Fic: Entr'Acte (Skew Lines Series)
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Title: Skew Lines 6: Entr'Acte
Author: Quasar
Rating: R
Pairing: McShep
Warnings: mention of non-con
Spoilers: Through 'The Return, Part 1'
Length: 7,000 wds
Summary: Gab gab gab, atmospheric re-entry, gab gab, kiss!
Author's Note: Missing scenes for 'The Return, Part 1' and part of my Skew Lines series. Reading the previous installments in the series is strongly recommended. With this story, the Skew Lines series comes to a close resolution pausing point. I'm not sure when or how I'll continue for the second half of third season; I might call that a different series.
Over two and a half years, John had gotten far too well acquainted with the ceilings of the rooms chosen for the Atlantis infirmary. Especially when he was getting over the bug thing; that had been the worst, long and boring and embarrassing. And itchy. But now, looking at the innocent sound-absorbing tiles above the SGC infirmary (and well aware that the patients were lucky it wasn't bare concrete), he thought he would give just about anything for another sight of that teal-and-bronze surface.
Or at least for a Gameboy. Or failing that, a friendly face.
He knew it wasn't a coincidence he'd drawn Lam instead of Beckett for his post-mission physical. Nor was it anyone else's fault that Lam was in a foul mood and not inclined to let him call Lorne to sneak in a handheld. It probably was someone else's fault that Lam's "tests" needed extra time to come back from the lab. The General wanted John cooling his heels and miserable while he waited for his scolding -- not playing Sudoku or Solitaire and chatting with his old buddies.
Speaking of old buddies, John could have sworn he heard a voice that didn't belong here. He hopped off the exam bed and ventured to the edge of his curtain, tugging the gown tighter around his butt. Lam had put his uniform somewhere out of sight.
" . . . more to do with my superior constitution than your questionable field-surgery skills," the voice was saying. John started to smile.
"Well, ye won't have that constitution for very long if you don't get some exercise and cut back on the pastries and espresso," Beckett's voice retorted.
"Yes yes, try to deny me the luxuries that are my only source of comfort now that --"
"Rodney!" John said as the two of them came around the corner. "What are you doing here?"
Rodney stiffened. "Ah, Colonel. Good to see you looking, ahh . . . actually, sort of underdressed?"
John tugged at the gown again and shifted his body half-behind the curtain. "Post-mission checkup," he said. "They're a lot more thorough here."
"With good reason," Carson said. "Have y'any idea how many times this base has been infiltrated?"
John shrugged. "Just waiting for my tests to get back." And General Landry to hand me my balls on a platter. "But what about you?"
"Oh, you know." Rodney waved a hand vaguely, discomfort showing in the angle of his mouth. "Just a little, ah . . ."
"Post-surgical check," Carson filled in. "It's been one month, and I wanted to have a look at it myself."
One month since John shot Rodney in the gut. Of course. Rodney hadn't been cleared for gate missions, so he'd thrown himself into finishing the programming for the intergalactic gate bridge. And that had brought them all here. If John hadn't shot Rodney, they wouldn't have been at the halfway station when the Tria blasted by, and they wouldn't have been kicked out of Atlantis. That's cosmic justice for you.
"The incisions are healing nicely," Carson went on with a touch of pride.
Rodney rolled his eyes. "Yes, thank you, Carson, no need for privacy among old team-mates. Even those who might be responsible for the incisions being needed in the first place."
John checked out the floor. No, too obvious. He studied a cart of weird-looking medical equipment off to one side -- and eww, what orifice was that supposed to go in? "Well, I'm glad you're doing better, Rodney," he said as lightly as he could. Then he had an idea. "Hey listen, since you're in town, maybe we could get together for dinner or something?" He looked between the two of them. "Lorne's team is going out on a mission in a couple of hours, but --"
Carson shook his head. "Sorry, Colonel, the medical group has a dinner meeting scheduled. It's the only time we can all make it."
John shifted his gaze to Rodney. "How about it, McKay? We can have some real Earth cuisine, talk about old times . . ." He had the feeling he looked like a puppy begging for walkies, but he couldn't help it. He was desperate to feel normal again, even for a little while. Desperate to hold on to the past even when it was obviously time to let go.
Maybe Rodney felt the same, since he nodded jerkily despite his uneasy frown. "All right. If you want. I have to meet with Colonel Carter first, but I should be free later on."
"Great! I'll meet you at the gate at, uh --" John was sure General Landry wouldn't extend his bawling-out into dinnertime. "Twenty hundred?" No, wait, that was dinnertime on the Atlantis clock, not Earth's. "I mean, six o'clock?"
"Fine." Rodney raised his chin as if preparing for battle. "It's a . . . plan."
Not a date, of course not. Rodney had calmed down a little bit on his weird sexual-harassment thing, but then the shooting had just made everything awkward again.
John heard Lam's heels approaching and waved a quick goodbye before he could get into more trouble. At least now he'd have something to look forward to at the end of the day.
By six, John's head was pounding and his tongue hurt from keeping quiet in the face of the General's tirade. He threw his uniform in his locker, grabbed a jacket and hurried upstairs to meet Rodney. Then it all started up again, because of course Rodney had heard (from Beckett or Carter or someone else entirely) about John's latest mission.
"Oh my god, what were you thinking?" past the checkpoint. "No, I take it back, you weren't thinking anything at all" as they headed outside. "You just saw a chance to sacrifice yourself and naturally you had to jump at it" across the parking lot. And further variations upon the theme.
John led the way to the soulless dark-green sedan he'd signed out of the motor pool, since he hadn't found the time (or the heart) to buy one of his own yet. To someone used to puddlejumpers, all cars were soulless. Even a Ferrari would feel anemic and artificial now.
Rodney hesitated at the passenger door. "I'm not sure I want to share a car with someone who had the plague."
John sighed. "Just get in and stop broadcasting our business to the entire population of Earth."
Rodney huffed and yanked at the door.
"Anyway," John said as he adjusted the vents, hoping vainly for air that tasted fresh, "Landry had the same plague himself, and so did half of SG-1, so they couldn't refuse to clear me." Although he'd had the distinct impression Landry would have liked to put him in the brig.
"And you think 'I got better' makes it all . . . like it never happened?" Rodney retorted lamely.
John gave him an eyebrow. "I didn't come back until everyone was cured."
"You risked your life, Sheppard, that's what happened!" Rodney ranted on as they headed past the gate and down the mountain road. "And for what? For nothing!"
"Geeze, Landry should've had you soften me up for him," John muttered.
"What was that?"
"I just thought I might pick up some useful intelligence," John said wearily. The same arguments, with the same effect: none at all.
"What if that prior had figured out you were from Earth?"
"I was in disguise."
"You would have burned alive, that's what would have happened!"
John stopped trying to respond as he turned onto the highway toward the pizza joint he had in mind. Rodney's tirade was as unstoppable as the General's, if for different reasons. And maybe it was the lift of cruising at high speed, or maybe it was the increasing distance from the SGC, but John found he wasn't minding Rodney's bluster so much as it went on (and on, and on . . .) It was just Rodney, after all, and bluster was what he did. And behind the critical words John could hear that the guy was genuinely concerned about him, not just about potential risk to the SGC's long-term plans. It made a difference.
John started to grin as he drove along the highway with Rodney's voice rising and falling next to him. When it sounded like Rodney might be winding down, he casually pointed out, "I sent my team back through the gate with a message before I went into the village." And that was enough to start McKay up again on the stupidity of self-sacrifice, not to mention splitting up the team. That carried them all the way to the restaurant.
John had been to this place on a previous Earth stopover and remembered it for the quality of the food -- thick, chewy crusts; a broad choice of weird, fru-fru, or traditional toppings; and soft yeasty breadsticks with parmesan on top. It wasn't until they were waiting just inside the door that he noticed the aqua and maroon decor, the odd angles of the booths, and the painted slogans on the windows that colored the light of the setting sun. Was that why he'd been thinking of coming to this place for the past week?
The hostess was heading their way, so John cut off Rodney's ongoing low-voiced complaint with "Anyway, Landry assigned me an entomologist," as if that explained everything.
Rodney opened his mouth to deny John's point, then closed it again on a baffled huff. "Oh. Well, I see why that would be a problem."
They were already seated in a corner booth by the time Rodney blurted, "But there are better ways to change team assignments than getting yourself killed!"
The hostess stared.
