Angst, Week 1: Reckless Abandon (4/4)
Title: Reckless Abandon
Author: hollow_echos
Genre: Angst
Prompt: Collateral Damage
Word Count: 27,000
Rating: PG-13 (Language only)
Warnings: None
Summary: The team goes off world to help with a routine evacuation mission during a monsoon. Rodney’s left behind on the planet and water levels are rising. Our favorite scientist is left praying for a miracle and a last minute rescue from his teammates.
Notes: A huge shout out goes to Rusting_roses for her wonderful betaing, for listening to my frustrations with this fic, for helping me ironing out the plot, and for being an all around awesome person. This story might not have happened without her support.
[ Part One] [ Part Two] [ Part Three] [ Part Four]
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Chapter 10 - Of Things Lost
Rodney straightened up from where he had been hunched over his computer and craned his neck backwards as he looked at the ceiling and yawned. He cracked his knuckles and groped a hand around his desk until it settled around his coffee thermos. Raising it to his mouth to take a few gulps, he frowned when nothing came out. Mckay put it back down on the desk and popped the lid off to examine the contents of the metal container, finding a few remnant coffee grounds in the bottom, but none of the actual coffee he had been looking for.
He grumbled something under his breath and popped the lid back in place before standing up and checking his watch. It was about ten at night. Most of the occupants of the city would be heading back to their rooms if they weren't there already. Some would be meeting in common spaces to socialize, gossip, maybe spar if you were Sheppard or Ronon. As for him, he found this one of the most peaceful times to work, he thought as he walked through the silent lab. The day was devoted to keeping the order in the lab, the administrative side of this job took a lot longer than anyone realized. It ranged from putting together briefings for Elizabeth on all of the latest project developments to cataloging the latest miscellaneous bits of Ancient technology brought back by the away teams.
The night was when he could put those projects away and feel the thrumming of the city beneath his fingertips. It was the time when he could connect into the mainframe and conduct his own research in the database undisturbed. He could check on the Naqueda generators and the gate diagnostics to make sure that the heartbeat of the city was pulsing as strong as ever. The days, they ran in a jerky manner. Ten minutes here with a new recruit trying to master the Ancient language, a meeting or three with various departments, and maybe a malfunctioning air duct in one of the lesser-used parts of the city. The night was for breathing slow and deep and absorbing all of the things he could never get done during the day.
He popped a head into the room that Zelenka had claimed as his own corner of their lab to see if the Czech wanted to join him for a coffee run. The lights were off and his laptop wasn't on the desk. When Zelenka was around and just out of the lab he always left his station set up, trusting that no one would interfere with his work. Its absence suggested that he had also called it a night some time ago. Rodney shrugged. Getting alone time was the reason for working late, so he couldn't exactly complain about the rare occasions when he went looking for companionship at these hours. He had yet to meet anyone who kept the same extreme hours as he tended to do. That was why he scheduled lunches with Sheppard and the rest of the team in his planner right alongside the department meetings and everything else that kept him running around the city. If he didn't, he'd be the resident hermit in the city.
Rodney crossed the lab and exited into the hallway that connected all of the sections of the city on this level, strolling toward the transporter. The floor hummed beneath his feet, the rumblings of the engines deep beneath the city that kept Atlantis from rocking with the waves on which it perched. It was something that he often forgot about; this ship was literally its own island in the sea. He didn't take it for granted now, the protection this place provided. Off world, he'd been one man on the waves, gripping the hull of the small boat and praying that the next wave didn't topple the canoe and dump him into a watery grave.
As he strolled along the hallway he ran a hand along the wall, letting the vibrations run through his fingertips and up through his arms and along his spine. He'd have missed this if he hadn't made it back, although he supposed he wouldn't have been alive to miss it. But he'd have missed having this experience one last time. It was like Carson taking the pulse of his patients by hand, or Sheppard taking the time to train the new recruits when they first arrived despite the fact that his rank would have allowed him to shift the responsibility to someone else without any questions being asked. They were all an integral part of the expedition, the soldiers relied on Sheppard to give them direction that might save their lives one day; Beckett put their beaten and worn bodies back together despite the attempts of the Pegasus galaxy to break them down.
And this city...this city, as much as it supported and protected them against Wraith invasions and storms, the weight of the city also rested neatly between his shoulders. When a little piece of it was malfunctioning, it was his hands which conducted the mechanical surgeries to root out the problem and restore the city to its fully functioning capacity. As much as the sick relied on Beckett, as much as civilians and soldiers relied on Sheppard, the city was his. Sitting out there in the monsoon; the sickening feeling had plagued him, that he wouldn't see his teammates, that he wouldn't see his friends. But there was also a deep-seeded dread that he'd never feel this thrumming beneath his feet again. While everyone was asleep in their beds, he wandered the city sometimes, the keeper watching his ward, the gentle humming of the engines reassuring him that his job for the night was done.
Rodney inhaled a sharp breath and rubbed at his bare arms. He probably should've brought a jacket along for this little jaunt. The hot coffee had warmed his blood while he' been in the lab, but without it, that cold sensation was sinking into his bones again. It was just tickling his senses now, goose bumps dotted his arms. Maybe it was just the hallway that was cold. He popped into the nearest room. It was empty and there was a bed, and really that's all the he needed, maybe, the chance to let his city watch over him as he slept, her thrumming accompanying him into unconsciousness.
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A banging sound of the door abruptly dragged Sheppard into the realm of consciousness. He muttered a curse under his breath. Whoever was at his door had better have a damn good reason for waking him up, at what time? He rolled over onto his side to turn the clock on the bed stand toward him and he groaned. It was past midnight. Granted, by normal standards, that wasn't late. But when he'd spent the whole afternoon and a good portion of the evening with a set of new marines drilling on the mainland, it was a different issue. He'd been ready to collapse into bed around eleven. He used to laugh when his commanding officers said they went to bed early. He never thought you could get tired yelling at people and telling them what to do, but keeping everyone organized was mentally taxing. And he didn't just stand around either, he liked to participate in the training sessions to build camaraderie with his troops and get to know them better. But that made getting woken up like this a very unpleasant experience.
"Sheppard, are you in there," he heard a muffled shout through the door.
"Hold you're horses, I'm coming!" He rubbed his eyes a few times and gave the mental command, aided by his gene, to raise the lights to about half way. No need to blind himself just yet. He snagged a discarded t-shirt off his desk chair and wrestled his way into it before stumbling over to the door and opening it.
"This had better be important," he muttered to the person outside.
Zelenka took a small gulp as he took in the disheveled appearance of the grumpy looking Sheppard, "Colonel, uh, I seem to have run into a problem..."
"Better be a bigger problem than I'm having with the fact that you woke me up in the middle of a night," John grumbled.
Zelenka shifted his weight from one foot to the other nervously, "I, uh, seem to have lost Rodney..."
Half-hooded eyes opened all the way at that and he made direct eye contact with the scientist, "What are you talking about? He should be sleeping now, unless he's started sleep walking which would leave us with a whole new host of issues..."
"We were working in the lab, late tonight. Rodney always claims he gets more work done when the lab's empty. I stepped out for about thirty minutes to run a diagnostic, and when I came back, he was gone."
The colonel muttered a curse under his breath, of all the times for Rodney to decide to embrace his independence streak, now was not the time. Not when he was still recovering from the last away mission gone terribly wrong. "Does it look like he packed up for the night?"
Radek shook his head, "No, his computer was still on."
Sheppard motioned for Zelenka to follow him into his room as he turned toward his closet to retrieve one of his uniform shirts and swap it out with his t-shirt, "And you tried his radio?" he asked, looking at Zelenka.
