."
John choked on his coffee. "Meredith? McKay's real name is Meredith? Tell me you're not shitting me."
"It's true. It must be on his paperwork somewhere."
John shook his head in wonder. "Elizabeth never said anything. And those degrees in his room, I'm sure they said Rodney."
"Look closer -- that's just his middle name."
"Meredith Rodney McKay." John rolled the name in his mouth, contemplating all the jokes that could be gotten out of it.
"He never wanted his little sister tagging along with him, you know. He never wanted me to share in whatever fun thing he was doing. So I guess, for revenge, I turned into a tattle tale. I would tell Dad Rodney was playing with explosive chemicals, or building a laser, or whatever." Jeannie's brow furrowed. "But we're adults now, or at least we should be. I shouldn't be taking revenge like that anymore."
"Oh, I think telling me his name is Meredith is a good start." John leaned forward. "But you must have lots of other dirt on him. Come on, spill! What was he like as a child?"
Ronon looked into the mess and called from the doorway, "Hey Sheppard! We going running this morning, or what?"
John waved a hand. "Come on in! Rodney's sister here was just telling me what a pain he was as a little kid."
"Huh. So I guess he hasn't changed much."
Jeannie laughed. "Oh, he's mellowed out a lot. It took him a couple of weeks to get me really mad at him. When we were kids that would have taken a couple of minutes."
John leaned confidingly toward Ronon, although he didn't bother to lower his voice. "Turns out Rodney's real name is Meredith."
Ronon arched an eyebrow. "Why'd he change it?"
John rolled his eyes. "He's not from Earth," he told Jeannie, then explained, "Meredith is a girl's name."
"Well, it is nowadays," Jeannie conceded. "It used to be a boy's name."
Ronon's eyes lit with amusement. "You're saying it's either girly, or old fashioned?"
"You got it," said John.
"I bet the other kids had fun with that," Ronon said.
"Oh, they hated him at school!" Jeannie said with relish. "He was skipped a couple of grades -- we both were -- so he was younger and smaller than anyone else in his class. But still smarter, and he didn't bother trying to hide it. I learned to make friends and get along with people, but Mer always said pretending to fit in was hypocritical. So he had no friends, and when I told one of the girls at school about him wetting the bed --"
"Wait, bedwetting?" John snorted.
She nodded. "He was, what, nine? Yeah, I was in third grade, he was in sixth. And he used to have these anxiety attacks, and one of the signs was --"
"Bedwetting," said John, sharing a snicker with Ronon.
"Anyway, it got around the school, and some of the boys in Rodney's class heard about it and just wouldn't let go of it. One day at lunch they made him . . ."
When he'd heard that Rodney's sister was coming to Atlantis, John had sort of imagined hearing some stories about a cute and charming little Rodney, before he turned into the sharp-tongued tyrant they all knew. But somehow it was so natural, so typical of Rodney that he'd been an unsociable (yet vulnerable) elitist even as a kid, that all John could do was laugh and help Jeannie take her revenge, however childish.
-----
"Nice. Now, I can show you how to fix that hook . . ."
Next thing John knew, he was standing there slightly bent forward, with Rod standing close behind him and wrapping his arms around to adjust John's grip. When John stiffened, Rod practically crooned "Relax" in his ear. He kept his arms around John right through a slow-motion replay of the stroke, pushing with his own knees and hips to show how John should move.
It was incredibly erotic, but that had to be all in John's mind, didn't it? Rod couldn't really be offering what John thought he was.
Rod stepped back with a final caress of John's hip. John hadn't heard a word of the explanation after Rod breathed in his ear. He just stared in amazement as Rod moved back to his watching post.
Then he winked at John. "Well? Go ahead. Do it."
He meant the golf. Of course he did. John took a moment to try to steady himself -- with a hip-wiggle that didn't really succeed in easing the way he was pushing at his pants -- then swung. He whiffed it. The ball dribbled off the tee, made it to the edge of the astroturf, then picked up speed as it rolled for the edge of the pier.
Rod stopped it and tossed it back into the bucket of balls. "Well, maybe we've been out here long enough. What do you say to some breakfast?"
They split up when John made the excuse of taking the clubs back to his room. He wanted some space to think for a minute. Rod offered to carry some of the equipment, but backed down at once when John said he could handle it.
His mind was whirling. Did I imagine that? Does he really mean it? Should I, could I? He kept thinking it couldn't be real. It had been at once very obvious and yet not blatant enough. When Rodney McKay wanted something, he didn't bother with tacit innuendo; he came right out and asked.
Then John remembered: this wasn't Rodney.
-----
John presses the chime outside McKay's door and waits for a ten-count, bouncing on his toes, before willing the door open himself. Rodney's just levering up to his feet. Startled by the opening of the door, Rodney falls back to sit on the bed with a groan, clutching at his back.
"Hey!" John hastily sets the tray of food down on the floor (since Rodney's desk is too cluttered) and tries to help, not sure what to do. "Easy. Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you --"
"No! No, it's fine," Rodney gasps. "I'm fine, just . . . ow." He adjusts his seat a little, then holds unnaturally still, breathing slowly through his teeth.
"Yeah, uh, sorry about that." John shifts uneasily on his feet. "I brought you some lunch?"
"What?" Rodney squints up at him. The bruise on his face is obvious even with the room half-lit. The swelling's down, thanks to Carson's Ancient healing device, and the eye itself looks okay, but much of the surrounding skin is deep purple and black.
McKay staring down at him with a grim expression and one eye swollen half-shut.
John blinks the vision (dream, memory?) away. "Well, Zelenka said you weren't coming to the labs today, and Ronon said you hadn't eaten, so I brought you a tray. It's, um, chili con something-or-other, with fresh-thawed bread."
Rodney's gaze flicks at the food while his head stays still. "Why?"
"Well, I thought maybe, you know, an apology was in order."
Rodney lurches away oddly, then grabs at his back and groans again. Even in the low light John can tell he's gone pale.
"Is it your back? Should I call Carson?" John reaches for Rodney's shoulder.
This time the move is obviously a flinch. "No. No Carson. I'm fine."
John stares. Is Rodney scared of him?
Blue eyes going startle-wide, the punch shuddering up his arm, knuckle and cheekbone meeting hard with too little flesh to pad them. Scientist and equipment flying back as John turns away.
"I'm sorry," he blurts uselessly. "For, um, slugging you and hurting your back."
"You're sorry?" Rodney's voice is two low to hear.
"Well, yeah. I said so, right? And I brought you food as an apology? What, you want me to prostrate myself and beg forgiveness?" The oking tone doesn't come easily today. Rodney's acting like he'd be afraid to sit next to John on the bus, not like a friend who would steal John's dessert and lecture him on thermodynamics and maybe give him a spontaneous blowjob.
"You want me too, don't you?" Rodney whispers, wrapping his hand around John's erection.
But that part wasn't real. Can't be real, or Rodney wouldn't look the way he does now, wouldn't be speaking in such a monotone: "No, I would have done . . . I did do the same thing." He sounds defeated. "Worse."
"What?" Between the scrambled memories and people's weird reactions, John's having a lot of trouble figuring out what happened last night, or how he can make it better.
Rodney blinks. "When I went through the enzyme withdrawal, I slapped one nurse and kicked another. Carson had me tied down after that, and I said . . . terrible things to him."
John winces. "Yeah, I, uh, I guess that's what I did to Teyla."
Rodney tries to smile, and it looks horrible on his bruised face. "So. Been there, done that. What goes around, comes around. No, uh, no hard feelings?"
"Well, not on my side, but --" John reaches for Rodney's shoulder again, and stops at his expression. "Shit, McKay, what is that? You don't think I'm going to hit you again, do you? Carson cleared me!"
"Nonono, of course not. No. I just . . ." The pause is too long. "I was thinking -- dreaming about yesterday. About seeing you --" Rodney swallows, looking paler than ever. "I guess I'm still a little thrown."