John took the menus from her and thrust one at Rodney. "Here. Look out for the alfredo; I think they squeeze lemon in it. Everything else should be safe."
Rodney humphed but was successfully diverted by the thought of food and the universal conspiracy to kill him with citrus.
John figured out what he wanted almost right away and sat looking out the window while Rodney hmmed at the menu and speculated about the freshness of the ingredients and the cleanliness of the kitchen. The sun, yellower than that of Atlantis, was sinking into the mountains out of the same sky John had learned to fly in. It should have felt like home, but it didn't. John had been kicked out of his home two weeks ago and sent back to this place where he grew up but never really belonged. Even the twenty-four hour day felt wrong, the sun setting faster than it should have as the planet rotated just a little faster.
John had expected to die out there, far from the place of his birth, and that suited him fine. Military command of Atlantis was by far the pinnacle of a career that had been less than stellar at times, and he thought it would be a fine place to go out -- certainly a better cause to give himself for than some dusty squabble over fossil fuels. Not that he was in any hurry to see the end, since he was also really happy there in a way he'd never been before. Between bouts of knee-quaking, gut-wrenching terror, at least.
Now it seemed Atlantis had just been another posting, an interlude instead of a culmination. And on the other side of the pinnacle came the descent. SGC wasn't a bad posting, and obviously their work was important, but Landry had made it very clear today that John had no business making his own judgment calls about what was necessary in the defense of Earth. The Pentagon brass hadn't wanted him commanding Atlantis, and they'd see he never got a position of significance in the SGC, either. He wasn't even mentioned in the rumors about who might command the next 303 coming off the line.
Their drinks came; John had gotten iced tea because he kept forgetting about the existence of beer. He was such a cheap drunk these days anyway that he probably shouldn't drive on even one glass. Rodney, muttering about lemon wedges, had ordered a Coke. The breadsticks arrived at the same time, and John dug in happily while Rodney grilled their server about the provenance of the Canadian bacon. Eventually Rodney ordered something with mango and bacon and a weird-sounding sauce, and John ordered the pulled pork barbecue on a sourdough crust.
"All right," said Rodney once the waiter had gone. The tilt of his chin spelled trouble. "What did you want to talk about?"
John blinked. "Just . . . stuff. You know. Atl-- home." He shrugged. "Work. Whatver."
Rodney's eyes narrowed, but overall he seemed more bewildered than suspicious. "You didn't want to, um --" He grabbed a breadstick desperately and dunked it in the olive oil and garlic.
"What? Rodney, come on, there's no agenda here. I just missed, you know, chatting with my team." John made a face. "I can't chat with the new guys. They're morons."
"So are my assistants," Rodney said.
"Well, you said you wanted people who wouldn't argue with you."
It took a moment, then Rodney's face relaxed into his familiar annoyed expression. "Oh, ha." He mutilated his breadstick some more. "So, uh, this wasn't about you changing your mind?"
"About what?" Nothing that was really important to John was his own decision at the moment, so he couldn't imagine that changing his mind would matter.
"About, you know . . . pressing charges." Rodney scowled down at the table.
"Against . . .?"
Rodney huffed. "Against me, you idiot! Did the fever this morning fry your brain completely?"
It took long seconds for John to realize what Rodney was talking about. "No! God, no, I thought we talked about that! Rodney --" John glanced around the restaurant and leaned across the table, lowering his voice. "You didn't molest me, all right?"
"Yes I did," Rodney said in a small, miserable voice.
"I told you, I'm all right with it!" Actually, John had sort of been hoping that when Rodney calmed down, they could continue the same activity in a more mutual fashion. But then . . .
"Well, you said that, but then you shot me." Rodney's hand dropped protectively to his side.
John felt the familiar sick chill down his back at the thought of the wound under Rodney's shirt. "I didn't do it because I was angry at you!"
"Are you sure?"
"Huh? Rodney, come on, I was hallucinating!"
"Of course, you didn't mean to do it consciously. But I thought maybe, unconsciously . . ."
John took a deep breath, reminding himself that getting angry in a public place would not help. Obviously, this issue bothered Rodney a lot. "Look. I wasn't upset or, or hurt by what happened that night in the infirmary. I swear to you, I didn't shoot you out of some subconscious desire for revenge. Wraith hallucination device, remember? I thought you were an enemy."
"You hallucinated Teyla as a friend." Rodney sounded like a five-year-old whose playmate wouldn't sit next to him at lunch.
"So? I thought Ronon was an enemy, didn't I? I shot him, too!"
"He was armed and shooting back! I wasn't!"
John groaned and ran a hand through his hair, checking around once more to make sure no one was listening in. "Okay, I can't tell you why that machine made me think one thing or another. By the time I got to you, I was --" Lost in Taliban-held territory, "only expecting to see more bad guys. And that close to the machine, even if I wanted to see you as a friend -- which I do, seriously, I do -- I'm not sure it was possible. I'm just --" John stopped to gulp some iced tea as his voice cracked. "I'm really, really glad you're okay. Going to be okay. Really. All right?"
Rodney nodded, still staring at the tabletop.
"You believe me?"
Rodney's nod this time was half-sideways.
John tried to think of something else to say. For Rodney, apparently, it all went back to that damn night in the infirmary, which John could hardly remember. "Look, buddy, I honestly don't think it was assault. I mean, I was a little out of it --"
"You were stoned out of your gourd," Rodney muttered.
"Fine, but I can still remember it, sort of. And I remember, you know, liking it. Wanting it." John leaned forward again and lowered his voice even further. "Besides, I mean . . . I got off. What guy would say no to that?"
Rodney had started to relax a little, but at this he sat back with a sour tilt to his mouth, his voice going sharp. "The point, Colonel, is that I didn't give you the chance to say no."
"Aw, come on, Rodney, that's not what I --"
"I think I know what sexual assault is, Colonel, and it has nothing to do with the body's automatic response to stimulation. It's, it's possible to be . . . affected by that sort of thing and still be entirely unwilling. Just because m-- your body responded doesn't make it all right!"
John stared, appalled. "Rodney, whoa-whoa, wait. Somebody did . . . that, to you?"
"I didn't say that!" Rodney retorted, too quickly.
John's brain clicked along. "It must have been recently, because --" Because Rodney hadn't been this jumpy six months ago, or even four months ago. "Shit. Who was it?" John growled.
"No, no, it wasn't -- wasn't what you're thinking."
John could feel a monumental fury starting to wake in his veins, making the booth and the building seem to shrink around him. Somebody had hurt Rodney, recently, right under his damn nose. "Who was it?" he demanded insistently. "If it was someone under my command, I'll -- no, to hell with that, I don't care if they were under my command. Tell me who did it, and I'll kill him."
Rodney's hands fluttered nervously. "No, it wasn't -- it's no one you can reach, now."
And that made no sense. It couldn't be Teyla or Ronon because -- well, they wouldn't, but also because Rodney hadn't been as jumpy around them as he had been around John. But if it wasn't one of his men . . . "Was it an Athosian? Or, or was it someplace we visited?" They hadn't been to lot of inhabited planets lately, what with the gate-harvesting. Rodney had been fine at the time of the Lucius incident, and he'd been shot with an arrow instead of being taken prisoner on M2Z-711 . . .
Rodney swallowed. "It was on Asuras, all right? That, that -- interrogation mind-probe thing they did. They made me think it was . . . so you can't do anything to them, and it wasn't even real anyway, so just forget about it, okay? Just --" He looked away, blinking too fast.
"Fuck," John whispered. "Those bastards." It fit; Rodney had gotten weird about halfway through that mission, startling whenever John came up behind him. "Goddammit!" And that was when everything changed. Rodney had gone from -- well, not receptive, but at least not completely freaked out, when John came on to him during the love potion thing, to flinching every time John got near.
"It was, um, that one -- you know, looked sort of like a First Nations woman?"
Yes, it was a woman who'd interrogated Rodney, John remembered that now -- or at least, a robot that looked like a woman. But maybe the prior really had done something permanent to John's brain, because it kept turning, making connections he ordinarily would have missed. Rodney hadn't said as much, but John had gotten the impression his attacker was male.
Male, and someone Rodney already knew.
"I think she got a kick out of getting me, you know, all hot and bothered . . ."
The Asurans could warp those mindscapes any way they wanted, and you would think it was all real until the end.
Rodney had been jumpy around John ever since Asuras.
Rodney flinched when John touched him.