Zelenka looked a bit bewildered, like he'd suddenly been allowed into forbidden territory. Sheppard could understand his discomfort, for the most part their relationship was purely work-related. Seeing where and how someone lived was a more intimate experience. Unfortunately, the need to multitask outweighed the need to maintain strict worker relationship boundaries. He stepped out of his sweatpants and into a pair of combat pants as Radek was looking away, not wanting to make him any more uncomfortable than he already was.
The man finally responded, "It was still on his desk. I don't know why he would've left it."
Sheppard finished smoothing out his uniform and sighed, "Ok, we'll track him down then. Beckett still doesn't want him out and about on his own yet. He wants someone hanging out with McKay until these recurring bouts of him getting suddenly chilled stop happening."
Zelenka nodded, "We should try his subcutaneous transmitter."
As Zelenka turned to head out of the room Sheppard jogged to catch up to him by the entrance and fell into step next to him as he fitted his radio into his ear, "You didn't try that already?"
Zelenka shook his head, "New security protocols, we need a senior staff member to activate the signal on a sub-q transmitter. There were apparently a few abuses...one of our scientists who had access to the codes was using them to stalk one of the female botanists..."
"Oh..." Sheppard trailed off. He could see where that could get them into sticky situation. "I have one of these codes?"
Zelenka threw him a sideways glance, eyebrow raised, "You didn't read the memo on the new protocol?"
"Uh, I've been training the marines lately. Kinda fell behind on the paperwork."
"It should be the same as whatever code you use for everything else, like the city self-destruct sequence. McKay chose to keep it simple when he set the program up at Elizabeth's request. He figured not everyone was as good at remembering long complex sequences of numbers as we are."
"Fair enough," Sheppard agreed as they reached the control room. It was quiet, as it was most nights this late. A gate tech was playing a game of solitaire on the computer. Not that Sheppard could blame the man; they'd had excitement in here during the night shift once, maybe twice, since they'd first gotten here. Zelenka politely asked the tech manning the control station to move aside so he could start the program to activate Rodney's transmitter. After about a minute he nodded over at Sheppard, the Colonel crossed over to the station and began inputting his security clearance code. As he finished, a screen popped up with a map of the city. Zelenka analyzed the readout and frowned as he looked up at Sheppard, "The city's sensors aren't picking up his transmitter."
"And that means what; he's not in the city? He's gone for a late night swim with the dolphins?"
Zelenka looked back to the screen as he typed out a few more inputs, "Still nothing. There are a series of pockets in the city limits where the sensors are currently offline; one of our long term projects has been getting them all working again."
"Is Rodney working on this project where he might have gone out to fix one of these malfunctioning sensors?"
Zelenka stopped typing and looked up, "No, I'm overseeing that project. He would've sent me out if there was a problem that required immediate attention."
"Alright then, time to wake some folks up and organize a search party. I'll get started on that, can you keep working to see if you can get the sensors to pick up his signal?"
Zelenka nodded.
Sheppard tapped his radio, "Alright, keep me updated. Let's find out missing scientist."
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Chapter 11 - And People Found
Sheppard was seated in the meeting room adjacent to Elizabeth's office when she entered the room and sat down at her designated chair at the end of the table. Not that the chair had her name on it, but it was just universally known, it was her seat. She'd listened to difficult conversations from her staff from that vantage point, made even more difficult decisions. She'd given condolences to department heads for lives lost and held in her had the ability to decide the future of the entire Atlantis expedition.
And with the weight of all of this behind her, she lowered herself into the chair and rolled it up to the table to begin another such deliberation. Sheppard, Ronon, Teyla, Beckett, Bates, and Zelenka stopped what they'd been doing to entertain themselves while they waited for her to arrive and all eyes turned to her. "Alright guys, what do you have for me? We didn't bring Rodney back from that planet just to lose him again on our home turf."
Sheppard began speaking first, "Bates and I have been coordinating a systematic sweep of the city. We've had search teams check the most widely-used areas of the city already and we're preparing to branch out into the lesser-travelled regions."
She nodded, "And we're taking appropriate precautions for teams out in previously unexplored areas if it comes to that?"
Bates answered, "Of course. We have one or two scientists with every team evaluating any unusual tech encountered, same protocol as for routine exploratory missions."
John answered after that, "But we're not really stopping to investigate, we're out there to find Rodney, not play with new shiny toys."
There was an assortment of nods from around the table. After the motions stopped Elizabeth responded, "And have we found any signs of him so far?"
Sheppard's expression dipped into something suggesting disappointment, "Not yet. But we're narrowing down the regions that he could be in. If he's not in the places we've already searched he's got to be in the areas that are left."
Zelenka watched him with a skeptical glare, "Colonel, we are talking Rodney here. He is just as likely to have fallen into a hole off some unexplored pier as to be somewhere we might actually expect him to be. We have still not even begun to explore more than sixty percent of the city. If he's in one of those regions the chances of us finding him decrease exponentially..."
"Well I'm glad we're being so optimistic here, Zelenka. I'd, for one, like to think that we stand a chance of finding him," Sheppard snapped back, bristling.
Zelenka kept his cool expression, "I understand your sentiment, but we need to be realistic about our methodology. It's not enough, just doing sweeps."
"Ok, then how do you propose we switch up our search methods," Sheppard asked.
"I've had some of my team working on expanding the field of our life signs detectors; we think we've found a way to increase their range threefold. If we can get the modifications in place and distribute them to the teams then we can increase the efficiency of our search," Zelenka said in a bit more positive tone this time.
Elizabeth nodded, cutting in before the argument could escalate, "Very good Zelenka, we appreciate the work that your department is putting in." She looked around the table at a series of weary faces, "That goes for all of you. We're in this together and I am proud of the efforts you have put in."
Beckett spoke next, "Aye, we do need to be stepping up our search though. If Rodney's fallen unconscious in a colder area of the city...it'd not bode well. I'd prefer we find him sooner rather than later."
There was another murmur of agreements and the discussion continued. Ronon and Teyla and commented on their participation on the search teams and how they thought it was progressing. Zelenka promised to get some of the modified life signs detectors into the hands of the search volunteers before the hour was out. At the conclusion of the meeting spirits seemed a bit higher than when they had started. They had a plan, they had a city full of people to implement it, and they had hope that they'd find their friend alive and well.
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Sheppard turned in a circle in the latest corridor they'd wandered down. They had begun with the standard procedure, calling out Rodney's name as they travelled down the hallway, life signs detector in the hands of the scientist accompanying them. The scientist had at first scoffed about the need for a verbal call, for if there was a human around the individual would register as a dot on the life signs detector. He'd been cut off midsentence into the explanation by an irritated Sheppard who commented with the idea that Rodney could be tucked away somewhere that was shielded from the detector's ability to identify live individuals. They hadn't encountered such a material in the city so far, but that didn't mean it wasn't out there. The city had a seemingly never-ending supply of surprises hidden in its depths.
He looked over at Ronon who wandered back into the group after a search of a room adjacent to the hallway. He shook his head as he met Sheppard's gaze. No words were necessary; the strained look in his eyes spoke volumes. Another negative. That seemed to be the only response he was getting tonight.
Sheppard took the lead, raising his weapon as they advanced down the corridor to allow the attached flashlight to illuminate the passage. "Rodney! If you're out there make a sound, bud. We'll find you..." he finished a bit softer. They'd find him.
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Beckett nodded to the nurse manning the reception desk as he made another round past all of the beds in the infirmary. He almost wished for more patients at this particular moment. There was nothing going on to keep his mind occupied. He had one patient in, a pregnant Athosian who he had miscarried with her last child. She was due to deliver within the next few days and they were taking all of the precautions possible to prevent a repeat of her last pregnancy's tragedy. Beckett had great respect for the woman. He'd had the chance to talk with her at length in the almost weekly appointments he'd had her visit the city for since she had realized she was with child again. To overcome a previous loss of a child as she had and be ready to face the daunting process again...He was determined to deliver her a live child this time.
