Fic: Not Waving but Drowning (McKay/Sheppard, R)
Title: Not Waving but Drowning
Author: Santa (aka mific)
Recipient: Pinch Hitter # 1
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard (and team)
Rating: R
Wordcount: 6192
Disclaimer: Don’t own them, just like playing with them.
Summary: H/C and angst, but I promise, no actual dying. Follows “Grace Under Pressure”, but goes AU I guess, unless you envisage the next ep (“The Tower”), as happening quite a bit later.
======================
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.
Stevie Smith - Not Waving But Drowning
======================
They got Rodney out of the sea, but they couldn’t get the sea out of Rodney.
John, Teyla and Ronon took turns sitting with him in the infirmary, and for a while it seemed okay. He had an IV line, and machines that went ping, and the ancient scanners gave him the once over. Normal post-mission stuff, when one of them was injured. He’d been sedated, so he slept, and Carson pronounced himself happy with the treatment of his hypothermia, congratulating Radek on doing the right things as they’d resurfaced. He wasn’t injured, Carson said, just dehydrated and cold.
It was when he woke up the next day that the problems began. He seemed confused, asking plaintively for Carter and staring around at things no-one else could see, jumping at shadows. Carson called Heightmeyer in of course, and they frowned and muttered together after she’d seen Rodney until John couldn’t take it any more.
“Just - what the fuck’s wrong with him?” He asked Carson urgently, pulling him aside. Teyla was sitting with Rodney; he seemed to be calmer if one of the team was there, even though he wasn’t able to talk with them coherently. Elizabeth hovered, looking worried, but Rodney didn’t want to see her, or anyone other than John, Teyla or Ronon. Ronon hadn’t been able to stand it, he’d gone to the gym to beat up some marines. “Is it the bends or something? I thought that wasn’t possible in a jumper, that they compensated-”
“It’’s not decompression sickness, Colonel. The scans are all fine.”
“Then what-?”
Carson patted his arm reassuringly. John clenched his jaw; he didn’t need to be patronised, he needed answers, dammit.
“I’m not sure I can talk with you about it, there’s patient confidentiality-”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, Carson, we’re his family here. We’re his team. We’re the only ones he wants around him, except maybe for Carter, and she’s back at the SGC. Just give me some idea what the hell’s going on!”
Carson looked pained, but he nodded. “Very well. We’re not really sure what it is, I’m afraid. Kate thinks it may be post-traumatic stress with a stress-induced psychotic break. He seems to be hallucinating - seeing Colonel Carter, going on about whales, hearing voices.” Carson shot John a look. “To be honest, it’s been coming for a while, Colonel. I mean, he destroyed most of a solar system, and then you turned into a bug-” John flinched, and Carson shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sorry, I - I’m sorry, lad, I’m a little tired. That was uncalled-for. But you didn’t see him withdrawing from the Wraith enzyme; he’d taken a near-lethal dose and the detox half-killed him. I don’t think he’s been quite right since then, to be honest. Not that any of you’ve had any respite. As soon as he was coherent again after the enzyme overdose he had to head off with the Daedalus to try to rescue you from the Hive. And then when the Hives exploded…he thought you were all dead. It broke him, John, and I’m not sure he really believed it when he got back and there you were, all three alive.” John recalled Rodney’s stunned face, his: why aren’t you dead? Carson sighed. “He’s always been highly strung, well…” Caron shrugged, “I don’t need to tell you that. He’s Rodney. Even before Pegasus he was a walking bundle of neuroses. It’s not so much a shock that he’s broken now, but that he didn’t break months ago.”
“I don’t believe it.” John didn’t want to hear this bullshit. “Rodney’s stronger than you’d think, and braver than most of the goddam marines, in a pinch. Well, as brave. He’s not gonna totally lose it just because he gets stuck in a jumper.”
“You don’t know how he’s been John, not really. You lost six months in the time dilation field - yes, I know Rodney didn’t lose you for that long, but he knew. He was the only one who really understood what was happening, how long it was for you. He blamed himself that you were trapped there so long, that you thought we’d abandoned you.”
John grimaced, thinking how betrayed he’d felt, how he’d been unable not to carp on about it a bit when they’d finally shown up. Damn.