In that Asuran cell, Rodney had looked at John as if he expected him to sprout another head -- or turn into an Asuran.
"She looked like me, didn't she?"
Rodney's mouth drooped miserably.
"She used my face and body to --" To hurt Rodney. To force him. To excite his body against his conscious will.
The table was shaking.
"It doesn't matter, John. It wasn't even real."
And there was the proof. Because Rodney never called him John.
"Come on, John. Let me take care of you."
The blurred sense-memory from the infirmary came back so sharply John broke into a sweat. He lurched from the booth, nearly knocking down the waiter with their pizzas.
The bathroom was too cramped, like a cage. He stumbled out the front door and vomited into a little bush growing out of a bed of lava rocks.
He crouched, waiting for another spasm of rage or nausea. An approaching couple stared and murmured and got back in their car. John chuckled humorlessly at that.
He paced blindly up and down the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, not thinking so much as feeling. It wasn't enough, and he broke into a run, circling the parking lot aimlessly.
He wanted to hurt someone. He wanted to take back what they'd stolen from Rodney, from him and Rodney. It wasn't enough that he'd blown up their stupid flying city, and presumably the Asuran that hurt Rodney along with it. It wouldn't be enough if he blew up their entire planet. He wanted to use his fists on them, wanted to see blood.
And it wasn't going to happen. They were a galaxy away, and they didn't care about him or Rodney or what might have been between them. They didn't even bleed.
And Rodney -- God, Rodney! -- he thought giving a blowjob to a guy too high to remember it properly counted as some kind of revenge. And he felt guilty about it!
John lashed out, and came to himself at the sound of shattering glass. At least it was his own -- well, the SGC's -- car he'd broken the window out of. But now the alarm was whooping.
He went for his keys and grunted when he found he couldn't uncurl his hand enough to reach into his pocket.
"What have you done now, you neanderthal? Did you break it?" Rodney was there suddenly, yelling over the earsplitting alarm, grabbing John's hand and brushing at the bloody knuckles.
"Forget that!" John bellowed. "Get my keys." He pointed at his right front pocket.
It wasn't easy. "Do you have to wear such tight pants all the time? You realize people are going to think I'm molest--" Rodney bit his words off. With another determined squirm he reached the keys, pulled them free, silenced the alarm.
In the sudden silence, John became more conscious of the tension in his shoulders.
"Did that make you feel better, Mr. Caveman?"
"That's Colonel Caveman to you," John retorted weakly, "and yes, it did. For about two seconds."
Rodney snorted. "Your hand is going to be feeling it a lot longer than that. Let me see. Did you get any glass in those cuts?"
John flexed his fingers with difficulty. "No, there's no glass in them. No, it's not broken. No, I don't need stitches."
"Well, you should at least put some ice on it. I'll drive you back to the mountain -- no, you're not driving, not like that!" Rodney swept his sleeve at the shattered beads of glass left in the frame. "Well, at least it's was the rear window, so I won't have to worry about glass in my backside. Here, you can hold the pizzas; I had them boxed for us."
"I hope you left a big tip," John muttered, thinking of the poor bush and the patrons he'd scared away. He wondered if it would rain before the landscapers' next visit.
They returned to the SGC. John wasn't sure whether Rodney was staying in guest quarters there -- why would he, when his expense account would cover a luxury hotel? -- or just planning to work all evening, but he disappeared into the bowels of the mountain while John was explaining the broken window to the airman attending the lot. He ended up in his bare, soulless office, alternating between icing his hand and filling out forms reporting the damage and requesting another car. He nibbled on the cold mango-bacon pizza, since the boxes had gotten switched somehow. It wasn't bad, but he would have preferred the barbecue.
Beckett showed up after a little while, tapping on the door and then barging straight in. "Right, let's see it, then."
John extended his hand with a sigh. "It's fine, Doc. Just a few little scrapes, that's all."
"Aye? Straighten your fingers for me. Good -- now make a fist." Carson fussed over the swollen knuckles.
"I thought you were in a meeting."
"It let out. Rodney nabbled me and said you'd be needing an office visit."
"Oh he did, did he?"
"Mmm. Disagreement with a car window, was it?"
John grumbled and pulled the pizza box over the car-damage form.
"Well, we're all of us feeling a bit out of place these days. But I think Rodney has something in mind to cheer you up."
John blinked. He hadn't been expecting to see Rodney again, after that stupid display at the restaurant. Anyone would think it was all about John, instead of what the fucking Asurans had done to Rodney.
Just thinking about it made his fists clench again, and Beckett tutted at him.
"I'll tell Rodney your hand's fine, then, shall I? Keep the ice on it a bit longer, while he goes ahead with his arrangements."
"What arrange--"
But Carson was already on his way out the door.
Naturally, John was pretty curious by the time Rodney showed up half an hour later. "McKay, what's going on?"
But Rodney just gave a pleased "Ha!" and attacked the pizza on the desk. The box he was carrying was set aside, and John opened it to find two-thirds of his barbecue pizza missing.
"I wav humgwy," Rodney said around a mouthful of mango-bacon pizza.
John glared and pulled his pizza out of Rodney's reach. Then he craned over the desk at the gym back Rodney had brought in with him. "What's in the bag?"
Rodney swallowed his mouthful. "This place is a real dump, isn't it?" he said, looking around at John's office.
"Gee, thanks, Rodney." John concealed his relief that they could interact normally, despite the tension that still ran underneath.
"You should at least get in some toys. Something to keep your hands busy while you sit around avoiding paperwork or whatever it is you do all day."
"I don't have any toys here," John said blankly. 'Toys' were what they had called the various unidentified Ancient devices (except for Ford, who called them UADs) that somehow ended up cluttering John's workspace in Atlantis. But they hadn't brought any Ancient tech back through the gate with them, aside from what had been sent for study over the past couple of years.
Rodney rolled his eyes. "Hello, Earth? There are these places called malls, where you go and give people a plastic rectangle and they give you toys. No haggling or friendship rituals or bartering the services of your teammates." He attacked another slice of pizza. "Thif iv difgufting, you know? You fyould have heated it up."
John defiantly grabbed a piece of barbecue pizza.
"All right," said Rodney once his slice was gone. "Let's go, chop chop, we don't have all night."
"Go where?" John asked. "What do you have planned? And what's in the bag?"
"It's a surprise. Come on." Rodney grabbed the last slice of the barbecue pizza --
"Hey!"
-- and put it in the box with the manga-bacon pizza, then handed the box to John. The gym bag he carried himself.
"Rodney, come on, you gotta tell me where we're going, at least," John wheedled as he followed the scientist through soulless concrete hallways.
"We're going for a drive." Rodney stabbed the elevator button for the next checkpoint leading up to ground level.
"A drive where? And what the hell is in that bag?" He could tell it wasn't empty from the way Rodney carried it, but it didn't seem too heavy, either.
"I told you, it's a surprise."
"Are we going to a mall?" John kept wheedling and guessing all the way up to the surface and out to Rodney's rental car. He didn't have any luck despite Rodney's poker-loser's face. John's guesses kept getting more absurd. "Are we going to Disneyland?"
"Would you just stop!" Rodney finally exploded as they pulled out onto the road. "Look, um, about before . . ."
John tensed. "Ooh, I know!" He interrupted desperately. "We're going to Atlantis! But, you know, the gate is back there."
"I don't think you should be so, um, upset on my behalf."
John's hand ached as he fisted it. "Could we not talk about this anymore?"
"Fine!" Rodney huffed. "I just thought . . . well, it's stupid for you to break your hand over something that happened -- actually, it didn't really happen! -- months ago."
"I didn't break it," said John sullenly. "And it wasn't about you." Okay, that sounded really selfish, so even though he didn't want to talk, he amended, "I mean, it wasn't just about you."
Rodney sighed. "We're all upset about losing Atlantis, but --"
"God, you and Carson!" John burst out. "No, this is not some psychological displacement issue. It is about the Asurans, and what they -- shit." It looked like he wasn't going to get out of talking about it. "I guess I, um. Part of me -- well. Okay, you know, after the, um, the thing with the love potion?"
Rodney groaned. "Don't remind me."
John whapped Rodney's thigh. "You're the one that wanted to talk."
"Hey! No hitting the driver!"