Carson stopped by her bed, she was breathing softly as she slumbered. All of the readouts were registering as normal so he reluctantly abandoned his post at the end of bed and continued on with his rounds. He passed a series of beds vacant beds. And he should be happy; this was one of the rare moments when all of the expedition was healthy. He was doing his job well. But, oh, what he would give for a surgery tonight. Even a simple one. Something to demand his attention instead of leaving him to wander through the infirmary like a ghost, pale faced and mute as his thoughts were again drawn back to his missing friend.
Maybe the man wouldn't be missing if he'd kept a closer eye on him, stressed the importance more for him not to go about unaccompanied. Maybe he could have ignored Rodney's complaints about the voodoo and the subpar food and just kept him admitted a few more days. Rodney would've had a much harder time disappearing from his infirmary. In the beginning he'd actually been naïve enough to assume that his patients would stay put. But put it to the members of Sheppard's team to defy that assumption and go AWOL more often than not. He'd picked up a few tricks along the way though. Putting an IV in made it harder for them to leave. It also hadn't hurt to reposition his nurse's stations on the most common escape routes the boys favored.
Beckett's wanderings halted as he found himself standing in front of the room he'd designated as Rodney's temporary living quarters while he'd been in residence in the infirmary...He knew it was silly, but maybe being where he'd last seen the man, it'd ease his mind a bit. It was the closest connection he had to the scientist and friend right now. With a sigh he took a step forward, the door automatically retracting as he entered and silently closing behind him.
The heat hit him right away. He responded by sliding his white jacket off and draping it over one of his arms. It was a bit ridiculous that he hadn't turned down the heat in here yet; a waste of energy; Rodney would berate him for it if he were here. But after the first relapse he had decided to keep the room on reserve in case a similar recurrence happened, to have it ready on hand in case it was called for.
He shook his head. Ach, coming in here had done nothing to alleviate his worrying. If anything it'd just increased the prevalence of the thought in his head. His friend was out there in the city, maybe safe, maybe not. And the most he could do was stand here like a fool hoping his friend would magically reappear before his eyes. No, there were better uses of his time. Maybe he would volunteer to join one of the search teams. There were civilians participating in the search already and a few of them would need to be relieved to rest soon enough.
He turned to exit the dark room when a sudden sound made him pause mid-step. He turned his head to see if he would hear it again or verify that it was just a figment of his imagination. No, there it was again...It sounded like a faint snoring perhaps? Had one of his staff decided to drop in for a nap?
He gave the mental command to raise the lights. They flickered twice; he was still getting the hang of using his Ancient gene. What came naturally to Sheppard and some of the other expedition members was almost impossible for him.
He moved toward the bed, there was a body in it. He silently slunk around to the other side of the bed to get a good look at the person who was resting on his side, turned away toward the opposite wall. His breath hitched, "Rodney?"
The figure on the bed didn't rouse and his medical intuition immediately took over. He quickly poked his head out of the room and shouted for a nurse to bring the necessary diagnostic equipment to evaluate his patient. As he saw the nurse rise from her post in a flurry to answer his call he retreated back into the room and moved back over to Rodney's side.
The man seemed to be breathing fine if the snoring was anything to judge by. His next concern was a recurrence of the hypothermia. Without a thermometer nearby he settled for resting the back of his hand against his friend's forehead. He nodded as he observed that it seemed ok.
Rodney's facial expression shifted when Carson withdrew his hand. A lip curled up and a moment later Beckett saw slits of blue as the scientist flitted his eyes open, "Carson," he asked weakly.
"Aye, everything ok here Rodney," he asked a bit more anxiously than he probably intended. The last few hours had certainly done nothing toward helping him maintain a calm demeanor.
Rodney yawned a few times and then pushed himself up into a sitting position, "Fine. Everything's fine," he muttered a bit sleepily as he shook the last traces from unconsciousness from his muddled mind.
Beckett was still watching the man with a critical eye for anything that might suggest a health issue that needed to be addressed; he needed to get caught up to speed here. "You sure lad? You don't normally make trips down here voluntarily. Is there something you wanted to see me about?"
"I'm fine Carson. Really," Rodney answered a bit more firmly this time now that he was totally awake.
Carson nodded, "Then care to tell me why you are in here? You've gotten everyone in quite a frenzy. Half the city is out searching for you. We thought you were missing, maybe hurt somewhere."
Rodney immediately met Beckett's gaze, perhaps comprehending the full situation now, "I was working late...and then I was a bit cold and tired and here was closer than my room. I just thought I'd take a cat nap in here," he answered with a guilty expression on his face, "I didn't mean to cause a panic."
Beckett moved up to the railing now, not liking that his patient had been cold enough to seek the warmth of this room again, "Are you having another recurrence of the hypothermia, you think?"
"I don't know, it was just cold. I was working late," he answered without really providing the doctor with any useful information. "Did I really cause everyone to panic?"
"Aye, but you don't need to be worrying about that. You didn't mean for it to happen. I'll let them know to call off the search."
Rodney seemed to relax a bit more at this, yawning again, "Thanks, Carson."
"Think nothing of it lad. You wait here. I'm going to step out and let the colonel know we've found you and then I'll be back in. We'll take a good look at you to make sure everything's in order before we let you nod off again," he said confidently.
Rodney nodded and let his eyes slide halfway shut, paying the Scottish man no attention as he silently withdrew from the room and tapped his radio once the doors closed behind him. There was a hiss of static that caused Beckett to wince a bit at the sudden noise, "Sheppard, you there? This is Carson."
Another hiss of static, they must be further out in the city, he thought. But then he finally got a response. “Yeah doc, we're still looking. Nothing so far. What can I do for you?“
"That's actually why I was calling. It seems Rodney wandered down to the infirmary sometime during the night. I found him in one of our isolation rooms sleeping."
“I hear you right, Carson? You said you found him?“
"Aye, I spoke with him briefly. He was just looking for somewhere warm to take a nap and the infirmary was closest."
“Carson, that's the best news I've had all night. Thank god. He's ok,“ the colonel asked, a sense of urgency sneaking into his voice.
"Aye, he seems fine. I check him over to be sure but he looked ok."
“Ok. I'll start calling in the search teams. Any idea why we didn't pick up his presence there when we ran a search for his subcutaneous transmitter in the city?“
"Ach, I didn't even think of that. I had Zelenka and Rodney set it up as a privacy curtain, after that debacle with one of the scientists spying on a botanist I figured it'd be best that no one could see who was down here with me. The transmitters don't register when someone is in the infirmary."
“Well, that certainly explains a lot. I suppose it doesn't matter now. He's safe, that's what counts. I'll be down there in person as soon as get back. We're pretty far out on one of the piers.“
"Aye, take your time, lad. Rodney seems tired. He'll probably be sleeping by the time you get here but you'll be welcome to sit with him for awhile if you'd like."
“Thanks doc,“ Sheppard added. "Never a dull moment with Rodney. Trust him to do something strange, like actually following medical advice, to throw us for a loop. I'll see you in a bit. Sheppard out.“
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Chapter 14 - The Apple Falls Close to the Tree
McKay had found a rock in the greenhouse to serve as a makeshift bench. He stretched his legs out in front of him, trying to shake some feeling into a leg that had fallen asleep.
There was a rustling of leaves behind him and he turned away from the plant life surrounding him to see what had caused the disturbance. Sheppard had pushed a branch upward as he walked underneath to prevent it from hitting him in the face as he moved toward Rodney. "You know McKay, you're a hard guy to find sometimes. The least you could do is keep a consistent routine."
McKay threw him a confused expression, "I keep it pretty tame. I'm usually in my computer lab, the mess, or my room sleeping."