“So what do we do then, to fix him? What does Heightmeyer say? Doesn’t he just need some sleep? Knock him out with the good drugs until he’s properly rested?” Rodney never slept enough. John was used to dragging him out of his lab in the small hours and frogmarching him back to his quarters. He probably didn’t sleep much, even so, but what could John have done - gone in with him? Stayed in his room and supervised to make sure he didn’t just open up his laptop again? Try explaining that one away if it got back to Caldwell: Yes Sir, I was just ensuring Dr McKay got to sleep - Oh really Colonel, you were sleeping together? - yeah, no, especially as he’d want to, he’d be tempted... Hell. Not that anyone was taking much notice of Caldwell these days after he’d been snaked, so maybe he should have just…
“John?” Crap, now Carson was frowning at him.
“Uh, yeah, sorry about that. Thinking. You were saying?” He tried to look half way sensible.
Carson rubbed his stubbled jaw. He had dark rings under his eyes, too; no-one got enough sleep on Atlantis. “Well, Kate and I think Rodney needs more than sleep, Colonel. And no, I can’t pump him full of opiates and swap one problem for another, that’s no answer. He needs antipsychotic medication and a complete break, maybe antidepressants as well, but it’s too soon to tell.”
John tensed. “You can’t send him back to Earth. Anything could…it’s not safe. The Trust, and…” And they might not let him come back. “He needs to be with us, with people he knows.” Carson tried to say something, but John overrode him. “Yeah, I know there’s his sister, but he hasn’t seen her in years, Carson, it’s not the same as us. We’re his team.” He wasn’t pleading, so why did he feel like a kid again, powerless? Rodney would have said it was all voodoo, he’d have hated this.
Carson sighed. “It may not be my decision, or Kate’s, in the end. Elizabeth might not have a choice, if he doesn’t pull out of this quickly. The IOA might insist on recalling him.”
“Not gonna happen.” John made himself relax, his hands were fisted, nails cutting into his palms.
“Let’s hope not, no.” Carson’s eyes were kind, concerned.
John turned away, heading blindly back to Teyla and to Rodney, to his team.
======================
They gave Rodney drugs, and he quieted a little. He wasn’t so confused, and he didn’t talk to Carter any more, or call out for her. Maybe he wasn’t hearing the voices any more, or he was recovered enough to shut up about it, anyway.
Heightmeyer came and went, looking grave. She wouldn’t say what she talked about with Rodney and they wouldn’t let the team stay when she was seeing him; he got wheeled into a private room off the infirmary. John hated it, and he sensed that Teyla didn’t like it either. Rodney just seemed lost, staring back at them forlornly as he was wheeled away by an orderly. Teyla reached out and gripped John’s hand, and he squeezed it gratefully. Ronon made a harsh noise and paced up and down in the hallway.
Rodney was oddly listless, even with the team, hardly smiling and somehow slowed, not his usual quicksilver self. He seemed to doze a lot, and maybe that was the drugs, or maybe he just didn’t want to talk; John suspected it was the latter. Teasing and tall stories about John’s College days all failed to get a rise out of him, just a wan smile on a good day. Teyla sat and sang to Rodney quietly; John thought they might be lullabies. Ronon recited Satedan epic poetry about brave warriors that featured a lot of detail about weapons and fighting technique. Rodney shut his eyes.
After two weeks, Elizabeth called them to a meeting. John collected Teyla and Ronon before heading for the conference room: he didn’t want to be in there alone. His stomach hurt. Elizabeth had called in Carson and Heightmeyer, also Radek. This was it, then.
“I know how stressful this must be-” she started.
“Doubt it,” John ground out, hands clasped before him on the table, knuckles white.
Elizabeth frowned. “I care about Rodney too, John.”
He hunched his shoulders, then made himself calm down. “Yeah. Sorry.”
She turned to Carson and Heightmeyer. “Can you bring us up to date with Rodney’s progress, please?”
Carson looked at Heightmeyer, who inclined her head and spoke. “It seems most likely to be a stress-related disorder.” John hated that word: disorder. He tried not to hate Heightmeyer’s bland, smiling, professional façade. It was hard. “He was psychotic initially - apparently brought on by the isolation and fear when he was trapped in the puddlejumper, and the sensory deprivation. That seems to have settled, or at least he’s not admitting to it at present.” Elizabeth’s face tightened. Heightmeyer continued her report. “But he’s quite depressed, as I think we’ll all have seen. Withdrawn, not talking much, low energy. He’s not eating a lot and his concentration’s poor.”
Radek nodded. “I have tried to interest him in our new system to recalibrate power grid.” He shrugged expressively. “Nothing. He turns away, will not even look at laptop screen. This is not Rodney.” His face was miserable, etched with worry.
John bit his lip. “So - you mentioned antidepressants, Carson - that he might need them? Is he gonna start on those?” Too many damn drugs, too much voodoo.