John cleared his throat and stared out at the too-bright headlights streaming past. "It's just, well, you obviously didn't, um, feel the same way I did, but you weren't completely freaked out by it. So I guess, you know. I let myself hope, a little. Then, with the infirmary . . . okay, that time you really did freak out, but once I knew it wasn't a dream I figured I just had to give you some time to calm down and then, maybe we could, sort of -- take another stab at it. Or something."
"Oh," said Rodney softly.
"Yeah. But it doesn't sound like that's going to happen, now that I know why you freaked out."
"You mean, because I was passing on abuse that had been done to me?"
"No, dammit! I mean . . . I told you I didn't think about it that way! You weren't passing anything on, and it wasn't abuse. Not what you did to me, anyway. But if that's where your mind was, then, well . . . I guess I missed my chance, that's all. That's why I was so pissed off." And boy, didn't it sound like a stupid tantrum when he put it that way?
"Oh," Rodney repeated. They passed a few miles in silence. "It's not that I wasn't, um. I was interested, you know? I think that's probably why that replicator chose you for her, um, scenario."
"Shit, Rodney." John was longing for something to punch again, but just the thought made his knuckles hurt. "That's not helping me feel any less angry, you know."
"Oh. Well, all right -- maybe this will." Rodney took the next turn-off.
John squinted at the signs. "Wait, this is --"
"Schriever Air Force Base, yes. Give me your ID." Rodney rolled down the window and told the gate guard, "I'm Dr. McKay, and this is Colonel Sheppard. We called ahead -- they should be ready for us?"
"Yes, sir," said the guard after studying their faces. He gave Rodney some directions that John couldn't quite hear.
"I haven't been to this base before," said John. "What's here?"
"Well, it's smaller than Peterson, so it's easier to keep a secret here. The SGC wanted to make sure they had certain, ah, resources available close to the mountain, in case of need." Rodney pulled around several buildings and then went right up to a hangar.
"Resources like what?" John could feel the old familiar song stirring in his blood, just from being on an airfield again.
Rodney parked and reached into the back seat for the gym bag he'd brought. "Here. Better get suited up." Then he got out and spoke to the airman standing in front of the door.
John opened the bag and found a flight suit inside with his own name and rank already affixed. Underneath that was a second suit, no insignia. "Rodney, what the hell did you pull?" He scrambled out of the car and started pulling on the suit.
Rodney was strolling back his way with a smug grin on his face as the hangar door rolled open, revealing an F-302 waiting inside.
"You didn't! Rodney, how --?"
Rodney grabbed the second flight suit. "I am the head of research at Area 51, and that includes the 302 project. And you are a 302 pilot, in need of a certain number of hours per year to keep up your certification."
"Colonel Sheppard, sir." The sergeant from the ground crew saluted smartly. "She's all ready to go, sir. You're, ah, sure you won't be needing a copilot?" He gave Rodney a doubtful look.
"We'll be fine. Thanks, Sergeant." John couldn't take his eyes off the plane. With their aerodynamic lines, the 302s really were prettier than the stumpy puddlejumpers, although not -- quite -- as much fun to fly.
Rodney reached into the gym bag for -- oh, no -- a tablet computer. And then it was just like old times with McKay complaining and fidgeting as he settled in the second seat, running down every item of the checklist with John.
"All right," said Rodney as John lined them up with the runway. "Start by taking her up to 50,000 feet, head out over the Pacific, and we'll do our tests there."
"Tests?" John asked, in between chatter with the tower.
"Yes yes, you know, our justification for this expensive jaunt?"
"Did you file a flight plan, Rodney?"
"As a matter of fact, I did, Colonel Doubting Thomas. It should be in the computer."
And there it was. "Cool." Another time, John might have been frustrated with all the extra work involved in taking a little jaunt above planet Earth, but not today. Today he was just glad to feel a control yoke in his hands again. He buckled his mask on and waited for the go for takeoff.
Rodney's voice changed as he fastened his own mask. "You'll want to turn on the radar screen as soon as we're high enough, so the entire world doesn't know exactly what we're up to with this top secret spacegoing fighter jet."
"Teach your grandmother to such eggs, McKay." Getting clearance from the tower, John throttled up and reveled in the squawk of dismay from the second seat. Rodney made even louder noises about the little maneuvers John tried out on their way west. At least he didn't grab at the yoke, although he did threaten to turn the inertial dampeners up to maximum. John settled down after that.
"So what tests did you have in mind, Rodney?" John asked as they broke into brilliant sunlight far above the ocean.
"Some anomalies have been reported when pilots were forced to resort to atmospheric braking. Not the most elegant form of re-entry, of course --"
"Of course," John murmured.
"-- But we want to keep it as a backup possibility. So we need to go up to, oh, a hundred fifty miles should do it, while I program in some re-entry profiles."
They dipped in and out of the atmosphere for the next few hours, pulling accelerations that wouldn't have been possible without the alien technology in the jet's engines. John got his first real taste of atmospheric entry without shields or inertial dampeners, and he could see why it posed a problem for conventional technology.
"Are you sure this is safe?" he yelled into the radio as they meteored through the stratosphere, shaking madly as a fireball surrounded the entire ship and messed up most of the instruments.
"P-p-p-ositive," Rodney returned. "I'm keeping an eye on the thermal readouts. The left wing is a little hot, could you adjust attitude?"
After their fourth trip up and back down, John noted, "Fuel's getting low. Just enough to get us back to Colorado if we take it easy." He should have noticed earlier, but fortunately they weren't too far from home.
Rodney's sigh of relief was clear over the radio. "Fine. Taking it easy sounds . . . like a really good idea. Just a regular old Air Force jet returning from maneuvers."
It was near midnight when they landed. Rodney groaned extravagantly as John helped him out of the cockpit, and wobbled down the ladder to stand hunched at the bottom.
"You okay?" John asked, pulling the tablet computer out of Rodney's trembling hands. "You didn't pull a stitch or something, did you?"
"Nonono, stitches all gone. Few more adhesions gone too, I think," Rodney gasped, straightening slowly. "Just, you know . . . getting the hang of those adrenaline overloads again. It's been a while."
"Yeah, I know what you mean." John felt like he was walking on air. He wouldn't be getting to sleep for a while, but when he did he was going to sleep soundly.
"Good . . . good test." Rodney patted John's back. "Lots of data to analyze."
John beamed. "Well, any time you need more data, just give me a call."
And if the flight wasn't thrill enough, Rodney had just touched him, voluntarily! He looked around quickly. They were back by the car, on the half-shadowed tarmac, with the hangar lights occulted as the door rolled closed again. He caught Rodney by the shoulders and gave him a heartfelt hug.
"Thanks, buddy," he whispered.
In the dim orange glow, he could see Rodney's eyes wide with astonishment -- but not, he thought, with fear. They stared at each other for a long moment, then turned away as it started to get too intense. John unzipped his flight suit and rummaged in the car for the bag to put it in.
Rodney demanded gruffly, "Where's that pizza box? I need to get my blood sugar up again."
Rodney dropped John off at his apartment, and he got an airman to take him in the next morning. Rodney had already left town by then, but John found a dartboard and two model plane kits waiting in his office. When Rodney phoned a few hours later, John knew their friendship was going to be okay, in spite of everything that had happened.
He wished he could say as much for his career, washed up on what suddenly felt like a backwater planet.
A month later, Rodney came to town again for his last wound-check, and pretty soon they were on a wild adventure back to Pegasus. John was staring up at the sky just beyond the edge of the Athosian settlement as they waited for Teyla and Ronon to get geared up, when Rodney's heavy tread came through the grass toward him.
"You realize," Rodney said tightly, "there won't be anyway to know if my backdoor to the shield still works or not. We may have come all this way just to get vaporized when we exit the wormhole."
"Bet you it does work," John said, bumping his shoulder against Rodney's.
"Yes, because what will you pay up with if you're wrong?" Rodney snapped. "Look, um . . . maybe it's a good thing that we're probably about to die, either in the wormhole or battling the replicators, or -- whatever."
John squinted. "Did you say a good thing?"
"Right. Because otherwise I'd have to worry about how I probably don't have the guts to follow through on this." Rodney grasped John firmly by the shoulders and kissed him. Short and firm, with just a hint of tongue.
John stared.
"I wish I did. Have the guts, that is." Rodney stepped back, his head bent down, his face in shadow.
John blinked. "Wait, Rodney --"
"Hey Sheppard," Ronon called from the direction of the jumper. "You ready?"
Rodney's head came up, and his shoulders squared. "Let's go."