John runs a hand through his hair, unconsciously checking if it's still thick. "By the fountain of youth thing? Yeah, I'm a little freaked out by that myself." But why would that make Rodney scared of him?
"Glad you're back, though. Really." Rodney looks away, blinks hard, swipes a hand across his unbruised cheek. "Hell. Carson has me drugged to the gills. You don't expect sense out of me, do you?"
John lets out a huff and even tries on a grin. Yeah, drugs and weird dreams can probably explain Rodney's bizarre mood. It doesn't mean that everybody and everything will be as crazy as the last twenty-eight hours has been. It doesn't mean John has to ask if those memories were real, or if anything else happened last night. Rodney's just loopy, that's all.
"You look like you could use another dose of painkillers, though."
Rodney waves a hand at the bedside table. "Got more right here. I'll take it after I eat. And then I'll probably sleep another twelve hours."
"Sounds like a plan." John rolls Rodney's desk chair over and balances the lunch tray carefully on its arms. It's at just the right height for Rodney to eat from, as long as it doesn't roll away. Just to make sure, John kicks a dirty shirt out of the corner and under one of the chair's wheels. The pile of laundry makes him think of Lucius's potion and another big overblown flap about nothing. "Listen, Rodney --"
Rodney transfers his suspicious look from the chili to John's face.
"We're okay, right? I mean, we're . . . we're good?"
Rodney's chin lifts. His mouth goes up on one side, down on the other. "Sure, Colonel. We're fine."
And John isn't even sure, really, if he's disappointed or relieved that the blowjob thing was just a dream.
-----
John stowed his clubs and headed to breakfast in the mess hall, where he found Jeannie and Rod with their heads together. Rod glanced up and smiled at John, waving him to a seat at the same table. They seemed to be talking about science stuff, so John just concentrated on his food.
"It's so weird," Jeannie was saying. "We expected the bridge to connect us with a completely random universe at a random time, but instead we reached one that was so similar to ours, at exactly the same point in history. The odds against that are, are --"
"Astronomical," said Rod with a wry smirk.
"More than that, it's unbelievable. I mean, I really don't see how this could have --"
Rod shook his head and waved dismissively. "Well, inter-universal dynamics aren't exactly taught at MIT, you know. It could be there's some relationship, some kind of, of proximity that makes similar universes more likely to bridge than --"
"No, no, I've looked for exactly that in the equations, and it's not there!"
"Yeah, well . . ." Rod didn't seem to care about pursuing the subject subject. "I'm more interested in the differences, actually. Even though we had such similar histories, your brother and I are, well --"
"Not exactly identical," John put in.
"Not so much, no," Rod chuckled. "I'm wondering where that got started."
"Oh, I can guess that," said Jeannie. "To the day, if not the minute. I'll bet you anything it was Dad's funeral. That screaming argument we had."
Rod sat back, frowning reflectively.
"You were -- Mer was being such an asshole about the whole thing. To everybody," Jeannie recalled.
"Yeah, I was the same," Rod said with a grimace. "What can I say? I was a teenager, and pretty angry about not getting to go to college. See, I was fifteen when I graduated from high school," he explained to John. "I wanted to go straight on to MIT -- I had the scholarships and everything. But Mom didn't think I was old enough to be on my own yet."
"She was going to go with you, get an apartment and take care of you for at least your first year, so you wouldn't be staying in a dorm," Jeannie said, apparently not thinking it was worth distinguishing between Rod and Rodney at this point.
"Right. But then, that summer, they found out Dad had cancer."
Jeannie winced. "It was pretty advanced," she told John. "They couldn't treat it. They gave him six months to a year to live --"
"So Mom decided leaving was out of the question, and I was just going to have to stay at home and take a few classes at the University of Toronto, and wait another year for MIT. And I was angry about that. Then Dad went downhill faster than anybody expected, and he died before Christmas."
"And you didn't seem to care," said Jeannie. "All you could talk about was how there was still time for you to start at MIT in January."
Rod shrugged guiltily. "I was repressing, you know."
"Well, I realized that -- later," said Jeannie. "I was thirteen then," she pointed out in an aside to John, "and I was just upset about losing a parent and I couldn't care less about my brother's academic career at that point."
"You always did put the person before the title," Rod said. "You taught me how to do that, too."
"But that's just the thing! I had that horrible screaming fight with Mer, and I told him he needed to learn to think about other people and not just himself. And he wouldn't talk to me for days afterward, but he never really changed." Jeannie tilted her head to one side and considered Rod closely. "I think you did. And I think that was when it started, wasn't it?"
Rod nodded slowly. "There was something you said that got my attention -- something about how people were more than just equations to plug values into."
"I don't remember saying that," said Jeannie with a frown.
"Anyway, I took it as a sort of challenge. I thought if I paid more attention to people, maybe I could figure out the parameters that determined their actions. Maybe I could figure out what variables to alter to get people to do things differently." Rod shrugged with a self-deprecating smile. "Turned out a funeral was a really good opportunity for studying behavior patterns. I figured out some stuff in those first few days, and later I learned how to apply it to other people in other situations."
Jeannie smiled at him. "And somewhere along the line, you learned to really care about people's feelings, instead of just using them to manipulate everyone."
Rod hesitated a moment, blinking. "Yes. That's right."
John frowned. He remembered Rod's hips pushing close behind his own, and wondered what kind of manipulation that was supposed to be.
"See, my brother never learned that," Jeannie went on. "He doesn't understand people -- their feelings, motivations. He just doesn't care about any of that stuff."
"I'm sure he cares about other people's feelings," Rod said. "He just doesn't know how to express it."
Jeannie sat back and sipped her coffee with a frown. "I wouldn't be so sure of that. The way he tramples over everyone in his path --"
John stepped in, feeling he had to defend his friend at least a little. "Aw, he's not that bad. He gets excited about things and forgets to pay attention to other people, but he does care. I know that for a fact."
"Of course he does," said Rod. "Does he work with the Athosians here?"
"What about the Athosians?" Teyla asked, coming up to the table.
Rod twisted around. "I was just wondering if your Rodney is on the Athosian Council."
Teyla looked blank. "Why would he be?"
"Well, I am." Rod leaned forward, warming to the topic. "It's a fascinating history your people have . . ."
-----
John lounges next to the door in Rodney's quarters, watching him pack for the visit to Earth. The bruising around Rodney's eye has faded to a barely-visible yellow, and he bends to pick up a sock with just a small grunt of discomfort. But something is still off between them, and it's only gotten more obvious as Rodney's back improved enough for him to get around -- mostly to places where John wasn't.
"My sister?!" Rodney muses for the umpteenth time, keeping up a nervous stream of babble and not looking toward John. "I can't imagine how she got involved . . . she hasn't done anything with her physics education in four years! And it's something Colonel Carter can't handle? That's odd, though of course Carter doesn't quite have the right touch for dealing with McKays. Not that Jeannie's a McKay anymore; she gave up the name when she --"
"McKay. Wormhole's only got another ten minutes," John says, tapping his watch. "You don't want to run down the ZPM, do you?"
"What? No, of course not!" Rodney hoists his bag.
"Got everything?"
"Yes. Well, not everything, but it's Earth. I can buy more toothpaste and a pillow for my neck there. Oh! Uh, and if there's anything you'd like me to pick up for you, just, uh . . ."
"I'll think about it," John says.
"Right." Rodney aims for the doorway and shies aside a little, reluctant to pass within touching distance. "If you don't mind?"
"I don't mind." John doesn't move.
Rodney starts forward again and stops as if bouncing off an invisible bubble. "Look, Colonel, you were the one who pointed out the time."
John doesn't want to let Rodney go. Not without solving whatever it is that has Rodney so nervous around him. "I'm not going to bite," he says mildly.
There it is again: Rodney's chin snaps up and his mouth tenses crookedly. "I know that." He gathers himself and steps forward.
John lays a hand on Rodney's shoulder, ignoring the flinch. "Take care, buddy. I -- we'll miss you. Come back in one piece, okay?" That's about as far out on a limb as he can make himself go, without a sign from Rodney that more would be welcome.