Sheppard brushed a few rocks aside on the ground and sat down on the ground next to McKay's rock, "Right. See, the greenhouse doesn't really strike me as a place you would frequent. No computers, no exciting Ancient tech you can play with. See where I might get a little confused," he asked in a joking tone.
"I suppose you might have a potentially valid argument. I'm still off duty, as per Carson's orders so I've had to find new ways of entertaining myself."
"And you decided to embrace the literal interpretation of 'smelling the flowers?'"
Mckay nodded to the tree he'd been watching since he'd been down here, "Newton's been hanging out in this corner of the greenhouse, I thought I'd come down to pay him a visit."
Sheppard looked in the direction McKay had indicated to see a lizard perched on one of the branches, collecting the sunlight streaming in through the glass roof, "That the lizard from the planet that you were all snuggled up with when we found you?"
"We were not snuggling for your information," McKay argued defensively, "He was cold and I was warming him up."
"Right, you were snuggling to share body heat," he said with a chuckle.
"I give up. You're hopeless!" McKay threw his hands up in the air.
"So why Newton?"
"Don't tell me you don't recognize the name. If you don't know who that is, I don't think I can still be friends with you and consider myself a serious member of the scientific community."
Sheppard rolled his eyes, "Of course I know who he is. He made up some equations I remember learning about in high school..."
"And he researched the elliptical motion of planets and optics among other things. There's hardly an area of science that wasn't influenced by his work."
"Ok, ok. I get it; he's the celebrity of the science world. Before we digressed into a history lesson you were getting to tell me about how you picked that name."
"Right, well, there's that ridiculous legend that Newton discovered gravity when an apple fell on his head. I figured it was an appropriate name for our reptilian friend, since he fell out of a palm tree and landed in my boat."
Sheppard's lips parted in an open-mouthed, goofy grin, "Your pet lizard fell out of the sky?"
"Ok, when you say it like that it does sound a bit ridiculous..." he admitted, sitting up a bit straighter and cracking his back before sliding off his rock and scooting over to a nearby tree next to Sheppard where he leaned back against the trunk.
"So what happens to 'Newton?'" John asked, still getting used to referring to the animal by the name. It seemed so strange to him that Rodney would've taken a liking to the creature. Rodney was usually all about avoiding anything that could be considered remotely cute. Now here he was visiting one in the greenhouse of all places. If he hadn't seen this himself, he would have bet anyone in the city they would have to pay Rodney to get him to step foot in here.
"The botanists want to keep him. They seem to have adopted him as their unofficial mascot. So far he hasn't done any damage to the plants they're raising in the greenhouse and they say he's boosted the number of people coming down here."
Sheppard took a moment to watched Rodney's body language for a moment. His friend looked...relaxed, which was a change over how he'd been acting recently. He'd seemed tense ever since returning from being stranded off world. Rodney had immediately changed the subject the past few times he'd tried to talk to him about the mission gone awry. Sheppard had eventually taken the hint and stopped asking. But that hadn't stopped him from wincing a bit inside every time he saw Rodney acting unsure of himself, not wanting to be alone sometimes, other times wandering off without a second thought. But this...this was the Rodney he knew. The man was half-reclined against the tree, the tension seeming to have melted away and all that was left was an almost uncharacteristically mellow version of the scientist who was usually moving in a flurry of activity. "Seems you're not the only one who's taking a liking to the little guy," Sheppard responded.
"Eh, can't blame the botanists, they must get lonely down here. It's not like the plants are worth coming down here for. They just sit there, not too exciting. At least Newton moves around between stopping to sunbathe."
John nodded, "That explains them, his presence here is boosting their P.R., but what about you? You've never been an animal person in the past..."
Rodney shrugged, "I don't know...Being out there, it does put things in perspective. That was really the first time I was alone in a situation like that. Usually it's all of us in the same snafu together. And when he showed up, well, he might just be a lizard, but a reptile for company is better than none at all."
"You knew we would come back for you though, right? We weren't going to leave you there," John added as soon as Rodney finished. They wouldn't ever have left him out there.
"I didn't know what had happened to you guys, Sheppard," he said, tearing his attention away from the iguana and turning it fully onto the colonel.
"McKay, we didn't purposely leave you out there, some sort of auto sequence overtook the jumper controls and directed us through the gate and the city wouldn't let us dial back once we were through."
McKay nodded rapidly, "I know the specifics. I've gone through the data many times myself, there wasn't any way you could have overridden it," he cut off for a moment, thinking. "But I didn't know that when I was out there. Add in the hypothermia and I wasn't quite in my right mind."
Rodney stood up and walked across the path to the tree where the lizard was perched on a branch. He picked Newton up and carried him back over to where Sheppard was sitting, plopping back down against the tree with the lizard in his lap. "This guy was the only company I had. I thought you guys might have thought that I wasn't worth waiting for anymore and had decided to pack it in and leave," he finished in a soft tone.
Sheppard took a deep breath, "McKay, you're a member of my team. I wouldn't have left you."
"I know that...but the circumstances...I kept making up all these different stories about where you might have gone. But there was the wind and the rain and the ocean and every second I was worrying about freezing to death or the boat getting flipped. When you're in a situation like that, you start needing someone to blame, and if there isn't a clear person to dump the situation on, well, someone gets unfairly blamed."
"And you blamed us," Sheppard said in a tone that openly expressed how McKay's statement had wounded him.
"I-It's hard to explain. My mind was all over the place. I was holding out for you to come back, really, that's what kept me going. But...you were gone when I returned from the beach. And I was on that rock all by myself with a rickety canoe and an iguana for a sidekick. I had to wonder where you'd gone."
Sheppard was sitting rigidly straight now and moved to sit in front of McKay on the ground so they were having this conversation face to face, "We didn't stop trying to get back to that forsaken planet. You were there wondering if we were coming back? We were here wondering if you would still be there when we finally found a way back to the planet. I get that that's not as intense as what you were experiencing; I was warm and dry here in the city. But that didn't make the dread any less real and it's not fair to blame us for what happened," he finished sharply.
"Sheppard, understand what I'm saying. When I was delirious, yes, the thought went through my mind that maybe you would've dumped me there. But I'm in my right mind now and I know you wouldn't have done that. I've seen you almost kill yourself to ensure the safety of total strangers. You take protective to a whole new level. And you came back and there was no more wonderful feeling in the world than to put those doubts to rest. You came back. That's all that matters," he said as he twirled the lizard's tail between his fingers.
Sheppard nodded, "Ok. We're a team, first and foremost. We will never leave one of our own behind as long as there's a sliver of a chance that we could get them back. You get that?" he asked, clapping McKay on the shoulder.
"I do," Rodney said, confidently this time, "We're a family too, or the closest thing to pass for one out here."
"Good," Sheppard added, "And I guess Newton here is the newest addition?" he asked, lowering a hand to pet the animal's scaly skin. The lizard whipped his head around and flared out his neck frills, causing Sheppard to pull his hand back in surprise.
Rodney laughed, and the sound warmed Sheppard inexplicably. "Newton might take a bit longer to reciprocate the feeling. Me and him, we had quality bonding time out on that planet."
"Right...so I need to go find a canoe and row around the city with him for a few hours to forge a bond with the little dude? I don't know if I'm that dedicated."
"Oh don't be so dramatic. He's stopped nipping at the botanists finally, just pop in to visit him once in awhile," Rodney said as he released the lizard and watched it scuttle across the path and into a bush. Rodney stood up and brushed the dirt off his pants.
Sheppard rose and followed suit, "But we're ok now?"
Rodney nodded, "We're ok."
"Good, because it would be a little awkward saying this if things were still odd between us. Newton there? I can see why you two gets along so well, you two are both cut from the same vein. Only difference is you chew people out verbally, he chooses to take the more literal route. It's obvious the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."