[End]
Title: Skew Lines 6: Entr'Acte
Author: Quasar
Rating: R
Pairing: McShep
Warnings: mention of non-con
Spoilers: Through 'The Return, Part 1'
Length: 7,000 wds
Summary: Gab gab gab, atmospheric re-entry, gab gab, kiss!
Author's Note: Missing scenes for 'The Return, Part 1' and part of my Skew Lines series. Reading the previous installments in the series is strongly recommended. With this story, the Skew Lines series comes to a close resolution pausing point. I'm not sure when or how I'll continue for the second half of third season; I might call that a different series.
Over two and a half years, John had gotten far too well acquainted with the ceilings of the rooms chosen for the Atlantis infirmary. Especially when he was getting over the bug thing; that had been the worst, long and boring and embarrassing. And itchy. But now, looking at the innocent sound-absorbing tiles above the SGC infirmary (and well aware that the patients were lucky it wasn't bare concrete), he thought he would give just about anything for another sight of that teal-and-bronze surface.
Or at least for a Gameboy. Or failing that, a friendly face.
He knew it wasn't a coincidence he'd drawn Lam instead of Beckett for his post-mission physical. Nor was it anyone else's fault that Lam was in a foul mood and not inclined to let him call Lorne to sneak in a handheld. It probably was someone else's fault that Lam's "tests" needed extra time to come back from the lab. The General wanted John cooling his heels and miserable while he waited for his scolding -- not playing Sudoku or Solitaire and chatting with his old buddies.
Speaking of old buddies, John could have sworn he heard a voice that didn't belong here. He hopped off the exam bed and ventured to the edge of his curtain, tugging the gown tighter around his butt. Lam had put his uniform somewhere out of sight.
" . . . more to do with my superior constitution than your questionable field-surgery skills," the voice was saying. John started to smile.
"Well, ye won't have that constitution for very long if you don't get some exercise and cut back on the pastries and espresso," Beckett's voice retorted.
"Yes yes, try to deny me the luxuries that are my only source of comfort now that --"
"Rodney!" John said as the two of them came around the corner. "What are you doing here?"
Rodney stiffened. "Ah, Colonel. Good to see you looking, ahh . . . actually, sort of underdressed?"
John tugged at the gown again and shifted his body half-behind the curtain. "Post-mission checkup," he said. "They're a lot more thorough here."
"With good reason," Carson said. "Have y'any idea how many times this base has been infiltrated?"
John shrugged. "Just waiting for my tests to get back." And General Landry to hand me my balls on a platter. "But what about you?"
"Oh, you know." Rodney waved a hand vaguely, discomfort showing in the angle of his mouth. "Just a little, ah . . ."
"Post-surgical check," Carson filled in. "It's been one month, and I wanted to have a look at it myself."
One month since John shot Rodney in the gut. Of course. Rodney hadn't been cleared for gate missions, so he'd thrown himself into finishing the programming for the intergalactic gate bridge. And that had brought them all here. If John hadn't shot Rodney, they wouldn't have been at the halfway station when the Tria blasted by, and they wouldn't have been kicked out of Atlantis. That's cosmic justice for you.
"The incisions are healing nicely," Carson went on with a touch of pride.
Rodney rolled his eyes. "Yes, thank you, Carson, no need for privacy among old team-mates. Even those who might be responsible for the incisions being needed in the first place."
John checked out the floor. No, too obvious. He studied a cart of weird-looking medical equipment off to one side -- and eww, what orifice was that supposed to go in? "Well, I'm glad you're doing better, Rodney," he said as lightly as he could. Then he had an idea. "Hey listen, since you're in town, maybe we could get together for dinner or something?" He looked between the two of them. "Lorne's team is going out on a mission in a couple of hours, but --"
Carson shook his head. "Sorry, Colonel, the medical group has a dinner meeting scheduled. It's the only time we can all make it."
John shifted his gaze to Rodney. "How about it, McKay? We can have some real Earth cuisine, talk about old times . . ." He had the feeling he looked like a puppy begging for walkies, but he couldn't help it. He was desperate to feel normal again, even for a little while. Desperate to hold on to the past even when it was obviously time to let go.
Maybe Rodney felt the same, since he nodded jerkily despite his uneasy frown. "All right. If you want. I have to meet with Colonel Carter first, but I should be free later on."
"Great! I'll meet you at the gate at, uh --" John was sure General Landry wouldn't extend his bawling-out into dinnertime. "Twenty hundred?" No, wait, that was dinnertime on the Atlantis clock, not Earth's. "I mean, six o'clock?"
"Fine." Rodney raised his chin as if preparing for battle. "It's a . . . plan."
Not a date, of course not. Rodney had calmed down a little bit on his weird sexual-harassment thing, but then the shooting had just made everything awkward again.
John heard Lam's heels approaching and waved a quick goodbye before he could get into more trouble. At least now he'd have something to look forward to at the end of the day.
By six, John's head was pounding and his tongue hurt from keeping quiet in the face of the General's tirade. He threw his uniform in his locker, grabbed a jacket and hurried upstairs to meet Rodney. Then it all started up again, because of course Rodney had heard (from Beckett or Carter or someone else entirely) about John's latest mission.
"Oh my god, what were you thinking?" past the checkpoint. "No, I take it back, you weren't thinking anything at all" as they headed outside. "You just saw a chance to sacrifice yourself and naturally you had to jump at it" across the parking lot. And further variations upon the theme.
John led the way to the soulless dark-green sedan he'd signed out of the motor pool, since he hadn't found the time (or the heart) to buy one of his own yet. To someone used to puddlejumpers, all cars were soulless. Even a Ferrari would feel anemic and artificial now.
Rodney hesitated at the passenger door. "I'm not sure I want to share a car with someone who had the plague."
John sighed. "Just get in and stop broadcasting our business to the entire population of Earth."
Rodney huffed and yanked at the door.
"Anyway," John said as he adjusted the vents, hoping vainly for air that tasted fresh, "Landry had the same plague himself, and so did half of SG-1, so they couldn't refuse to clear me." Although he'd had the distinct impression Landry would have liked to put him in the brig.
"And you think 'I got better' makes it all . . . like it never happened?" Rodney retorted lamely.
John gave him an eyebrow. "I didn't come back until everyone was cured."
"You risked your life, Sheppard, that's what happened!" Rodney ranted on as they headed past the gate and down the mountain road. "And for what? For nothing!"
"Geeze, Landry should've had you soften me up for him," John muttered.
"What was that?"
"I just thought I might pick up some useful intelligence," John said wearily. The same arguments, with the same effect: none at all.
"What if that prior had figured out you were from Earth?"
"I was in disguise."
"You would have burned alive, that's what would have happened!"
John stopped trying to respond as he turned onto the highway toward the pizza joint he had in mind. Rodney's tirade was as unstoppable as the General's, if for different reasons. And maybe it was the lift of cruising at high speed, or maybe it was the increasing distance from the SGC, but John found he wasn't minding Rodney's bluster so much as it went on (and on, and on . . .) It was just Rodney, after all, and bluster was what he did. And behind the critical words John could hear that the guy was genuinely concerned about him, not just about potential risk to the SGC's long-term plans. It made a difference.
John started to grin as he drove along the highway with Rodney's voice rising and falling next to him. When it sounded like Rodney might be winding down, he casually pointed out, "I sent my team back through the gate with a message before I went into the village." And that was enough to start McKay up again on the stupidity of self-sacrifice, not to mention splitting up the team. That carried them all the way to the restaurant.
John had been to this place on a previous Earth stopover and remembered it for the quality of the food -- thick, chewy crusts; a broad choice of weird, fru-fru, or traditional toppings; and soft yeasty breadsticks with parmesan on top. It wasn't until they were waiting just inside the door that he noticed the aqua and maroon decor, the odd angles of the booths, and the painted slogans on the windows that colored the light of the setting sun. Was that why he'd been thinking of coming to this place for the past week?
The hostess was heading their way, so John cut off Rodney's ongoing low-voiced complaint with "Anyway, Landry assigned me an entomologist," as if that explained everything.
Rodney opened his mouth to deny John's point, then closed it again on a baffled huff. "Oh. Well, I see why that would be a problem."
They were already seated in a corner booth by the time Rodney blurted, "But there are better ways to change team assignments than getting yourself killed!"
The hostess stared.