Rodney's eyes are impossibly blue, his forehead wrinkled with some kind of worry that John still doesn't get. "I -- yes. Okay. I'll miss . . . Atlantis, too." And he pulls free, charging down the hallway to the transporter.
John sighs. He hasn't had any luck figuring out what's making Rodney so skittish. Maybe a break on Earth will be good for him. Maybe by the time Rodney returns, this will all blow over.
Maybe Rodney will forget to be afraid of John.
-----
John's door chimed in the evening, and it wasn't Rod -- it was Rodney. He had the worried look he usually reserved for serious trouble. Or potential serious trouble. Or imagined potential serious trouble. "Colonel, do you have a minute?"
"Sure." John's neck tightened uncomfortably. He would almost have preferred Rod's bizarre seduction over more of Rodney's jumpiness. He looked around for something to occupy his hands and eyes. His golf bag was still sitting out, so he grabbed a club and started to clean.
"I, uh, I think there's something I should talk to you about."
John sighed. "Is this about Rod plotting against us somehow? Because I gotta say, Rodney, I never realized you were so paranoid."
"No, no, it's not about that, although honestly, I can't believe no one sees how evasive he is about certain topics. He keeps changing the subject whenever we talk about --" Rodney stilled, his eyes widening. "Oh. Oh, of course, why didn't I -- I should have seen -- it makes so much more sense if he was doing a parallel experiment. And that means . . . that means I'm in serious trouble, here!"
Imagined potential serious trouble, apparently. "Rodney, just -- could you back up and tell me what the hell you're talking about?"
"Look, we were wondering why the bridge connected with a universe so similar to ours --"
"Yeah, I remember that part. The odds against it are astronomical, and all that."
"And Rod tried to say it had something to do with proximity, which is just absurd. There is no 'distance' between universes; they all occupy independent spacetimes. Similar history has nothing to do with it."
"But you think you know what does?" John prodded.
"What if Rod was doing something in his universe that caused the bridge to be attracted there? Something, I don't know . . . maybe something related to the Arcturus experiment? Right, right, exactly! And that could explain why the particle stream emerged in their upper atmosphere, instead of a position more analogous to our containment room here."
John rubbed his forehead wearily and laid the first club aside, pulling out another. "What difference does it make?"
"What difference! He's lying to us, don't you get it?"
"By omission. Is it really such a big deal? Maybe he's just, you know, embarrassed about it. You don't like to talk about Doranda yourself, you know." Neither did John, for that matter.
"Yes, but this is important! If the bridge was attracted to his dimension rather than just connecting randomly, that means it's subject to laws of entropic conservation, and that means we have to worry about entropic cascade."
"Wait. You were talking about that before. You said it might not happen at all, since the bridge thing isn't exactly like the quantum mirrors, right?"
"No, Rod said it might not happen at all, but he was wrong. Or, or maybe lying. If the bridge conserves entropy, then the connection is a lot more like the quantum mirrors than we thought."
"But you said this cascade was supposed to start within a few hours. If it hasn't happened yet, doesn't that mean it probably isn't going to happen?"
"Nonono, that's the thing! The bridge is still open, you see? The two universes are still connected. Instead of having two Rodney McKays in one universe, we have two of us in two conjoined universes -- so it's still balanced, and that's why the entropic cascade hasn't started."
"Well, great. So . . . no problem, right?"
Rodney huffed impatiently. "Yeah, great, except we're trying to find a way to collapse the bridge. And once we do that, we'll have about a day or so before Rod and I die a horrible, drawn-out, excruciatingly painful, insanity-inducing death."
John frowned. "That sounds bad. Is there some way around it?"
Rodney shrugged. "Well, if one of us dies before the cascade goes critical, that would stop it."
John rolled his eyes. "Is there some way around it short of murder?"
"It's possible Rod might be persuaded to, uh . . . I mean, obviously, I have the greater right, don't I? Although, some people might disagree." Rodney nibbled on his thumbnail. "He is awfully popular. I suppose, maybe if we draw straws -- but I don't want to die, that's the whole point!"
"Rodney. Forget about the damn suicide pact. There has to be some other way. What if . . . what if you send Rod back to his own universe?"
"Oh, sure, and what if I just completely violate the laws of physics while I'm at it!"
"Come on, there's got to be some way to do it. Put that big brain of yours to work on it. And Rod's and your sister's too -- I bet they can help."
"Look, if I'm right, Rod has been actively obstructing me by concealing whatever he was doing that drew the bridge to his dimension."
"Well . . . maybe you're not right. Maybe he really doesn't know." John held up his hands. "I'm not saying you're wrong about the bridge being drawn there or whatever, but maybe Rod doesn't know why it happened. Maybe he's not doing any new experiment. Like, could it have something to do with trying to re-activate Arcturus a year ago?"
Rodney opened his mouth to deny it, then froze and held up a finger. "Wait. Well, yes. That might be . . . if the timing was such that they started their test just a few minutes after we did here, then the orbital offset might be analogous to . . . but no." He shook his head. "Well, maybe. It might be possible. Just, just barely possible."
John pushed his chin forward. "So, maybe Rod isn't lying?"
"Or maybe he is!" Rodney simmered indignantly for a moment, then his shoulders slumped. "There's no point confronting him; we have no way to disprove anything he says about his dimension."
John rubbed the back of his neck. He had a weird urge to defend Rod, but at the same time the guy creeped him out a little. He could just about understand why Rodney was so suspicious of his counterpart, although he didn't see any reason to make up wild scenarios about it. "Okay, look . . . whether or not Rod knows why the bridge connected there, he's still not going to want this cascade to happen any more than you do, right? And he probably wants to go home to his universe, too. So work with him."
"Ha! You think Rod works with people? He keeps trying to get us to do things his way, distracting me from my own ideas. He's slowing me down . . ."
John sighed and reached for another club.
-----
Despite the lowered lights around the city and the muted sense of terror among everyone who'd been here for the siege, John walked with a spring in his step toward the guest quarters.
He'd figured it out: how to bring Rodney back to normal. Well, maybe.
He'd been trying to act like everything was normal, teasing Rodney and joking around with the whole team. But either because his sister's presence was making him regress to childishness or because of whatever had made him so jumpy in the first place, Rodney wasn't dealing with it well. He couldn't seem to take the teasing in stride, much less give it back.
And now, with the ZPM depleted and Rodney feeling like it was his fault -- even though, if his speculation was right, both McKay's lives had depended on Rod getting back to his own universe -- John figured it was time to go easy on him. Maybe helping Rodney get back a little confidence about his place in Atlantis and on the team would also help him get over his weird nervousness around John.
He'd already spoken to Ronon and Teyla and suggested they ease back on the ribbing a little, just until Rodney was feeling more himself. Now he was going to see if he could do anything about Rodney's relationship to his sister. Obviously, their problems were complicated and went back a long way, but John was guessing it would help a lot just to let Jeannie know her brother actually cared, no matter how bad he was at showing it.
Fortunately, John just happened to have the evidence he needed loaded on the computer under his arm.
He found Jeannie in her room staring into space while tinkly music played over her laptop.
"Hey there," he said carefully.
"Hmm?" She sat up sharply. "Oh! Uh, Colonel, uh . . . John."
John grinned at her. "Listen, you got a minute? There was something I wanted to show you."
"Sure. Sure, uh . . ." Jeannie reached out to silence her laptop.
"What is that? It's pretty," John said before she could turn the music off. It sounded like a low-fidelity recording played through tinny computer speakers, but something in the feel of the music caught at him.
"Debussy. Jardin Sous la Pluie. Um, Garden in the Rain."
"Oh, yeah, it sounds like raindrops. Is that a really old recording or something?" Maybe it was some famous performer.
She laughed. "Not in the sense you mean. It was a home tape recorder. Mer taped himself doing a mini-recital. I was mad that he wouldn't let me do a recital too, so I stole his tape and hid it. I found it a couple of years ago, when we weren't in touch with each other. I'm not sure why I converted it to digital, really, but I've had it on my laptop for a while now."