---THE END---
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Author: hollow_echos
Genre: Angst
Prompt: Collateral Damage
Word Count: 27,000
Rating: PG-13 (Language only)
Warnings: None
Summary: The team goes off world to help with a routine evacuation mission during a monsoon. Rodney’s left behind on the planet and water levels are rising. Our favorite scientist is left praying for a miracle and a last minute rescue from his teammates.
Notes: A huge shout out goes to Rusting_roses for her wonderful betaing, for listening to my frustrations with this fic, for helping me ironing out the plot, and for being an all around awesome person. This story might not have happened without her support.
[ Part One] [ Part Two] [ Part Three] [ Part Four]
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Chapter 10 - Of Things Lost
Rodney straightened up from where he had been hunched over his computer and craned his neck backwards as he looked at the ceiling and yawned. He cracked his knuckles and groped a hand around his desk until it settled around his coffee thermos. Raising it to his mouth to take a few gulps, he frowned when nothing came out. Mckay put it back down on the desk and popped the lid off to examine the contents of the metal container, finding a few remnant coffee grounds in the bottom, but none of the actual coffee he had been looking for.
He grumbled something under his breath and popped the lid back in place before standing up and checking his watch. It was about ten at night. Most of the occupants of the city would be heading back to their rooms if they weren't there already. Some would be meeting in common spaces to socialize, gossip, maybe spar if you were Sheppard or Ronon. As for him, he found this one of the most peaceful times to work, he thought as he walked through the silent lab. The day was devoted to keeping the order in the lab, the administrative side of this job took a lot longer than anyone realized. It ranged from putting together briefings for Elizabeth on all of the latest project developments to cataloging the latest miscellaneous bits of Ancient technology brought back by the away teams.
The night was when he could put those projects away and feel the thrumming of the city beneath his fingertips. It was the time when he could connect into the mainframe and conduct his own research in the database undisturbed. He could check on the Naqueda generators and the gate diagnostics to make sure that the heartbeat of the city was pulsing as strong as ever. The days, they ran in a jerky manner. Ten minutes here with a new recruit trying to master the Ancient language, a meeting or three with various departments, and maybe a malfunctioning air duct in one of the lesser-used parts of the city. The night was for breathing slow and deep and absorbing all of the things he could never get done during the day.
He popped a head into the room that Zelenka had claimed as his own corner of their lab to see if the Czech wanted to join him for a coffee run. The lights were off and his laptop wasn't on the desk. When Zelenka was around and just out of the lab he always left his station set up, trusting that no one would interfere with his work. Its absence suggested that he had also called it a night some time ago. Rodney shrugged. Getting alone time was the reason for working late, so he couldn't exactly complain about the rare occasions when he went looking for companionship at these hours. He had yet to meet anyone who kept the same extreme hours as he tended to do. That was why he scheduled lunches with Sheppard and the rest of the team in his planner right alongside the department meetings and everything else that kept him running around the city. If he didn't, he'd be the resident hermit in the city.
Rodney crossed the lab and exited into the hallway that connected all of the sections of the city on this level, strolling toward the transporter. The floor hummed beneath his feet, the rumblings of the engines deep beneath the city that kept Atlantis from rocking with the waves on which it perched. It was something that he often forgot about; this ship was literally its own island in the sea. He didn't take it for granted now, the protection this place provided. Off world, he'd been one man on the waves, gripping the hull of the small boat and praying that the next wave didn't topple the canoe and dump him into a watery grave.
As he strolled along the hallway he ran a hand along the wall, letting the vibrations run through his fingertips and up through his arms and along his spine. He'd have missed this if he hadn't made it back, although he supposed he wouldn't have been alive to miss it. But he'd have missed having this experience one last time. It was like Carson taking the pulse of his patients by hand, or Sheppard taking the time to train the new recruits when they first arrived despite the fact that his rank would have allowed him to shift the responsibility to someone else without any questions being asked. They were all an integral part of the expedition, the soldiers relied on Sheppard to give them direction that might save their lives one day; Beckett put their beaten and worn bodies back together despite the attempts of the Pegasus galaxy to break them down.
And this city...this city, as much as it supported and protected them against Wraith invasions and storms, the weight of the city also rested neatly between his shoulders. When a little piece of it was malfunctioning, it was his hands which conducted the mechanical surgeries to root out the problem and restore the city to its fully functioning capacity. As much as the sick relied on Beckett, as much as civilians and soldiers relied on Sheppard, the city was his. Sitting out there in the monsoon; the sickening feeling had plagued him, that he wouldn't see his teammates, that he wouldn't see his friends. But there was also a deep-seeded dread that he'd never feel this thrumming beneath his feet again. While everyone was asleep in their beds, he wandered the city sometimes, the keeper watching his ward, the gentle humming of the engines reassuring him that his job for the night was done.
Rodney inhaled a sharp breath and rubbed at his bare arms. He probably should've brought a jacket along for this little jaunt. The hot coffee had warmed his blood while he' been in the lab, but without it, that cold sensation was sinking into his bones again. It was just tickling his senses now, goose bumps dotted his arms. Maybe it was just the hallway that was cold. He popped into the nearest room. It was empty and there was a bed, and really that's all the he needed, maybe, the chance to let his city watch over him as he slept, her thrumming accompanying him into unconsciousness.
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A banging sound of the door abruptly dragged Sheppard into the realm of consciousness. He muttered a curse under his breath. Whoever was at his door had better have a damn good reason for waking him up, at what time? He rolled over onto his side to turn the clock on the bed stand toward him and he groaned. It was past midnight. Granted, by normal standards, that wasn't late. But when he'd spent the whole afternoon and a good portion of the evening with a set of new marines drilling on the mainland, it was a different issue. He'd been ready to collapse into bed around eleven. He used to laugh when his commanding officers said they went to bed early. He never thought you could get tired yelling at people and telling them what to do, but keeping everyone organized was mentally taxing. And he didn't just stand around either, he liked to participate in the training sessions to build camaraderie with his troops and get to know them better. But that made getting woken up like this a very unpleasant experience.
"Sheppard, are you in there," he heard a muffled shout through the door.
"Hold you're horses, I'm coming!" He rubbed his eyes a few times and gave the mental command, aided by his gene, to raise the lights to about half way. No need to blind himself just yet. He snagged a discarded t-shirt off his desk chair and wrestled his way into it before stumbling over to the door and opening it.
"This had better be important," he muttered to the person outside.
Zelenka took a small gulp as he took in the disheveled appearance of the grumpy looking Sheppard, "Colonel, uh, I seem to have run into a problem..."
"Better be a bigger problem than I'm having with the fact that you woke me up in the middle of a night," John grumbled.
Zelenka shifted his weight from one foot to the other nervously, "I, uh, seem to have lost Rodney..."
Half-hooded eyes opened all the way at that and he made direct eye contact with the scientist, "What are you talking about? He should be sleeping now, unless he's started sleep walking which would leave us with a whole new host of issues..."
"We were working in the lab, late tonight. Rodney always claims he gets more work done when the lab's empty. I stepped out for about thirty minutes to run a diagnostic, and when I came back, he was gone."
The colonel muttered a curse under his breath, of all the times for Rodney to decide to embrace his independence streak, now was not the time. Not when he was still recovering from the last away mission gone terribly wrong. "Does it look like he packed up for the night?"
Radek shook his head, "No, his computer was still on."
Sheppard motioned for Zelenka to follow him into his room as he turned toward his closet to retrieve one of his uniform shirts and swap it out with his t-shirt, "And you tried his radio?" he asked, looking at Zelenka.