John took the menus from her and thrust one at Rodney. "Here. Look out for the alfredo; I think they squeeze lemon in it. Everything else should be safe."
Rodney humphed but was successfully diverted by the thought of food and the universal conspiracy to kill him with citrus.
John figured out what he wanted almost right away and sat looking out the window while Rodney hmmed at the menu and speculated about the freshness of the ingredients and the cleanliness of the kitchen. The sun, yellower than that of Atlantis, was sinking into the mountains out of the same sky John had learned to fly in. It should have felt like home, but it didn't. John had been kicked out of his home two weeks ago and sent back to this place where he grew up but never really belonged. Even the twenty-four hour day felt wrong, the sun setting faster than it should have as the planet rotated just a little faster.
John had expected to die out there, far from the place of his birth, and that suited him fine. Military command of Atlantis was by far the pinnacle of a career that had been less than stellar at times, and he thought it would be a fine place to go out -- certainly a better cause to give himself for than some dusty squabble over fossil fuels. Not that he was in any hurry to see the end, since he was also really happy there in a way he'd never been before. Between bouts of knee-quaking, gut-wrenching terror, at least.
Now it seemed Atlantis had just been another posting, an interlude instead of a culmination. And on the other side of the pinnacle came the descent. SGC wasn't a bad posting, and obviously their work was important, but Landry had made it very clear today that John had no business making his own judgment calls about what was necessary in the defense of Earth. The Pentagon brass hadn't wanted him commanding Atlantis, and they'd see he never got a position of significance in the SGC, either. He wasn't even mentioned in the rumors about who might command the next 303 coming off the line.
Their drinks came; John had gotten iced tea because he kept forgetting about the existence of beer. He was such a cheap drunk these days anyway that he probably shouldn't drive on even one glass. Rodney, muttering about lemon wedges, had ordered a Coke. The breadsticks arrived at the same time, and John dug in happily while Rodney grilled their server about the provenance of the Canadian bacon. Eventually Rodney ordered something with mango and bacon and a weird-sounding sauce, and John ordered the pulled pork barbecue on a sourdough crust.
"All right," said Rodney once the waiter had gone. The tilt of his chin spelled trouble. "What did you want to talk about?"
John blinked. "Just . . . stuff. You know. Atl-- home." He shrugged. "Work. Whatver."
Rodney's eyes narrowed, but overall he seemed more bewildered than suspicious. "You didn't want to, um --" He grabbed a breadstick desperately and dunked it in the olive oil and garlic.
"What? Rodney, come on, there's no agenda here. I just missed, you know, chatting with my team." John made a face. "I can't chat with the new guys. They're morons."
"So are my assistants," Rodney said.
"Well, you said you wanted people who wouldn't argue with you."
It took a moment, then Rodney's face relaxed into his familiar annoyed expression. "Oh, ha." He mutilated his breadstick some more. "So, uh, this wasn't about you changing your mind?"
"About what?" Nothing that was really important to John was his own decision at the moment, so he couldn't imagine that changing his mind would matter.
"About, you know . . . pressing charges." Rodney scowled down at the table.
"Against . . .?"
Rodney huffed. "Against me, you idiot! Did the fever this morning fry your brain completely?"
It took long seconds for John to realize what Rodney was talking about. "No! God, no, I thought we talked about that! Rodney --" John glanced around the restaurant and leaned across the table, lowering his voice. "You didn't molest me, all right?"
"Yes I did," Rodney said in a small, miserable voice.
"I told you, I'm all right with it!" Actually, John had sort of been hoping that when Rodney calmed down, they could continue the same activity in a more mutual fashion. But then . . .
"Well, you said that, but then you shot me." Rodney's hand dropped protectively to his side.
John felt the familiar sick chill down his back at the thought of the wound under Rodney's shirt. "I didn't do it because I was angry at you!"
"Are you sure?"
"Huh? Rodney, come on, I was hallucinating!"
"Of course, you didn't mean to do it consciously. But I thought maybe, unconsciously . . ."
John took a deep breath, reminding himself that getting angry in a public place would not help. Obviously, this issue bothered Rodney a lot. "Look. I wasn't upset or, or hurt by what happened that night in the infirmary. I swear to you, I didn't shoot you out of some subconscious desire for revenge. Wraith hallucination device, remember? I thought you were an enemy."
"You hallucinated Teyla as a friend." Rodney sounded like a five-year-old whose playmate wouldn't sit next to him at lunch.
"So? I thought Ronon was an enemy, didn't I? I shot him, too!"
"He was armed and shooting back! I wasn't!"
John groaned and ran a hand through his hair, checking around once more to make sure no one was listening in. "Okay, I can't tell you why that machine made me think one thing or another. By the time I got to you, I was --" Lost in Taliban-held territory, "only expecting to see more bad guys. And that close to the machine, even if I wanted to see you as a friend -- which I do, seriously, I do -- I'm not sure it was possible. I'm just --" John stopped to gulp some iced tea as his voice cracked. "I'm really, really glad you're okay. Going to be okay. Really. All right?"
Rodney nodded, still staring at the tabletop.
"You believe me?"
Rodney's nod this time was half-sideways.
John tried to think of something else to say. For Rodney, apparently, it all went back to that damn night in the infirmary, which John could hardly remember. "Look, buddy, I honestly don't think it was assault. I mean, I was a little out of it --"
"You were stoned out of your gourd," Rodney muttered.
"Fine, but I can still remember it, sort of. And I remember, you know, liking it. Wanting it." John leaned forward again and lowered his voice even further. "Besides, I mean . . . I got off. What guy would say no to that?"
Rodney had started to relax a little, but at this he sat back with a sour tilt to his mouth, his voice going sharp. "The point, Colonel, is that I didn't give you the chance to say no."
"Aw, come on, Rodney, that's not what I --"
"I think I know what sexual assault is, Colonel, and it has nothing to do with the body's automatic response to stimulation. It's, it's possible to be . . . affected by that sort of thing and still be entirely unwilling. Just because m-- your body responded doesn't make it all right!"
John stared, appalled. "Rodney, whoa-whoa, wait. Somebody did . . . that, to you?"
"I didn't say that!" Rodney retorted, too quickly.
John's brain clicked along. "It must have been recently, because --" Because Rodney hadn't been this jumpy six months ago, or even four months ago. "Shit. Who was it?" John growled.
"No, no, it wasn't -- wasn't what you're thinking."
John could feel a monumental fury starting to wake in his veins, making the booth and the building seem to shrink around him. Somebody had hurt Rodney, recently, right under his damn nose. "Who was it?" he demanded insistently. "If it was someone under my command, I'll -- no, to hell with that, I don't care if they were under my command. Tell me who did it, and I'll kill him."
Rodney's hands fluttered nervously. "No, it wasn't -- it's no one you can reach, now."
And that made no sense. It couldn't be Teyla or Ronon because -- well, they wouldn't, but also because Rodney hadn't been as jumpy around them as he had been around John. But if it wasn't one of his men . . . "Was it an Athosian? Or, or was it someplace we visited?" They hadn't been to lot of inhabited planets lately, what with the gate-harvesting. Rodney had been fine at the time of the Lucius incident, and he'd been shot with an arrow instead of being taken prisoner on M2Z-711 . . .
Rodney swallowed. "It was on Asuras, all right? That, that -- interrogation mind-probe thing they did. They made me think it was . . . so you can't do anything to them, and it wasn't even real anyway, so just forget about it, okay? Just --" He looked away, blinking too fast.
"Fuck," John whispered. "Those bastards." It fit; Rodney had gotten weird about halfway through that mission, startling whenever John came up behind him. "Goddammit!" And that was when everything changed. Rodney had gone from -- well, not receptive, but at least not completely freaked out, when John came on to him during the love potion thing, to flinching every time John got near.
"It was, um, that one -- you know, looked sort of like a First Nations woman?"
Yes, it was a woman who'd interrogated Rodney, John remembered that now -- or at least, a robot that looked like a woman. But maybe the prior really had done something permanent to John's brain, because it kept turning, making connections he ordinarily would have missed. Rodney hadn't said as much, but John had gotten the impression his attacker was male.
Male, and someone Rodney already knew.
"I think she got a kick out of getting me, you know, all hot and bothered . . ."
The Asurans could warp those mindscapes any way they wanted, and you would think it was all real until the end.
Rodney had been jumpy around John ever since Asuras.
Rodney flinched when John touched him.