Carson shifted, uncomfortably. To John’s left, Ronon tensed. Bad news, then. Teyla had her “difficult negotiations” face on. Shit.
“Well, yes, he needs to start something, like an SSRI. We have prozac, that should work. But…” He looked across at Heightmeyer, and trailed off.
She picked up the baton. “But that won’t be enough. He needs a complete break, to get away. Professional help.” She held up a hand, palm out, forestalling his protest. “Yes, I’m a professional but we have limited resources here to treat him compared to Earth, and depression can take months for a full recovery. If the medications don’t work, he might need ECT, or-”
“No fucking way!” John was on his feet, chair overturned. Ronon hadn’t gotten up but he was poised, muscles tense, ready to act on John’s word. “You want to zap his brain? Rodney’s brain? He’s never gonna say yes to that!”
Heightmeyer gazed at him calmly, her eyes sad. “It’s a very effective treatment for depression, John, and he may not have a choice, if this doesn’t improve. He’s not fully competent to decide-”
“Oh, I have heard enough of this bullshit!” John wheeled, accusing. “Elizabeth, this is wrong. It’s Rodney, we can’t-”
“John,” she said. “Sit down, please.” She stared him down. Finally, he sat. Ronon remained tense. Poised. “We’re all concerned. We’re all stressed. This is hard for everyone.” John sucked in a breath, counted to ten. Teyla put her hand on his knee, under the table. He slid his own hand on top of it, gripped it hard. Elizabeth nodded. “Thank you. The IOA have decided: he’s to go home, to a private hospital they have for the SGC there, and for Special Forces personnel. It’s very well-resourced, they have psychotherapists, modern-”
“It’s a prison,” John gritted out. “As far as they’re concerned he’s crazy, right? He’s a security risk, might say anything. They’re not gonna let him out of there once he goes in. And, they’re sure as shit not gonna let him come back here again!”
Elizabeth and Heightmeyer both spoke at once. “We don’t-” “They won’t-” Elizabeth nodded.
“They’ll discharge him to his family as soon as he’s well enough, Colonel,” Heightmeyer said soothingly. Yeah, he definitely hated her now, it was official. “They won’t keep him any longer than they need to.”
“His family,” John said, deadpan. “This would be his sister, right? Who he hasn’t seen in years? Who lives in fucking Canada? Yeah, that’ll certainly help him get back on the horse again, help him get back here.” Ronon made a soft snarling noise and moved restlessly. Teyla’s hand tightened on his knee.
“Nonetheless, she is his family, John. It might be for the best that they’re reunited - we can’t know that.” Elizabeth was almost pleading with him. He hated her too, but at least he believed she was hurting, even if she was full of crap and about to make the wrong fucking decision.
“He needs to stay here.” John fixed her with his sternest Lieutenant Colonel stare, put his best command voice on. “Don’t do this, Elizabeth. It’s wrong. We can help him better here.”
Teyla shifted and straightened, spreading her hands on the table as though offering reason to Heightmeyer and Elizabeth. “Dr Weir, I must concur. This is Rodney’s home; we are his family. To exile a person - especially one who is troubled as Rodney is troubled - cannot have a happy outcome. Healing takes time, but most of all, it takes care and support. We can provide that, and I do not think that Rodney will receive the same attention and love in this hospital far away.”
“Yeah,” growled Ronon. “This is crap.”
Elizabeth looked down. When she lifted her head, her face was drawn and tired. “I’m sorry. I hear what you say, but the decision has been made at IOA level. Rodney will be sent back through the Stargate tomorrow morning. Teyla, Ronon, I know our ways are not your ways, but please believe me, this is a first-class hospital and there are treatments on Earth that are effective in ways you cannot imagine in Pegasus. I believe that this is for the best.”
The room erupted, John and Teyla protesting and Ronon growling as Heightmeyer repeated her arguments. Elizabeth raised her voice. “The meeting is closed. I’m sorry, there’s no more to be discussed. Make the most of the time you have left with Rodney. I’m not sure when we’ll be able to free-up any of you to go and visit with him there.”
Yeah, that’d be when pigs fucking fly, John thought viciously. Ronon gripped his shoulder and steered him out, Teyla leading the way. Her jaw was set, mouth a grim line. They were silent as they walked back to the infirmary. Ronon fingered his blaster.
======================
“You sure you can do this, Sheppard?” Ronon was in the passenger seat, with Teyla in back with Rodney.