Zelenka looked a bit bewildered, like he'd suddenly been allowed into forbidden territory. Sheppard could understand his discomfort, for the most part their relationship was purely work-related. Seeing where and how someone lived was a more intimate experience. Unfortunately, the need to multitask outweighed the need to maintain strict worker relationship boundaries. He stepped out of his sweatpants and into a pair of combat pants as Radek was looking away, not wanting to make him any more uncomfortable than he already was.
The man finally responded, "It was still on his desk. I don't know why he would've left it."
Sheppard finished smoothing out his uniform and sighed, "Ok, we'll track him down then. Beckett still doesn't want him out and about on his own yet. He wants someone hanging out with McKay until these recurring bouts of him getting suddenly chilled stop happening."
Zelenka nodded, "We should try his subcutaneous transmitter."
As Zelenka turned to head out of the room Sheppard jogged to catch up to him by the entrance and fell into step next to him as he fitted his radio into his ear, "You didn't try that already?"
Zelenka shook his head, "New security protocols, we need a senior staff member to activate the signal on a sub-q transmitter. There were apparently a few abuses...one of our scientists who had access to the codes was using them to stalk one of the female botanists..."
"Oh..." Sheppard trailed off. He could see where that could get them into sticky situation. "I have one of these codes?"
Zelenka threw him a sideways glance, eyebrow raised, "You didn't read the memo on the new protocol?"
"Uh, I've been training the marines lately. Kinda fell behind on the paperwork."
"It should be the same as whatever code you use for everything else, like the city self-destruct sequence. McKay chose to keep it simple when he set the program up at Elizabeth's request. He figured not everyone was as good at remembering long complex sequences of numbers as we are."
"Fair enough," Sheppard agreed as they reached the control room. It was quiet, as it was most nights this late. A gate tech was playing a game of solitaire on the computer. Not that Sheppard could blame the man; they'd had excitement in here during the night shift once, maybe twice, since they'd first gotten here. Zelenka politely asked the tech manning the control station to move aside so he could start the program to activate Rodney's transmitter. After about a minute he nodded over at Sheppard, the Colonel crossed over to the station and began inputting his security clearance code. As he finished, a screen popped up with a map of the city. Zelenka analyzed the readout and frowned as he looked up at Sheppard, "The city's sensors aren't picking up his transmitter."
"And that means what; he's not in the city? He's gone for a late night swim with the dolphins?"
Zelenka looked back to the screen as he typed out a few more inputs, "Still nothing. There are a series of pockets in the city limits where the sensors are currently offline; one of our long term projects has been getting them all working again."
"Is Rodney working on this project where he might have gone out to fix one of these malfunctioning sensors?"
Zelenka stopped typing and looked up, "No, I'm overseeing that project. He would've sent me out if there was a problem that required immediate attention."
"Alright then, time to wake some folks up and organize a search party. I'll get started on that, can you keep working to see if you can get the sensors to pick up his signal?"
Zelenka nodded.
Sheppard tapped his radio, "Alright, keep me updated. Let's find out missing scientist."
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Chapter 11 - And People Found
Sheppard was seated in the meeting room adjacent to Elizabeth's office when she entered the room and sat down at her designated chair at the end of the table. Not that the chair had her name on it, but it was just universally known, it was her seat. She'd listened to difficult conversations from her staff from that vantage point, made even more difficult decisions. She'd given condolences to department heads for lives lost and held in her had the ability to decide the future of the entire Atlantis expedition.
And with the weight of all of this behind her, she lowered herself into the chair and rolled it up to the table to begin another such deliberation. Sheppard, Ronon, Teyla, Beckett, Bates, and Zelenka stopped what they'd been doing to entertain themselves while they waited for her to arrive and all eyes turned to her. "Alright guys, what do you have for me? We didn't bring Rodney back from that planet just to lose him again on our home turf."
Sheppard began speaking first, "Bates and I have been coordinating a systematic sweep of the city. We've had search teams check the most widely-used areas of the city already and we're preparing to branch out into the lesser-travelled regions."
She nodded, "And we're taking appropriate precautions for teams out in previously unexplored areas if it comes to that?"
Bates answered, "Of course. We have one or two scientists with every team evaluating any unusual tech encountered, same protocol as for routine exploratory missions."
John answered after that, "But we're not really stopping to investigate, we're out there to find Rodney, not play with new shiny toys."
There was an assortment of nods from around the table. After the motions stopped Elizabeth responded, "And have we found any signs of him so far?"
Sheppard's expression dipped into something suggesting disappointment, "Not yet. But we're narrowing down the regions that he could be in. If he's not in the places we've already searched he's got to be in the areas that are left."
Zelenka watched him with a skeptical glare, "Colonel, we are talking Rodney here. He is just as likely to have fallen into a hole off some unexplored pier as to be somewhere we might actually expect him to be. We have still not even begun to explore more than sixty percent of the city. If he's in one of those regions the chances of us finding him decrease exponentially..."
"Well I'm glad we're being so optimistic here, Zelenka. I'd, for one, like to think that we stand a chance of finding him," Sheppard snapped back, bristling.
Zelenka kept his cool expression, "I understand your sentiment, but we need to be realistic about our methodology. It's not enough, just doing sweeps."
"Ok, then how do you propose we switch up our search methods," Sheppard asked.
"I've had some of my team working on expanding the field of our life signs detectors; we think we've found a way to increase their range threefold. If we can get the modifications in place and distribute them to the teams then we can increase the efficiency of our search," Zelenka said in a bit more positive tone this time.
Elizabeth nodded, cutting in before the argument could escalate, "Very good Zelenka, we appreciate the work that your department is putting in." She looked around the table at a series of weary faces, "That goes for all of you. We're in this together and I am proud of the efforts you have put in."
Beckett spoke next, "Aye, we do need to be stepping up our search though. If Rodney's fallen unconscious in a colder area of the city...it'd not bode well. I'd prefer we find him sooner rather than later."
There was another murmur of agreements and the discussion continued. Ronon and Teyla and commented on their participation on the search teams and how they thought it was progressing. Zelenka promised to get some of the modified life signs detectors into the hands of the search volunteers before the hour was out. At the conclusion of the meeting spirits seemed a bit higher than when they had started. They had a plan, they had a city full of people to implement it, and they had hope that they'd find their friend alive and well.
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Sheppard turned in a circle in the latest corridor they'd wandered down. They had begun with the standard procedure, calling out Rodney's name as they travelled down the hallway, life signs detector in the hands of the scientist accompanying them. The scientist had at first scoffed about the need for a verbal call, for if there was a human around the individual would register as a dot on the life signs detector. He'd been cut off midsentence into the explanation by an irritated Sheppard who commented with the idea that Rodney could be tucked away somewhere that was shielded from the detector's ability to identify live individuals. They hadn't encountered such a material in the city so far, but that didn't mean it wasn't out there. The city had a seemingly never-ending supply of surprises hidden in its depths.
He looked over at Ronon who wandered back into the group after a search of a room adjacent to the hallway. He shook his head as he met Sheppard's gaze. No words were necessary; the strained look in his eyes spoke volumes. Another negative. That seemed to be the only response he was getting tonight.
Sheppard took the lead, raising his weapon as they advanced down the corridor to allow the attached flashlight to illuminate the passage. "Rodney! If you're out there make a sound, bud. We'll find you..." he finished a bit softer. They'd find him.
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Beckett nodded to the nurse manning the reception desk as he made another round past all of the beds in the infirmary. He almost wished for more patients at this particular moment. There was nothing going on to keep his mind occupied. He had one patient in, a pregnant Athosian who he had miscarried with her last child. She was due to deliver within the next few days and they were taking all of the precautions possible to prevent a repeat of her last pregnancy's tragedy. Beckett had great respect for the woman. He'd had the chance to talk with her at length in the almost weekly appointments he'd had her visit the city for since she had realized she was with child again. To overcome a previous loss of a child as she had and be ready to face the daunting process again...He was determined to deliver her a live child this time.