In that Asuran cell, Rodney had looked at John as if he expected him to sprout another head -- or turn into an Asuran.
"She looked like me, didn't she?"
Rodney's mouth drooped miserably.
"She used my face and body to --" To hurt Rodney. To force him. To excite his body against his conscious will.
The table was shaking.
"It doesn't matter, John. It wasn't even real."
And there was the proof. Because Rodney never called him John.
"Come on, John. Let me take care of you."
The blurred sense-memory from the infirmary came back so sharply John broke into a sweat. He lurched from the booth, nearly knocking down the waiter with their pizzas.
The bathroom was too cramped, like a cage. He stumbled out the front door and vomited into a little bush growing out of a bed of lava rocks.
He crouched, waiting for another spasm of rage or nausea. An approaching couple stared and murmured and got back in their car. John chuckled humorlessly at that.
He paced blindly up and down the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, not thinking so much as feeling. It wasn't enough, and he broke into a run, circling the parking lot aimlessly.
He wanted to hurt someone. He wanted to take back what they'd stolen from Rodney, from him and Rodney. It wasn't enough that he'd blown up their stupid flying city, and presumably the Asuran that hurt Rodney along with it. It wouldn't be enough if he blew up their entire planet. He wanted to use his fists on them, wanted to see blood.
And it wasn't going to happen. They were a galaxy away, and they didn't care about him or Rodney or what might have been between them. They didn't even bleed.
And Rodney -- God, Rodney! -- he thought giving a blowjob to a guy too high to remember it properly counted as some kind of revenge. And he felt guilty about it!
John lashed out, and came to himself at the sound of shattering glass. At least it was his own -- well, the SGC's -- car he'd broken the window out of. But now the alarm was whooping.
He went for his keys and grunted when he found he couldn't uncurl his hand enough to reach into his pocket.
"What have you done now, you neanderthal? Did you break it?" Rodney was there suddenly, yelling over the earsplitting alarm, grabbing John's hand and brushing at the bloody knuckles.
"Forget that!" John bellowed. "Get my keys." He pointed at his right front pocket.
It wasn't easy. "Do you have to wear such tight pants all the time? You realize people are going to think I'm molest--" Rodney bit his words off. With another determined squirm he reached the keys, pulled them free, silenced the alarm.
In the sudden silence, John became more conscious of the tension in his shoulders.
"Did that make you feel better, Mr. Caveman?"
"That's Colonel Caveman to you," John retorted weakly, "and yes, it did. For about two seconds."
Rodney snorted. "Your hand is going to be feeling it a lot longer than that. Let me see. Did you get any glass in those cuts?"
John flexed his fingers with difficulty. "No, there's no glass in them. No, it's not broken. No, I don't need stitches."
"Well, you should at least put some ice on it. I'll drive you back to the mountain -- no, you're not driving, not like that!" Rodney swept his sleeve at the shattered beads of glass left in the frame. "Well, at least it's was the rear window, so I won't have to worry about glass in my backside. Here, you can hold the pizzas; I had them boxed for us."
"I hope you left a big tip," John muttered, thinking of the poor bush and the patrons he'd scared away. He wondered if it would rain before the landscapers' next visit.
They returned to the SGC. John wasn't sure whether Rodney was staying in guest quarters there -- why would he, when his expense account would cover a luxury hotel? -- or just planning to work all evening, but he disappeared into the bowels of the mountain while John was explaining the broken window to the airman attending the lot. He ended up in his bare, soulless office, alternating between icing his hand and filling out forms reporting the damage and requesting another car. He nibbled on the cold mango-bacon pizza, since the boxes had gotten switched somehow. It wasn't bad, but he would have preferred the barbecue.
Beckett showed up after a little while, tapping on the door and then barging straight in. "Right, let's see it, then."
John extended his hand with a sigh. "It's fine, Doc. Just a few little scrapes, that's all."
"Aye? Straighten your fingers for me. Good -- now make a fist." Carson fussed over the swollen knuckles.
"I thought you were in a meeting."
"It let out. Rodney nabbled me and said you'd be needing an office visit."
"Oh he did, did he?"
"Mmm. Disagreement with a car window, was it?"
John grumbled and pulled the pizza box over the car-damage form.
"Well, we're all of us feeling a bit out of place these days. But I think Rodney has something in mind to cheer you up."
John blinked. He hadn't been expecting to see Rodney again, after that stupid display at the restaurant. Anyone would think it was all about John, instead of what the fucking Asurans had done to Rodney.
Just thinking about it made his fists clench again, and Beckett tutted at him.
"I'll tell Rodney your hand's fine, then, shall I? Keep the ice on it a bit longer, while he goes ahead with his arrangements."
"What arrange--"
But Carson was already on his way out the door.
Naturally, John was pretty curious by the time Rodney showed up half an hour later. "McKay, what's going on?"
But Rodney just gave a pleased "Ha!" and attacked the pizza on the desk. The box he was carrying was set aside, and John opened it to find two-thirds of his barbecue pizza missing.
"I wav humgwy," Rodney said around a mouthful of mango-bacon pizza.
John glared and pulled his pizza out of Rodney's reach. Then he craned over the desk at the gym back Rodney had brought in with him. "What's in the bag?"
Rodney swallowed his mouthful. "This place is a real dump, isn't it?" he said, looking around at John's office.
"Gee, thanks, Rodney." John concealed his relief that they could interact normally, despite the tension that still ran underneath.
"You should at least get in some toys. Something to keep your hands busy while you sit around avoiding paperwork or whatever it is you do all day."
"I don't have any toys here," John said blankly. 'Toys' were what they had called the various unidentified Ancient devices (except for Ford, who called them UADs) that somehow ended up cluttering John's workspace in Atlantis. But they hadn't brought any Ancient tech back through the gate with them, aside from what had been sent for study over the past couple of years.
Rodney rolled his eyes. "Hello, Earth? There are these places called malls, where you go and give people a plastic rectangle and they give you toys. No haggling or friendship rituals or bartering the services of your teammates." He attacked another slice of pizza. "Thif iv difgufting, you know? You fyould have heated it up."
John defiantly grabbed a piece of barbecue pizza.
"All right," said Rodney once his slice was gone. "Let's go, chop chop, we don't have all night."
"Go where?" John asked. "What do you have planned? And what's in the bag?"
"It's a surprise. Come on." Rodney grabbed the last slice of the barbecue pizza --
"Hey!"
-- and put it in the box with the manga-bacon pizza, then handed the box to John. The gym bag he carried himself.
"Rodney, come on, you gotta tell me where we're going, at least," John wheedled as he followed the scientist through soulless concrete hallways.
"We're going for a drive." Rodney stabbed the elevator button for the next checkpoint leading up to ground level.
"A drive where? And what the hell is in that bag?" He could tell it wasn't empty from the way Rodney carried it, but it didn't seem too heavy, either.
"I told you, it's a surprise."
"Are we going to a mall?" John kept wheedling and guessing all the way up to the surface and out to Rodney's rental car. He didn't have any luck despite Rodney's poker-loser's face. John's guesses kept getting more absurd. "Are we going to Disneyland?"
"Would you just stop!" Rodney finally exploded as they pulled out onto the road. "Look, um, about before . . ."
John tensed. "Ooh, I know!" He interrupted desperately. "We're going to Atlantis! But, you know, the gate is back there."
"I don't think you should be so, um, upset on my behalf."
John's hand ached as he fisted it. "Could we not talk about this anymore?"
"Fine!" Rodney huffed. "I just thought . . . well, it's stupid for you to break your hand over something that happened -- actually, it didn't really happen! -- months ago."
"I didn't break it," said John sullenly. "And it wasn't about you." Okay, that sounded really selfish, so even though he didn't want to talk, he amended, "I mean, it wasn't just about you."
Rodney sighed. "We're all upset about losing Atlantis, but --"
"God, you and Carson!" John burst out. "No, this is not some psychological displacement issue. It is about the Asurans, and what they -- shit." It looked like he wasn't going to get out of talking about it. "I guess I, um. Part of me -- well. Okay, you know, after the, um, the thing with the love potion?"
Rodney groaned. "Don't remind me."
John whapped Rodney's thigh. "You're the one that wanted to talk."
"Hey! No hitting the driver!"