John's gaped as the music continued, incredibly complex. "Wait, you mean that's Rodney playing? It's great."
She nodded sadly. "Yeah. He was really good. This was just a few months before he quit playing piano completely. He was twelve."
"He sounds fantastic. Why would he quit?"
"His teacher said he was technically proficient, but he had no artistry. No soul." Jeannie grimaced. "And of course, I rubbed it in every chance I got. Something I could do better than my big brother! I could be really mean to him sometimes."
"I think that's normal for brothers and sisters," said John. He listened to the music until it ended. "I'm no expert, but that sounds plenty artistic to me."
"It really is. I can hear that now. His teacher was wrong. Or lying. Maybe even jealous."
"But Rodney believed him? He just . . . gave it up?"
Jeannie fiddled with her computer, putting it to sleep. "I think he believed because somehow it connected with his anxiety about not having friends. And maybe because a part of him thought life would be easier if he didn't have feelings, either. You know he pretended to be a robot once for over a month?" She chuckled. "That was when he was younger -- around six, I think. Just starting to realize he wasn't going to fit in at school or anywhere else. So he just . . . shut it all down."
"That's, um . . ." John frowned, thinking of that small, angry, lonely Rodney.
"Too tragic for you?" Jeannie smiled. "Then look at it this way: Mer believed his teacher because he never really learned to lie, so he couldn't tell when anyone else was lying to him."
"Well, that's still true." John considered. "He was pretty convinced Rod was lying, but it sounded a little out-there to me."
"A little implausible?" Jeannie cocked her head thoughtfully. "I don't know about that one. Rod looks like my brother, and my brother doesn't lie -- except when he's lying to himself, which does happen a lot. But, so it was sort of hard for me to read Rod, because I kept seeing Mer."
"Yeah, I think that happened to me, too. Maybe if I'd met Rod first, I would have liked him better. But compared to the real thing, he was sort of a pale imitation." Maybe pale was the wrong word, since Rod was pretty damn colorful. But sort of fake, like an old film that was colorized to hide its flaws.
Jeannie's mouth quirked just the way Rodney's often did. "It was a refreshing change, and a lot of fun to compare them, but when it comes down to it I'd rather have my real brother."
"Yeah. Exactly."
She rested her fingers on the laptop. "I don't know if he'd like to have the recording or not. He's left that part of his life behind. If he realizes what a great musician he could have been, maybe that will just make him feel like he lost something."
John rubbed his eyebrow. "I don't know what to say about that. We don't have any pianos here, so he wouldn't be able to take it up again even if he wanted to. But look, speaking of recordings, there's something I wanted to show you . . ."
-----
John's door chimed, and he thought it open. "Rodney! Hey, buddy, come on in."
Their breakfast that morning had gone perfectly -- Ronon and Teyla followed up on John's lead, and they had teased each other instead of Rodney. By the end of the meal, Rodney had stopped slinking as if he expected every passing Marine to blame him for the loss of the ZPM. Now it looked like he was seeking John out in their time off, so maybe he was going to stop flinching and hiding all the time. It seemed like a good sign.
But Rodney was wearing his potential-serious-trouble face again.
"Colonel. Look, there's something I've been meaning to talk to you about -- well, for quite a while now, but it never seemed like the right time. But I, I . . . it's been bothering me, and I think, well, I shouldn't put it off any longer."
"Okay." John put on his best listening face. "Come in, make yourself comfortable." He patted the bed next to him, but Rodney stiffened and looked even more pale.
"No, that's, that's alright. I'll stand." Rodney swallowed hard.
"If you want. So what's up?"
"It's about, um, when you were in the infirmary. After the Wraith -- the enzyme withdrawal."
Oh. "Would this be before or after I punched you in the face?"
"After."
"Rodney, look . . . I really don't remember that night very well."
"Yes, I know. I --"
"I apologized for hitting you, and I apologized to Teyla for the nasty things I said to her when I was under the influence. If there's something else I've done, you need to let me know so I can try to make up for it."
"No no, it's not you, it's not anything you did, it's -- it's what I --" Rodney stiffened into an approximation of attention and looked over John's shoulder. His voice went flat, almost toneless except for moments when he nearly lost control and the emotion showed through. "After you hit me and fought the nurse, you were sedated and strapped down. You were mostly, well, out of it, but still, um, your body was -- you were . . ." Rodney swallowed hard and closed his eyes. "You were aroused. And I -- molested you."
"You what?" John's jaw dropped.
Rodney kept speaking in that horrible dead voice. "I touched . . . you, inappropriately, with my hands and, and my mouth. You were, um, in an altered mental state, and incapable of consent. It was wrong and, and inappropriate -- it wouldn't be stretching it to say criminal."
"What? No, wait, you . . ."
"I'll accept whatever punishment you think is best, Colonel. If you want me off the team, or out of Atlantis --" Rodney lost his voice at that point and had to clear his throat. "Just work it out with Elizabeth. Or if you don't want to talk to her, just tell me and I can resign. I'll go along with whatever you say. I won't try to defend myself." Rodney turned, robot-like, toward the door, then paused. "I'm . . . really very, very sorry." And then he was gone.
John was left sitting on his bed with his mouth hanging open, wondering what the hell had just happened.
Apparently, honesty could be a real bitch sometimes.
-----
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Title: Skew Lines 4: True, Whole, and Nothing But
Author: Quasar
Rating: R
Pairing: McShep
Warnings: mention of non-con
Spoilers: Through 'McKay and Mrs. Miller'
Length: 7,000 wds
Summary: The best thing about Rodney McKay is that he's honest, mostly.
Author's Note: Episode tag for 'McKay and Mrs. Miller' and part of my Skew Lines series. Reading the previous installments in the series is strongly recommended.
John was looking forward to having Rodney back after three weeks of peace and boredom. Meeting Rodney's sister was bound to be amusing, as well. He extended his hand and his very best smile. "John Sheppard."
Already flustered from the transport, she stammered and shook his hand.
"Yeah -- she's my sister, and she's married." Rodney's voice was clipped with annoyance.
"I'm just saying . . . " As he made his excuses, John couldn't help but be a little smug. Rodney was so transparently jealous. And -- a nickname? Having Rodney's sister here was going to be great.
It wasn't until the others all trooped off to the lab that it occurred to John to wonder: which of them was Rodney jealous of?
-----
The white hand spreads over his chest, sending searing pain to every cell in his body. John jerks convulsively against his bonds --
-- and wakes to the bronzed walls and white curtains of the Atlantis infirmary. The red cotton shirt and soft blanket don't hide the bandages on his chest, but when he tries to investigate he realizes his wrists are fastened down with broad leather cuffs, echoing his dream, echoing his memory.
He swallows hard and concentrates on breathing. Atlantis. Not an underground cell. No gag. No Kolya. No Wraith.
"Hello?" His voice comes out as a croak. "Anybody there?"
Carson appears almost at once. "How are you feeling, Colonel?"
He's shaky and thirsty and his muscles ache and he needs to piss, but Carson doesn't need those details. "Fine, except for the part about being tied up. What is this?" He tugs at the restraints.
"How much do you remember?"
"Well, uh --" Being captured. Being fed on. Escaping. The reverse feeding, which turns out to be as painful as the regular kind. Returning to Atlantis with a headache. "You said I had a lot of the enzyme in my system. I remember feeling . . . pretty crummy." He remembers feeling nuts, actually: ready to explode if he couldn't have more freedom, more action . . . more enzyme. The memories are jumbled. "Did I really tell Teyla to go fuck herself? And sock McKay in the face?"
Carson starts undoing the restraints. "I don't know about the first, but Rodney has a lovely shiner this morning."
"Aw, shit." There's something else, too, at the tip of his mind . . . McKay standing over the bed and looking down at him with a grim expression. "Is he pissed?"