Carson stopped by her bed, she was breathing softly as she slumbered. All of the readouts were registering as normal so he reluctantly abandoned his post at the end of bed and continued on with his rounds. He passed a series of beds vacant beds. And he should be happy; this was one of the rare moments when all of the expedition was healthy. He was doing his job well. But, oh, what he would give for a surgery tonight. Even a simple one. Something to demand his attention instead of leaving him to wander through the infirmary like a ghost, pale faced and mute as his thoughts were again drawn back to his missing friend.
Maybe the man wouldn't be missing if he'd kept a closer eye on him, stressed the importance more for him not to go about unaccompanied. Maybe he could have ignored Rodney's complaints about the voodoo and the subpar food and just kept him admitted a few more days. Rodney would've had a much harder time disappearing from his infirmary. In the beginning he'd actually been naïve enough to assume that his patients would stay put. But put it to the members of Sheppard's team to defy that assumption and go AWOL more often than not. He'd picked up a few tricks along the way though. Putting an IV in made it harder for them to leave. It also hadn't hurt to reposition his nurse's stations on the most common escape routes the boys favored.
Beckett's wanderings halted as he found himself standing in front of the room he'd designated as Rodney's temporary living quarters while he'd been in residence in the infirmary...He knew it was silly, but maybe being where he'd last seen the man, it'd ease his mind a bit. It was the closest connection he had to the scientist and friend right now. With a sigh he took a step forward, the door automatically retracting as he entered and silently closing behind him.
The heat hit him right away. He responded by sliding his white jacket off and draping it over one of his arms. It was a bit ridiculous that he hadn't turned down the heat in here yet; a waste of energy; Rodney would berate him for it if he were here. But after the first relapse he had decided to keep the room on reserve in case a similar recurrence happened, to have it ready on hand in case it was called for.
He shook his head. Ach, coming in here had done nothing to alleviate his worrying. If anything it'd just increased the prevalence of the thought in his head. His friend was out there in the city, maybe safe, maybe not. And the most he could do was stand here like a fool hoping his friend would magically reappear before his eyes. No, there were better uses of his time. Maybe he would volunteer to join one of the search teams. There were civilians participating in the search already and a few of them would need to be relieved to rest soon enough.
He turned to exit the dark room when a sudden sound made him pause mid-step. He turned his head to see if he would hear it again or verify that it was just a figment of his imagination. No, there it was again...It sounded like a faint snoring perhaps? Had one of his staff decided to drop in for a nap?
He gave the mental command to raise the lights. They flickered twice; he was still getting the hang of using his Ancient gene. What came naturally to Sheppard and some of the other expedition members was almost impossible for him.
He moved toward the bed, there was a body in it. He silently slunk around to the other side of the bed to get a good look at the person who was resting on his side, turned away toward the opposite wall. His breath hitched, "Rodney?"
The figure on the bed didn't rouse and his medical intuition immediately took over. He quickly poked his head out of the room and shouted for a nurse to bring the necessary diagnostic equipment to evaluate his patient. As he saw the nurse rise from her post in a flurry to answer his call he retreated back into the room and moved back over to Rodney's side.
The man seemed to be breathing fine if the snoring was anything to judge by. His next concern was a recurrence of the hypothermia. Without a thermometer nearby he settled for resting the back of his hand against his friend's forehead. He nodded as he observed that it seemed ok.
Rodney's facial expression shifted when Carson withdrew his hand. A lip curled up and a moment later Beckett saw slits of blue as the scientist flitted his eyes open, "Carson," he asked weakly.
"Aye, everything ok here Rodney," he asked a bit more anxiously than he probably intended. The last few hours had certainly done nothing toward helping him maintain a calm demeanor.
Rodney yawned a few times and then pushed himself up into a sitting position, "Fine. Everything's fine," he muttered a bit sleepily as he shook the last traces from unconsciousness from his muddled mind.
Beckett was still watching the man with a critical eye for anything that might suggest a health issue that needed to be addressed; he needed to get caught up to speed here. "You sure lad? You don't normally make trips down here voluntarily. Is there something you wanted to see me about?"
"I'm fine Carson. Really," Rodney answered a bit more firmly this time now that he was totally awake.
Carson nodded, "Then care to tell me why you are in here? You've gotten everyone in quite a frenzy. Half the city is out searching for you. We thought you were missing, maybe hurt somewhere."
Rodney immediately met Beckett's gaze, perhaps comprehending the full situation now, "I was working late...and then I was a bit cold and tired and here was closer than my room. I just thought I'd take a cat nap in here," he answered with a guilty expression on his face, "I didn't mean to cause a panic."
Beckett moved up to the railing now, not liking that his patient had been cold enough to seek the warmth of this room again, "Are you having another recurrence of the hypothermia, you think?"
"I don't know, it was just cold. I was working late," he answered without really providing the doctor with any useful information. "Did I really cause everyone to panic?"
"Aye, but you don't need to be worrying about that. You didn't mean for it to happen. I'll let them know to call off the search."
Rodney seemed to relax a bit more at this, yawning again, "Thanks, Carson."
"Think nothing of it lad. You wait here. I'm going to step out and let the colonel know we've found you and then I'll be back in. We'll take a good look at you to make sure everything's in order before we let you nod off again," he said confidently.
Rodney nodded and let his eyes slide halfway shut, paying the Scottish man no attention as he silently withdrew from the room and tapped his radio once the doors closed behind him. There was a hiss of static that caused Beckett to wince a bit at the sudden noise, "Sheppard, you there? This is Carson."
Another hiss of static, they must be further out in the city, he thought. But then he finally got a response. “Yeah doc, we're still looking. Nothing so far. What can I do for you?“
"That's actually why I was calling. It seems Rodney wandered down to the infirmary sometime during the night. I found him in one of our isolation rooms sleeping."
“I hear you right, Carson? You said you found him?“
"Aye, I spoke with him briefly. He was just looking for somewhere warm to take a nap and the infirmary was closest."
“Carson, that's the best news I've had all night. Thank god. He's ok,“ the colonel asked, a sense of urgency sneaking into his voice.
"Aye, he seems fine. I check him over to be sure but he looked ok."
“Ok. I'll start calling in the search teams. Any idea why we didn't pick up his presence there when we ran a search for his subcutaneous transmitter in the city?“
"Ach, I didn't even think of that. I had Zelenka and Rodney set it up as a privacy curtain, after that debacle with one of the scientists spying on a botanist I figured it'd be best that no one could see who was down here with me. The transmitters don't register when someone is in the infirmary."
“Well, that certainly explains a lot. I suppose it doesn't matter now. He's safe, that's what counts. I'll be down there in person as soon as get back. We're pretty far out on one of the piers.“
"Aye, take your time, lad. Rodney seems tired. He'll probably be sleeping by the time you get here but you'll be welcome to sit with him for awhile if you'd like."
“Thanks doc,“ Sheppard added. "Never a dull moment with Rodney. Trust him to do something strange, like actually following medical advice, to throw us for a loop. I'll see you in a bit. Sheppard out.“
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Chapter 14 - The Apple Falls Close to the Tree
McKay had found a rock in the greenhouse to serve as a makeshift bench. He stretched his legs out in front of him, trying to shake some feeling into a leg that had fallen asleep.
There was a rustling of leaves behind him and he turned away from the plant life surrounding him to see what had caused the disturbance. Sheppard had pushed a branch upward as he walked underneath to prevent it from hitting him in the face as he moved toward Rodney. "You know McKay, you're a hard guy to find sometimes. The least you could do is keep a consistent routine."
McKay threw him a confused expression, "I keep it pretty tame. I'm usually in my computer lab, the mess, or my room sleeping."