John cleared his throat and stared out at the too-bright headlights streaming past. "It's just, well, you obviously didn't, um, feel the same way I did, but you weren't completely freaked out by it. So I guess, you know. I let myself hope, a little. Then, with the infirmary . . . okay, that time you really did freak out, but once I knew it wasn't a dream I figured I just had to give you some time to calm down and then, maybe we could, sort of -- take another stab at it. Or something."
"Oh," said Rodney softly.
"Yeah. But it doesn't sound like that's going to happen, now that I know why you freaked out."
"You mean, because I was passing on abuse that had been done to me?"
"No, dammit! I mean . . . I told you I didn't think about it that way! You weren't passing anything on, and it wasn't abuse. Not what you did to me, anyway. But if that's where your mind was, then, well . . . I guess I missed my chance, that's all. That's why I was so pissed off." And boy, didn't it sound like a stupid tantrum when he put it that way?
"Oh," Rodney repeated. They passed a few miles in silence. "It's not that I wasn't, um. I was interested, you know? I think that's probably why that replicator chose you for her, um, scenario."
"Shit, Rodney." John was longing for something to punch again, but just the thought made his knuckles hurt. "That's not helping me feel any less angry, you know."
"Oh. Well, all right -- maybe this will." Rodney took the next turn-off.
John squinted at the signs. "Wait, this is --"
"Schriever Air Force Base, yes. Give me your ID." Rodney rolled down the window and told the gate guard, "I'm Dr. McKay, and this is Colonel Sheppard. We called ahead -- they should be ready for us?"
"Yes, sir," said the guard after studying their faces. He gave Rodney some directions that John couldn't quite hear.
"I haven't been to this base before," said John. "What's here?"
"Well, it's smaller than Peterson, so it's easier to keep a secret here. The SGC wanted to make sure they had certain, ah, resources available close to the mountain, in case of need." Rodney pulled around several buildings and then went right up to a hangar.
"Resources like what?" John could feel the old familiar song stirring in his blood, just from being on an airfield again.
Rodney parked and reached into the back seat for the gym bag he'd brought. "Here. Better get suited up." Then he got out and spoke to the airman standing in front of the door.
John opened the bag and found a flight suit inside with his own name and rank already affixed. Underneath that was a second suit, no insignia. "Rodney, what the hell did you pull?" He scrambled out of the car and started pulling on the suit.
Rodney was strolling back his way with a smug grin on his face as the hangar door rolled open, revealing an F-302 waiting inside.
"You didn't! Rodney, how --?"
Rodney grabbed the second flight suit. "I am the head of research at Area 51, and that includes the 302 project. And you are a 302 pilot, in need of a certain number of hours per year to keep up your certification."
"Colonel Sheppard, sir." The sergeant from the ground crew saluted smartly. "She's all ready to go, sir. You're, ah, sure you won't be needing a copilot?" He gave Rodney a doubtful look.
"We'll be fine. Thanks, Sergeant." John couldn't take his eyes off the plane. With their aerodynamic lines, the 302s really were prettier than the stumpy puddlejumpers, although not -- quite -- as much fun to fly.
Rodney reached into the gym bag for -- oh, no -- a tablet computer. And then it was just like old times with McKay complaining and fidgeting as he settled in the second seat, running down every item of the checklist with John.
"All right," said Rodney as John lined them up with the runway. "Start by taking her up to 50,000 feet, head out over the Pacific, and we'll do our tests there."
"Tests?" John asked, in between chatter with the tower.
"Yes yes, you know, our justification for this expensive jaunt?"
"Did you file a flight plan, Rodney?"
"As a matter of fact, I did, Colonel Doubting Thomas. It should be in the computer."
And there it was. "Cool." Another time, John might have been frustrated with all the extra work involved in taking a little jaunt above planet Earth, but not today. Today he was just glad to feel a control yoke in his hands again. He buckled his mask on and waited for the go for takeoff.
Rodney's voice changed as he fastened his own mask. "You'll want to turn on the radar screen as soon as we're high enough, so the entire world doesn't know exactly what we're up to with this top secret spacegoing fighter jet."
"Teach your grandmother to such eggs, McKay." Getting clearance from the tower, John throttled up and reveled in the squawk of dismay from the second seat. Rodney made even louder noises about the little maneuvers John tried out on their way west. At least he didn't grab at the yoke, although he did threaten to turn the inertial dampeners up to maximum. John settled down after that.
"So what tests did you have in mind, Rodney?" John asked as they broke into brilliant sunlight far above the ocean.
"Some anomalies have been reported when pilots were forced to resort to atmospheric braking. Not the most elegant form of re-entry, of course --"
"Of course," John murmured.
"-- But we want to keep it as a backup possibility. So we need to go up to, oh, a hundred fifty miles should do it, while I program in some re-entry profiles."
They dipped in and out of the atmosphere for the next few hours, pulling accelerations that wouldn't have been possible without the alien technology in the jet's engines. John got his first real taste of atmospheric entry without shields or inertial dampeners, and he could see why it posed a problem for conventional technology.
"Are you sure this is safe?" he yelled into the radio as they meteored through the stratosphere, shaking madly as a fireball surrounded the entire ship and messed up most of the instruments.
"P-p-p-ositive," Rodney returned. "I'm keeping an eye on the thermal readouts. The left wing is a little hot, could you adjust attitude?"
After their fourth trip up and back down, John noted, "Fuel's getting low. Just enough to get us back to Colorado if we take it easy." He should have noticed earlier, but fortunately they weren't too far from home.
Rodney's sigh of relief was clear over the radio. "Fine. Taking it easy sounds . . . like a really good idea. Just a regular old Air Force jet returning from maneuvers."
It was near midnight when they landed. Rodney groaned extravagantly as John helped him out of the cockpit, and wobbled down the ladder to stand hunched at the bottom.
"You okay?" John asked, pulling the tablet computer out of Rodney's trembling hands. "You didn't pull a stitch or something, did you?"
"Nonono, stitches all gone. Few more adhesions gone too, I think," Rodney gasped, straightening slowly. "Just, you know . . . getting the hang of those adrenaline overloads again. It's been a while."
"Yeah, I know what you mean." John felt like he was walking on air. He wouldn't be getting to sleep for a while, but when he did he was going to sleep soundly.
"Good . . . good test." Rodney patted John's back. "Lots of data to analyze."
John beamed. "Well, any time you need more data, just give me a call."
And if the flight wasn't thrill enough, Rodney had just touched him, voluntarily! He looked around quickly. They were back by the car, on the half-shadowed tarmac, with the hangar lights occulted as the door rolled closed again. He caught Rodney by the shoulders and gave him a heartfelt hug.
"Thanks, buddy," he whispered.
In the dim orange glow, he could see Rodney's eyes wide with astonishment -- but not, he thought, with fear. They stared at each other for a long moment, then turned away as it started to get too intense. John unzipped his flight suit and rummaged in the car for the bag to put it in.
Rodney demanded gruffly, "Where's that pizza box? I need to get my blood sugar up again."
Rodney dropped John off at his apartment, and he got an airman to take him in the next morning. Rodney had already left town by then, but John found a dartboard and two model plane kits waiting in his office. When Rodney phoned a few hours later, John knew their friendship was going to be okay, in spite of everything that had happened.
He wished he could say as much for his career, washed up on what suddenly felt like a backwater planet.
A month later, Rodney came to town again for his last wound-check, and pretty soon they were on a wild adventure back to Pegasus. John was staring up at the sky just beyond the edge of the Athosian settlement as they waited for Teyla and Ronon to get geared up, when Rodney's heavy tread came through the grass toward him.
"You realize," Rodney said tightly, "there won't be anyway to know if my backdoor to the shield still works or not. We may have come all this way just to get vaporized when we exit the wormhole."
"Bet you it does work," John said, bumping his shoulder against Rodney's.
"Yes, because what will you pay up with if you're wrong?" Rodney snapped. "Look, um . . . maybe it's a good thing that we're probably about to die, either in the wormhole or battling the replicators, or -- whatever."
John squinted. "Did you say a good thing?"
"Right. Because otherwise I'd have to worry about how I probably don't have the guts to follow through on this." Rodney grasped John firmly by the shoulders and kissed him. Short and firm, with just a hint of tongue.
John stared.
"I wish I did. Have the guts, that is." Rodney stepped back, his head bent down, his face in shadow.
John blinked. "Wait, Rodney --"
"Hey Sheppard," Ronon called from the direction of the jumper. "You ready?"
Rodney's head came up, and his shoulders squared. "Let's go."
[End]