"More upset about throwing his back out than about the black eye. I tried one of the Ancient healing devices on him -- the one we found a few months ago, that only works if both patient and doctor have the ATA gene? It brought the swelling down in his face and back, but it couldn't fix everything. He'll be on restricted duty for a few days."
McKay looking down at him with one eye swollen half shut and his crooked mouth turned down even more than usual. McKay watching John intently as he reaches under the blanket and strokes --
Whoa. Okay, that memory can't be real, can it?
McKay's head bobbing over John's groin as pleasure strikes through his nerves like lightning.
Wow. If that is a real memory, it's pretty damn close to one of John's favorite fantasies.
"Colonel?"
"Hmm? Oh, sorry, just . . . I had some weird dreams last night." Hands free, John immediately reaches for his chest.
Carson slaps his fingers away. "Leave those dressings alone."
John glares and shifts his hands to rub at his neck instead.
"Stiff?"
"Mmm." John turns a nod into a full neck roll.
"I'm not surprised. That was quite a dose of enzyme ye got. But fortunately ye weren't on it long enough to become fully addicted." Carson plays with the monitor beside the bed. "Well, your vitals look normal enough, but I'll need to check your blood levels to be sure. If that's good, ye'll be out of here in time for lunch."
"Great." John stretches with a wince. Yep, he can feel every bruise from every one of yesterday's fights. "Can I go to the bathroom first? I'm a little, uh . . ."
"Aye, I expect your kidneys have been working overtime. Go ahead."
John's still thinking about Rodney and blowjobs, operating on autopilot. It's not until he's washing his hands that John checks the mirror and freeze. For a moment there he sees an old, old man. And somehow that seems more familiar than his own face.
-----
John was surprised, when he stopped by the mess for a cup of coffee, to find Jeannie Miller sitting at one of the tables, contemplating her danish with a familiar downward turn to her mouth.
"Hey. You're up early." He slid into a seat just around the corner of the table.
She shrugged and half-smiled. "I normally get woken up by a small child. Before Madison, I used to sleep in as long as I could."
"Yeah, Rodney's like that. We won't see him for a few hours."
"That's Mer for you." Her smile faded and she frowned at the pastry some more.
John sipped at his coffee. "So, he's managed to piss you off already, huh?"
She chuckled humorlessly. "It's not like I didn't know what he was like, getting into this. He never could stand to let me do anything first, or admit I might be better at something. But I guess he made me think it would be different this time. 'Share the credit. Dad would be so proud.'"
John winced at the bitter tone. "Yeah, uh, he's not really so big on sharing credit."
"Nope."
"So what's with this pet name you have for him?"
Instead of distracting her, the change of subject just seemed to make her more exasperated. "It isn't a pet name, it's his real name. His first name. Meredith."
John choked on his coffee. "Meredith? McKay's real name is Meredith? Tell me you're not shitting me."
"It's true. It must be on his paperwork somewhere."
John shook his head in wonder. "Elizabeth never said anything. And those degrees in his room, I'm sure they said Rodney."
"Look closer -- that's just his middle name."
"Meredith Rodney McKay." John rolled the name in his mouth, contemplating all the jokes that could be gotten out of it.
"He never wanted his little sister tagging along with him, you know. He never wanted me to share in whatever fun thing he was doing. So I guess, for revenge, I turned into a tattle tale. I would tell Dad Rodney was playing with explosive chemicals, or building a laser, or whatever." Jeannie's brow furrowed. "But we're adults now, or at least we should be. I shouldn't be taking revenge like that anymore."
"Oh, I think telling me his name is Meredith is a good start." John leaned forward. "But you must have lots of other dirt on him. Come on, spill! What was he like as a child?"
Ronon looked into the mess and called from the doorway, "Hey Sheppard! We going running this morning, or what?"
John waved a hand. "Come on in! Rodney's sister here was just telling me what a pain he was as a little kid."
"Huh. So I guess he hasn't changed much."
Jeannie laughed. "Oh, he's mellowed out a lot. It took him a couple of weeks to get me really mad at him. When we were kids that would have taken a couple of minutes."
John leaned confidingly toward Ronon, although he didn't bother to lower his voice. "Turns out Rodney's real name is Meredith."
Ronon arched an eyebrow. "Why'd he change it?"
John rolled his eyes. "He's not from Earth," he told Jeannie, then explained, "Meredith is a girl's name."
"Well, it is nowadays," Jeannie conceded. "It used to be a boy's name."
Ronon's eyes lit with amusement. "You're saying it's either girly, or old fashioned?"
"You got it," said John.
"I bet the other kids had fun with that," Ronon said.
"Oh, they hated him at school!" Jeannie said with relish. "He was skipped a couple of grades -- we both were -- so he was younger and smaller than anyone else in his class. But still smarter, and he didn't bother trying to hide it. I learned to make friends and get along with people, but Mer always said pretending to fit in was hypocritical. So he had no friends, and when I told one of the girls at school about him wetting the bed --"
"Wait, bedwetting?" John snorted.
She nodded. "He was, what, nine? Yeah, I was in third grade, he was in sixth. And he used to have these anxiety attacks, and one of the signs was --"
"Bedwetting," said John, sharing a snicker with Ronon.
"Anyway, it got around the school, and some of the boys in Rodney's class heard about it and just wouldn't let go of it. One day at lunch they made him . . ."
When he'd heard that Rodney's sister was coming to Atlantis, John had sort of imagined hearing some stories about a cute and charming little Rodney, before he turned into the sharp-tongued tyrant they all knew. But somehow it was so natural, so typical of Rodney that he'd been an unsociable (yet vulnerable) elitist even as a kid, that all John could do was laugh and help Jeannie take her revenge, however childish.
-----
"Nice. Now, I can show you how to fix that hook . . ."
Next thing John knew, he was standing there slightly bent forward, with Rod standing close behind him and wrapping his arms around to adjust John's grip. When John stiffened, Rod practically crooned "Relax" in his ear. He kept his arms around John right through a slow-motion replay of the stroke, pushing with his own knees and hips to show how John should move.
It was incredibly erotic, but that had to be all in John's mind, didn't it? Rod couldn't really be offering what John thought he was.
Rod stepped back with a final caress of John's hip. John hadn't heard a word of the explanation after Rod breathed in his ear. He just stared in amazement as Rod moved back to his watching post.
Then he winked at John. "Well? Go ahead. Do it."
He meant the golf. Of course he did. John took a moment to try to steady himself -- with a hip-wiggle that didn't really succeed in easing the way he was pushing at his pants -- then swung. He whiffed it. The ball dribbled off the tee, made it to the edge of the astroturf, then picked up speed as it rolled for the edge of the pier.
Rod stopped it and tossed it back into the bucket of balls. "Well, maybe we've been out here long enough. What do you say to some breakfast?"
They split up when John made the excuse of taking the clubs back to his room. He wanted some space to think for a minute. Rod offered to carry some of the equipment, but backed down at once when John said he could handle it.
His mind was whirling. Did I imagine that? Does he really mean it? Should I, could I? He kept thinking it couldn't be real. It had been at once very obvious and yet not blatant enough. When Rodney McKay wanted something, he didn't bother with tacit innuendo; he came right out and asked.
Then John remembered: this wasn't Rodney.
-----
John presses the chime outside McKay's door and waits for a ten-count, bouncing on his toes, before willing the door open himself. Rodney's just levering up to his feet. Startled by the opening of the door, Rodney falls back to sit on the bed with a groan, clutching at his back.
"Hey!" John hastily sets the tray of food down on the floor (since Rodney's desk is too cluttered) and tries to help, not sure what to do. "Easy. Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you --"
"No! No, it's fine," Rodney gasps. "I'm fine, just . . . ow." He adjusts his seat a little, then holds unnaturally still, breathing slowly through his teeth.
"Yeah, uh, sorry about that." John shifts uneasily on his feet. "I brought you some lunch?"
"What?" Rodney squints up at him. The bruise on his face is obvious even with the room half-lit. The swelling's down, thanks to Carson's Ancient healing device, and the eye itself looks okay, but much of the surrounding skin is deep purple and black.