Sheppard brushed a few rocks aside on the ground and sat down on the ground next to McKay's rock, "Right. See, the greenhouse doesn't really strike me as a place you would frequent. No computers, no exciting Ancient tech you can play with. See where I might get a little confused," he asked in a joking tone.
"I suppose you might have a potentially valid argument. I'm still off duty, as per Carson's orders so I've had to find new ways of entertaining myself."
"And you decided to embrace the literal interpretation of 'smelling the flowers?'"
Mckay nodded to the tree he'd been watching since he'd been down here, "Newton's been hanging out in this corner of the greenhouse, I thought I'd come down to pay him a visit."
Sheppard looked in the direction McKay had indicated to see a lizard perched on one of the branches, collecting the sunlight streaming in through the glass roof, "That the lizard from the planet that you were all snuggled up with when we found you?"
"We were not snuggling for your information," McKay argued defensively, "He was cold and I was warming him up."
"Right, you were snuggling to share body heat," he said with a chuckle.
"I give up. You're hopeless!" McKay threw his hands up in the air.
"So why Newton?"
"Don't tell me you don't recognize the name. If you don't know who that is, I don't think I can still be friends with you and consider myself a serious member of the scientific community."
Sheppard rolled his eyes, "Of course I know who he is. He made up some equations I remember learning about in high school..."
"And he researched the elliptical motion of planets and optics among other things. There's hardly an area of science that wasn't influenced by his work."
"Ok, ok. I get it; he's the celebrity of the science world. Before we digressed into a history lesson you were getting to tell me about how you picked that name."
"Right, well, there's that ridiculous legend that Newton discovered gravity when an apple fell on his head. I figured it was an appropriate name for our reptilian friend, since he fell out of a palm tree and landed in my boat."
Sheppard's lips parted in an open-mouthed, goofy grin, "Your pet lizard fell out of the sky?"
"Ok, when you say it like that it does sound a bit ridiculous..." he admitted, sitting up a bit straighter and cracking his back before sliding off his rock and scooting over to a nearby tree next to Sheppard where he leaned back against the trunk.
"So what happens to 'Newton?'" John asked, still getting used to referring to the animal by the name. It seemed so strange to him that Rodney would've taken a liking to the creature. Rodney was usually all about avoiding anything that could be considered remotely cute. Now here he was visiting one in the greenhouse of all places. If he hadn't seen this himself, he would have bet anyone in the city they would have to pay Rodney to get him to step foot in here.
"The botanists want to keep him. They seem to have adopted him as their unofficial mascot. So far he hasn't done any damage to the plants they're raising in the greenhouse and they say he's boosted the number of people coming down here."
Sheppard took a moment to watched Rodney's body language for a moment. His friend looked...relaxed, which was a change over how he'd been acting recently. He'd seemed tense ever since returning from being stranded off world. Rodney had immediately changed the subject the past few times he'd tried to talk to him about the mission gone awry. Sheppard had eventually taken the hint and stopped asking. But that hadn't stopped him from wincing a bit inside every time he saw Rodney acting unsure of himself, not wanting to be alone sometimes, other times wandering off without a second thought. But this...this was the Rodney he knew. The man was half-reclined against the tree, the tension seeming to have melted away and all that was left was an almost uncharacteristically mellow version of the scientist who was usually moving in a flurry of activity. "Seems you're not the only one who's taking a liking to the little guy," Sheppard responded.
"Eh, can't blame the botanists, they must get lonely down here. It's not like the plants are worth coming down here for. They just sit there, not too exciting. At least Newton moves around between stopping to sunbathe."
John nodded, "That explains them, his presence here is boosting their P.R., but what about you? You've never been an animal person in the past..."
Rodney shrugged, "I don't know...Being out there, it does put things in perspective. That was really the first time I was alone in a situation like that. Usually it's all of us in the same snafu together. And when he showed up, well, he might just be a lizard, but a reptile for company is better than none at all."
"You knew we would come back for you though, right? We weren't going to leave you there," John added as soon as Rodney finished. They wouldn't ever have left him out there.
"I didn't know what had happened to you guys, Sheppard," he said, tearing his attention away from the iguana and turning it fully onto the colonel.
"McKay, we didn't purposely leave you out there, some sort of auto sequence overtook the jumper controls and directed us through the gate and the city wouldn't let us dial back once we were through."
McKay nodded rapidly, "I know the specifics. I've gone through the data many times myself, there wasn't any way you could have overridden it," he cut off for a moment, thinking. "But I didn't know that when I was out there. Add in the hypothermia and I wasn't quite in my right mind."
Rodney stood up and walked across the path to the tree where the lizard was perched on a branch. He picked Newton up and carried him back over to where Sheppard was sitting, plopping back down against the tree with the lizard in his lap. "This guy was the only company I had. I thought you guys might have thought that I wasn't worth waiting for anymore and had decided to pack it in and leave," he finished in a soft tone.
Sheppard took a deep breath, "McKay, you're a member of my team. I wouldn't have left you."
"I know that...but the circumstances...I kept making up all these different stories about where you might have gone. But there was the wind and the rain and the ocean and every second I was worrying about freezing to death or the boat getting flipped. When you're in a situation like that, you start needing someone to blame, and if there isn't a clear person to dump the situation on, well, someone gets unfairly blamed."
"And you blamed us," Sheppard said in a tone that openly expressed how McKay's statement had wounded him.
"I-It's hard to explain. My mind was all over the place. I was holding out for you to come back, really, that's what kept me going. But...you were gone when I returned from the beach. And I was on that rock all by myself with a rickety canoe and an iguana for a sidekick. I had to wonder where you'd gone."
Sheppard was sitting rigidly straight now and moved to sit in front of McKay on the ground so they were having this conversation face to face, "We didn't stop trying to get back to that forsaken planet. You were there wondering if we were coming back? We were here wondering if you would still be there when we finally found a way back to the planet. I get that that's not as intense as what you were experiencing; I was warm and dry here in the city. But that didn't make the dread any less real and it's not fair to blame us for what happened," he finished sharply.
"Sheppard, understand what I'm saying. When I was delirious, yes, the thought went through my mind that maybe you would've dumped me there. But I'm in my right mind now and I know you wouldn't have done that. I've seen you almost kill yourself to ensure the safety of total strangers. You take protective to a whole new level. And you came back and there was no more wonderful feeling in the world than to put those doubts to rest. You came back. That's all that matters," he said as he twirled the lizard's tail between his fingers.
Sheppard nodded, "Ok. We're a team, first and foremost. We will never leave one of our own behind as long as there's a sliver of a chance that we could get them back. You get that?" he asked, clapping McKay on the shoulder.
"I do," Rodney said, confidently this time, "We're a family too, or the closest thing to pass for one out here."
"Good," Sheppard added, "And I guess Newton here is the newest addition?" he asked, lowering a hand to pet the animal's scaly skin. The lizard whipped his head around and flared out his neck frills, causing Sheppard to pull his hand back in surprise.
Rodney laughed, and the sound warmed Sheppard inexplicably. "Newton might take a bit longer to reciprocate the feeling. Me and him, we had quality bonding time out on that planet."
"Right...so I need to go find a canoe and row around the city with him for a few hours to forge a bond with the little dude? I don't know if I'm that dedicated."
"Oh don't be so dramatic. He's stopped nipping at the botanists finally, just pop in to visit him once in awhile," Rodney said as he released the lizard and watched it scuttle across the path and into a bush. Rodney stood up and brushed the dirt off his pants.
Sheppard rose and followed suit, "But we're ok now?"
Rodney nodded, "We're ok."
"Good, because it would be a little awkward saying this if things were still odd between us. Newton there? I can see why you two gets along so well, you two are both cut from the same vein. Only difference is you chew people out verbally, he chooses to take the more literal route. It's obvious the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."
---THE END---
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