McKay staring down at him with a grim expression and one eye swollen half-shut.
John blinks the vision (dream, memory?) away. "Well, Zelenka said you weren't coming to the labs today, and Ronon said you hadn't eaten, so I brought you a tray. It's, um, chili con something-or-other, with fresh-thawed bread."
Rodney's gaze flicks at the food while his head stays still. "Why?"
"Well, I thought maybe, you know, an apology was in order."
Rodney lurches away oddly, then grabs at his back and groans again. Even in the low light John can tell he's gone pale.
"Is it your back? Should I call Carson?" John reaches for Rodney's shoulder.
This time the move is obviously a flinch. "No. No Carson. I'm fine."
John stares. Is Rodney scared of him?
Blue eyes going startle-wide, the punch shuddering up his arm, knuckle and cheekbone meeting hard with too little flesh to pad them. Scientist and equipment flying back as John turns away.
"I'm sorry," he blurts uselessly. "For, um, slugging you and hurting your back."
"You're sorry?" Rodney's voice is two low to hear.
"Well, yeah. I said so, right? And I brought you food as an apology? What, you want me to prostrate myself and beg forgiveness?" The oking tone doesn't come easily today. Rodney's acting like he'd be afraid to sit next to John on the bus, not like a friend who would steal John's dessert and lecture him on thermodynamics and maybe give him a spontaneous blowjob.
"You want me too, don't you?" Rodney whispers, wrapping his hand around John's erection.
But that part wasn't real. Can't be real, or Rodney wouldn't look the way he does now, wouldn't be speaking in such a monotone: "No, I would have done . . . I did do the same thing." He sounds defeated. "Worse."
"What?" Between the scrambled memories and people's weird reactions, John's having a lot of trouble figuring out what happened last night, or how he can make it better.
Rodney blinks. "When I went through the enzyme withdrawal, I slapped one nurse and kicked another. Carson had me tied down after that, and I said . . . terrible things to him."
John winces. "Yeah, I, uh, I guess that's what I did to Teyla."
Rodney tries to smile, and it looks horrible on his bruised face. "So. Been there, done that. What goes around, comes around. No, uh, no hard feelings?"
"Well, not on my side, but --" John reaches for Rodney's shoulder again, and stops at his expression. "Shit, McKay, what is that? You don't think I'm going to hit you again, do you? Carson cleared me!"
"Nonono, of course not. No. I just . . ." The pause is too long. "I was thinking -- dreaming about yesterday. About seeing you --" Rodney swallows, looking paler than ever. "I guess I'm still a little thrown."
John runs a hand through his hair, unconsciously checking if it's still thick. "By the fountain of youth thing? Yeah, I'm a little freaked out by that myself." But why would that make Rodney scared of him?
"Glad you're back, though. Really." Rodney looks away, blinks hard, swipes a hand across his unbruised cheek. "Hell. Carson has me drugged to the gills. You don't expect sense out of me, do you?"
John lets out a huff and even tries on a grin. Yeah, drugs and weird dreams can probably explain Rodney's bizarre mood. It doesn't mean that everybody and everything will be as crazy as the last twenty-eight hours has been. It doesn't mean John has to ask if those memories were real, or if anything else happened last night. Rodney's just loopy, that's all.
"You look like you could use another dose of painkillers, though."
Rodney waves a hand at the bedside table. "Got more right here. I'll take it after I eat. And then I'll probably sleep another twelve hours."
"Sounds like a plan." John rolls Rodney's desk chair over and balances the lunch tray carefully on its arms. It's at just the right height for Rodney to eat from, as long as it doesn't roll away. Just to make sure, John kicks a dirty shirt out of the corner and under one of the chair's wheels. The pile of laundry makes him think of Lucius's potion and another big overblown flap about nothing. "Listen, Rodney --"
Rodney transfers his suspicious look from the chili to John's face.
"We're okay, right? I mean, we're . . . we're good?"
Rodney's chin lifts. His mouth goes up on one side, down on the other. "Sure, Colonel. We're fine."
And John isn't even sure, really, if he's disappointed or relieved that the blowjob thing was just a dream.
-----
John stowed his clubs and headed to breakfast in the mess hall, where he found Jeannie and Rod with their heads together. Rod glanced up and smiled at John, waving him to a seat at the same table. They seemed to be talking about science stuff, so John just concentrated on his food.
"It's so weird," Jeannie was saying. "We expected the bridge to connect us with a completely random universe at a random time, but instead we reached one that was so similar to ours, at exactly the same point in history. The odds against that are, are --"
"Astronomical," said Rod with a wry smirk.
"More than that, it's unbelievable. I mean, I really don't see how this could have --"
Rod shook his head and waved dismissively. "Well, inter-universal dynamics aren't exactly taught at MIT, you know. It could be there's some relationship, some kind of, of proximity that makes similar universes more likely to bridge than --"
"No, no, I've looked for exactly that in the equations, and it's not there!"
"Yeah, well . . ." Rod didn't seem to care about pursuing the subject subject. "I'm more interested in the differences, actually. Even though we had such similar histories, your brother and I are, well --"
"Not exactly identical," John put in.
"Not so much, no," Rod chuckled. "I'm wondering where that got started."
"Oh, I can guess that," said Jeannie. "To the day, if not the minute. I'll bet you anything it was Dad's funeral. That screaming argument we had."
Rod sat back, frowning reflectively.
"You were -- Mer was being such an asshole about the whole thing. To everybody," Jeannie recalled.
"Yeah, I was the same," Rod said with a grimace. "What can I say? I was a teenager, and pretty angry about not getting to go to college. See, I was fifteen when I graduated from high school," he explained to John. "I wanted to go straight on to MIT -- I had the scholarships and everything. But Mom didn't think I was old enough to be on my own yet."
"She was going to go with you, get an apartment and take care of you for at least your first year, so you wouldn't be staying in a dorm," Jeannie said, apparently not thinking it was worth distinguishing between Rod and Rodney at this point.
"Right. But then, that summer, they found out Dad had cancer."
Jeannie winced. "It was pretty advanced," she told John. "They couldn't treat it. They gave him six months to a year to live --"
"So Mom decided leaving was out of the question, and I was just going to have to stay at home and take a few classes at the University of Toronto, and wait another year for MIT. And I was angry about that. Then Dad went downhill faster than anybody expected, and he died before Christmas."
"And you didn't seem to care," said Jeannie. "All you could talk about was how there was still time for you to start at MIT in January."
Rod shrugged guiltily. "I was repressing, you know."
"Well, I realized that -- later," said Jeannie. "I was thirteen then," she pointed out in an aside to John, "and I was just upset about losing a parent and I couldn't care less about my brother's academic career at that point."
"You always did put the person before the title," Rod said. "You taught me how to do that, too."
"But that's just the thing! I had that horrible screaming fight with Mer, and I told him he needed to learn to think about other people and not just himself. And he wouldn't talk to me for days afterward, but he never really changed." Jeannie tilted her head to one side and considered Rod closely. "I think you did. And I think that was when it started, wasn't it?"
Rod nodded slowly. "There was something you said that got my attention -- something about how people were more than just equations to plug values into."
"I don't remember saying that," said Jeannie with a frown.
"Anyway, I took it as a sort of challenge. I thought if I paid more attention to people, maybe I could figure out the parameters that determined their actions. Maybe I could figure out what variables to alter to get people to do things differently." Rod shrugged with a self-deprecating smile. "Turned out a funeral was a really good opportunity for studying behavior patterns. I figured out some stuff in those first few days, and later I learned how to apply it to other people in other situations."
Jeannie smiled at him. "And somewhere along the line, you learned to really care about people's feelings, instead of just using them to manipulate everyone."
Rod hesitated a moment, blinking. "Yes. That's right."
John frowned. He remembered Rod's hips pushing close behind his own, and wondered what kind of manipulation that was supposed to be.
"See, my brother never learned that," Jeannie went on. "He doesn't understand people -- their feelings, motivations. He just doesn't care about any of that stuff."
"I'm sure he cares about other people's feelings," Rod said. "He just doesn't know how to express it."
Jeannie sat back and sipped her coffee with a frown. "I wouldn't be so sure of that. The way he tramples over everyone in his path --"
John stepped in, feeling he had to defend his friend at least a little. "Aw, he's not that bad. He gets excited about things and forgets to pay attention to other people, but he does care. I know that for a fact."
"Of course he does," said Rod. "Does he work with the Athosians here?"
"What about the Athosians?" Teyla asked, coming up to the table.
Rod twisted around. "I was just wondering if your Rodney is on the Athosian Council."
Teyla looked blank. "Why would he be?"
"Well, I am." Rod leaned forward, warming to the topic. "It's a fascinating history your people have . . ."
-----
John lounges next to the door in Rodney's quarters, watching him pack for the visit to Earth. The bruising around Rodney's eye has faded to a barely-visible yellow, and he bends to pick up a sock with just a small grunt of discomfort. But something is still off between them, and it's only gotten more obvious as Rodney's back improved enough for him to get around -- mostly to places where John wasn't.
"My sister?!" Rodney muses for the umpteenth time, keeping up a nervous stream of babble and not looking toward John. "I can't imagine how she got involved . . . she hasn't done anything with her physics education in four years! And it's something Colonel Carter can't handle? That's odd, though of course Carter doesn't quite have the right touch for dealing with McKays. Not that Jeannie's a McKay anymore; she gave up the name when she --"
"McKay. Wormhole's only got another ten minutes," John says, tapping his watch. "You don't want to run down the ZPM, do you?"
"What? No, of course not!" Rodney hoists his bag.
"Got everything?"
"Yes. Well, not everything, but it's Earth. I can buy more toothpaste and a pillow for my neck there. Oh! Uh, and if there's anything you'd like me to pick up for you, just, uh . . ."
"I'll think about it," John says.
"Right." Rodney aims for the doorway and shies aside a little, reluctant to pass within touching distance. "If you don't mind?"
"I don't mind." John doesn't move.
Rodney starts forward again and stops as if bouncing off an invisible bubble. "Look, Colonel, you were the one who pointed out the time."
John doesn't want to let Rodney go. Not without solving whatever it is that has Rodney so nervous around him. "I'm not going to bite," he says mildly.
There it is again: Rodney's chin snaps up and his mouth tenses crookedly. "I know that." He gathers himself and steps forward.
John lays a hand on Rodney's shoulder, ignoring the flinch. "Take care, buddy. I -- we'll miss you. Come back in one piece, okay?" That's about as far out on a limb as he can make himself go, without a sign from Rodney that more would be welcome.
Rodney's eyes are impossibly blue, his forehead wrinkled with some kind of worry that John still doesn't get. "I -- yes. Okay. I'll miss . . . Atlantis, too." And he pulls free, charging down the hallway to the transporter.
John sighs. He hasn't had any luck figuring out what's making Rodney so skittish. Maybe a break on Earth will be good for him. Maybe by the time Rodney returns, this will all blow over.
Maybe Rodney will forget to be afraid of John.
-----
John's door chimed in the evening, and it wasn't Rod -- it was Rodney. He had the worried look he usually reserved for serious trouble. Or potential serious trouble. Or imagined potential serious trouble. "Colonel, do you have a minute?"
"Sure." John's neck tightened uncomfortably. He would almost have preferred Rod's bizarre seduction over more of Rodney's jumpiness. He looked around for something to occupy his hands and eyes. His golf bag was still sitting out, so he grabbed a club and started to clean.
"I, uh, I think there's something I should talk to you about."
John sighed. "Is this about Rod plotting against us somehow? Because I gotta say, Rodney, I never realized you were so paranoid."
"No, no, it's not about that, although honestly, I can't believe no one sees how evasive he is about certain topics. He keeps changing the subject whenever we talk about --" Rodney stilled, his eyes widening. "Oh. Oh, of course, why didn't I -- I should have seen -- it makes so much more sense if he was doing a parallel experiment. And that means . . . that means I'm in serious trouble, here!"
Imagined potential serious trouble, apparently. "Rodney, just -- could you back up and tell me what the hell you're talking about?"
"Look, we were wondering why the bridge connected with a universe so similar to ours --"
"Yeah, I remember that part. The odds against it are astronomical, and all that."
"And Rod tried to say it had something to do with proximity, which is just absurd. There is no 'distance' between universes; they all occupy independent spacetimes. Similar history has nothing to do with it."
"But you think you know what does?" John prodded.
"What if Rod was doing something in his universe that caused the bridge to be attracted there? Something, I don't know . . . maybe something related to the Arcturus experiment? Right, right, exactly! And that could explain why the particle stream emerged in their upper atmosphere, instead of a position more analogous to our containment room here."
John rubbed his forehead wearily and laid the first club aside, pulling out another. "What difference does it make?"
"What difference! He's lying to us, don't you get it?"
"By omission. Is it really such a big deal? Maybe he's just, you know, embarrassed about it. You don't like to talk about Doranda yourself, you know." Neither did John, for that matter.
"Yes, but this is important! If the bridge was attracted to his dimension rather than just connecting randomly, that means it's subject to laws of entropic conservation, and that means we have to worry about entropic cascade."
"Wait. You were talking about that before. You said it might not happen at all, since the bridge thing isn't exactly like the quantum mirrors, right?"
"No, Rod said it might not happen at all, but he was wrong. Or, or maybe lying. If the bridge conserves entropy, then the connection is a lot more like the quantum mirrors than we thought."
"But you said this cascade was supposed to start within a few hours. If it hasn't happened yet, doesn't that mean it probably isn't going to happen?"
"Nonono, that's the thing! The bridge is still open, you see? The two universes are still connected. Instead of having two Rodney McKays in one universe, we have two of us in two conjoined universes -- so it's still balanced, and that's why the entropic cascade hasn't started."
"Well, great. So . . . no problem, right?"
Rodney huffed impatiently. "Yeah, great, except we're trying to find a way to collapse the bridge. And once we do that, we'll have about a day or so before Rod and I die a horrible, drawn-out, excruciatingly painful, insanity-inducing death."
John frowned. "That sounds bad. Is there some way around it?"
Rodney shrugged. "Well, if one of us dies before the cascade goes critical, that would stop it."
John rolled his eyes. "Is there some way around it short of murder?"
"It's possible Rod might be persuaded to, uh . . . I mean, obviously, I have the greater right, don't I? Although, some people might disagree." Rodney nibbled on his thumbnail. "He is awfully popular. I suppose, maybe if we draw straws -- but I don't want to die, that's the whole point!"
"Rodney. Forget about the damn suicide pact. There has to be some other way. What if . . . what if you send Rod back to his own universe?"
"Oh, sure, and what if I just completely violate the laws of physics while I'm at it!"
"Come on, there's got to be some way to do it. Put that big brain of yours to work on it. And Rod's and your sister's too -- I bet they can help."
"Look, if I'm right, Rod has been actively obstructing me by concealing whatever he was doing that drew the bridge to his dimension."
"Well . . . maybe you're not right. Maybe he really doesn't know." John held up his hands. "I'm not saying you're wrong about the bridge being drawn there or whatever, but maybe Rod doesn't know why it happened. Maybe he's not doing any new experiment. Like, could it have something to do with trying to re-activate Arcturus a year ago?"
Rodney opened his mouth to deny it, then froze and held up a finger. "Wait. Well, yes. That might be . . . if the timing was such that they started their test just a few minutes after we did here, then the orbital offset might be analogous to . . . but no." He shook his head. "Well, maybe. It might be possible. Just, just barely possible."
John pushed his chin forward. "So, maybe Rod isn't lying?"
"Or maybe he is!" Rodney simmered indignantly for a moment, then his shoulders slumped. "There's no point confronting him; we have no way to disprove anything he says about his dimension."
John rubbed the back of his neck. He had a weird urge to defend Rod, but at the same time the guy creeped him out a little. He could just about understand why Rodney was so suspicious of his counterpart, although he didn't see any reason to make up wild scenarios about it. "Okay, look . . . whether or not Rod knows why the bridge connected there, he's still not going to want this cascade to happen any more than you do, right? And he probably wants to go home to his universe, too. So work with him."
"Ha! You think Rod works with people? He keeps trying to get us to do things his way, distracting me from my own ideas. He's slowing me down . . ."
John sighed and reached for another club.
-----
Despite the lowered lights around the city and the muted sense of terror among everyone who'd been here for the siege, John walked with a spring in his step toward the guest quarters.
He'd figured it out: how to bring Rodney back to normal. Well, maybe.
He'd been trying to act like everything was normal, teasing Rodney and joking around with the whole team. But either because his sister's presence was making him regress to childishness or because of whatever had made him so jumpy in the first place, Rodney wasn't dealing with it well. He couldn't seem to take the teasing in stride, much less give it back.
And now, with the ZPM depleted and Rodney feeling like it was his fault -- even though, if his speculation was right, both McKay's lives had depended on Rod getting back to his own universe -- John figured it was time to go easy on him. Maybe helping Rodney get back a little confidence about his place in Atlantis and on the team would also help him get over his weird nervousness around John.
He'd already spoken to Ronon and Teyla and suggested they ease back on the ribbing a little, just until Rodney was feeling more himself. Now he was going to see if he could do anything about Rodney's relationship to his sister. Obviously, their problems were complicated and went back a long way, but John was guessing it would help a lot just to let Jeannie know her brother actually cared, no matter how bad he was at showing it.
Fortunately, John just happened to have the evidence he needed loaded on the computer under his arm.
He found Jeannie in her room staring into space while tinkly music played over her laptop.
"Hey there," he said carefully.
"Hmm?" She sat up sharply. "Oh! Uh, Colonel, uh . . . John."
John grinned at her. "Listen, you got a minute? There was something I wanted to show you."
"Sure. Sure, uh . . ." Jeannie reached out to silence her laptop.
"What is that? It's pretty," John said before she could turn the music off. It sounded like a low-fidelity recording played through tinny computer speakers, but something in the feel of the music caught at him.
"Debussy. Jardin Sous la Pluie. Um, Garden in the Rain."
"Oh, yeah, it sounds like raindrops. Is that a really old recording or something?" Maybe it was some famous performer.
She laughed. "Not in the sense you mean. It was a home tape recorder. Mer taped himself doing a mini-recital. I was mad that he wouldn't let me do a recital too, so I stole his tape and hid it. I found it a couple of years ago, when we weren't in touch with each other. I'm not sure why I converted it to digital, really, but I've had it on my laptop for a while now."
John's gaped as the music continued, incredibly complex. "Wait, you mean that's Rodney playing? It's great."
She nodded sadly. "Yeah. He was really good. This was just a few months before he quit playing piano completely. He was twelve."
"He sounds fantastic. Why would he quit?"
"His teacher said he was technically proficient, but he had no artistry. No soul." Jeannie grimaced. "And of course, I rubbed it in every chance I got. Something I could do better than my big brother! I could be really mean to him sometimes."
"I think that's normal for brothers and sisters," said John. He listened to the music until it ended. "I'm no expert, but that sounds plenty artistic to me."
"It really is. I can hear that now. His teacher was wrong. Or lying. Maybe even jealous."
"But Rodney believed him? He just . . . gave it up?"
Jeannie fiddled with her computer, putting it to sleep. "I think he believed because somehow it connected with his anxiety about not having friends. And maybe because a part of him thought life would be easier if he didn't have feelings, either. You know he pretended to be a robot once for over a month?" She chuckled. "That was when he was younger -- around six, I think. Just starting to realize he wasn't going to fit in at school or anywhere else. So he just . . . shut it all down."
"That's, um . . ." John frowned, thinking of that small, angry, lonely Rodney.
"Too tragic for you?" Jeannie smiled. "Then look at it this way: Mer believed his teacher because he never really learned to lie, so he couldn't tell when anyone else was lying to him."
"Well, that's still true." John considered. "He was pretty convinced Rod was lying, but it sounded a little out-there to me."
"A little implausible?" Jeannie cocked her head thoughtfully. "I don't know about that one. Rod looks like my brother, and my brother doesn't lie -- except when he's lying to himself, which does happen a lot. But, so it was sort of hard for me to read Rod, because I kept seeing Mer."
"Yeah, I think that happened to me, too. Maybe if I'd met Rod first, I would have liked him better. But compared to the real thing, he was sort of a pale imitation." Maybe pale was the wrong word, since Rod was pretty damn colorful. But sort of fake, like an old film that was colorized to hide its flaws.
Jeannie's mouth quirked just the way Rodney's often did. "It was a refreshing change, and a lot of fun to compare them, but when it comes down to it I'd rather have my real brother."
"Yeah. Exactly."
She rested her fingers on the laptop. "I don't know if he'd like to have the recording or not. He's left that part of his life behind. If he realizes what a great musician he could have been, maybe that will just make him feel like he lost something."
John rubbed his eyebrow. "I don't know what to say about that. We don't have any pianos here, so he wouldn't be able to take it up again even if he wanted to. But look, speaking of recordings, there's something I wanted to show you . . ."
-----
John's door chimed, and he thought it open. "Rodney! Hey, buddy, come on in."
Their breakfast that morning had gone perfectly -- Ronon and Teyla followed up on John's lead, and they had teased each other instead of Rodney. By the end of the meal, Rodney had stopped slinking as if he expected every passing Marine to blame him for the loss of the ZPM. Now it looked like he was seeking John out in their time off, so maybe he was going to stop flinching and hiding all the time. It seemed like a good sign.
But Rodney was wearing his potential-serious-trouble face again.
"Colonel. Look, there's something I've been meaning to talk to you about -- well, for quite a while now, but it never seemed like the right time. But I, I . . . it's been bothering me, and I think, well, I shouldn't put it off any longer."
"Okay." John put on his best listening face. "Come in, make yourself comfortable." He patted the bed next to him, but Rodney stiffened and looked even more pale.
"No, that's, that's alright. I'll stand." Rodney swallowed hard.
"If you want. So what's up?"
"It's about, um, when you were in the infirmary. After the Wraith -- the enzyme withdrawal."
Oh. "Would this be before or after I punched you in the face?"
"After."
"Rodney, look . . . I really don't remember that night very well."
"Yes, I know. I --"
"I apologized for hitting you, and I apologized to Teyla for the nasty things I said to her when I was under the influence. If there's something else I've done, you need to let me know so I can try to make up for it."
"No no, it's not you, it's not anything you did, it's -- it's what I --" Rodney stiffened into an approximation of attention and looked over John's shoulder. His voice went flat, almost toneless except for moments when he nearly lost control and the emotion showed through. "After you hit me and fought the nurse, you were sedated and strapped down. You were mostly, well, out of it, but still, um, your body was -- you were . . ." Rodney swallowed hard and closed his eyes. "You were aroused. And I -- molested you."
"You what?" John's jaw dropped.
Rodney kept speaking in that horrible dead voice. "I touched . . . you, inappropriately, with my hands and, and my mouth. You were, um, in an altered mental state, and incapable of consent. It was wrong and, and inappropriate -- it wouldn't be stretching it to say criminal."
"What? No, wait, you . . ."
"I'll accept whatever punishment you think is best, Colonel. If you want me off the team, or out of Atlantis --" Rodney lost his voice at that point and had to clear his throat. "Just work it out with Elizabeth. Or if you don't want to talk to her, just tell me and I can resign. I'll go along with whatever you say. I won't try to defend myself." Rodney turned, robot-like, toward the door, then paused. "I'm . . . really very, very sorry." And then he was gone.
John was left sitting on his bed with his mouth hanging open, wondering what the hell had just happened.
Apparently, honesty could be a real bitch sometimes.
-----