“Yeah,” said John tightly, closing the rear hatch and lifting them up, out of the bay and toward the central well. Could he conspire with two Pegasus natives to desert his command and kidnap McKay? He swallowed. Sure thing.
It had been all go since the Atlantis night shift started and the city bedded down. They’d taken turns, leaving one person sitting with Rodney so as not to arouse suspicion, while the other two collected all the clothing and supplies they’d need and loaded it into duffels. Rodney’s favorite laptops, his toolkit and a naquadah generator he’d been fixing in his lab went into a bag as well. Damn heavy, but it was worth it.
Rodney had frowned when John explained that they had to leave, casting anxious looks between him and Teyla and twisting the sheet in his hands.
“It will be all right, Rodney. We will take care of you.” She’d rested her forehead against his and the familiar gesture seemed to calm him.
John hated to see him so indecisive, so lost. “C’mon then, Buddy, we gotta go now.” Rodney had come with them passively, holding Teyla’s hand. They’d picked the quietest time in the night, when the solitary nurse on duty at the entrance-way had gone for her coffee break. John had also raided the infirmary’s store room where they kept the more often-used meds, as opposed to the locked cupboard for Class A substances. They didn’t lock the main store room, and he’d been in there often enough to grab ibuprofen so he knew how it was organised. The prozac was obvious, instructions to take one a day printed right on the containers. He’d taken one with 300 pills inside. That was almost a year - surely it’d be enough?
He turned on the cloak. It wouldn’t disguise that a jumper had left its bay but the night-shift in the Gateroom these days didn’t watch for that sort of thing - Ford’s escape was long ago. They hovered invisibly in the Gateroom, the empty ring dead ahead. John lowered the hatch. Ronon gave him the nod and leaned out, stunner trained on the duty techs. From this angle, no-one could see inside, or shoot them. Well except for Ronon, but he’d insisted they cloak rather than shielding, to avoid notice for as long as possible.
Then it was pandemonium, John dialing and readying to switch from cloak to shield. Ronon roared threats, but a Gate tech ignored him and tried to override them. He got stunned for his trouble. The other was hiding under the console and Ronon swung inside as the last chevron locked. The hatch closed, shields up, and they were sliding forward into the rippling blue, with slugs from a couple of marines’ P-90s pinging impotently off the shield. Ronon had stunned two of them as well, before ducking inside.
No-one had seen John. He’d darkened the jumper’s windshield, but they’d know that he'd been flying. He wondered, before the wormhole took them, if they would ever be able to return. Ronon and Teyla planned to insist that they’d kidnapped him and Rodney and then held John at gunpoint and forced him to fly the jumper. John planned to insist that he’d ordered them to accompany him, pulling rank as team leader. He hadn’t told Teyla and Ronon that part yet; save that fight for later. He figured that if there was no hard evidence and their stories all contradicted, it was possible that the IOA and the USAF might not have a case so as to court-martial him. Yeah, right.
Four gates later they emerged into late afternoon sun on P5G-788. Ronon remembered the address from his time as a Runner, he called it Darona, which meant “caves” in Satedan. It was uninhabited, temperate, had good hunting, and the rocks were riddled with spherical caves. Not deep enough to save Ronon from the Wraith when he’d had the tracker in him, but useful to them now. AR4 had surveyed it from a jumper some time ago, finding no energy signatures, so it had been crossed off the list for missions. It was also a hell of a long way away - right across the far side of the galaxy and far beyond the long-range sensors, even if the IOA did get Radek to beef them up somehow. A good place to hide.
John set the jumper down where Ronon indicated. “Why here?” It all looked much the same - rocky outcrops behind them, some cavemouths, and grassland all around, dotted with groves of trees.
“You’ll see. I’m gonna find us a cave, check there’s no other tenants.”
“Thought this place was uninhabited?”
“Yeah, Sheppard, but there are cat-things. They like holing up in the caves same as we do.”
“Big cat-things? You need a hand?”
“Nah, not so big. S’okay, I got it covered.”
John helped Teyla settle Rodney into a nest of blankets in the grass while they unloaded essentials from the jumper. Rodney watched them apathetically. Teyla brought him water, and made him drink some of it. John brought him a prozac, explained what it was, and got Rodney to swallow it with some water. Rodney’s eyes were dull when he explained about the depression and that the medicine would help, there was no spark at all. It made John want to go and hit something hard, to throw himself against something smashable, to break. But he couldn’t break, not now.
That day, they moved only what they needed into the cave, which was kind of like a geodesic dome inside, but darker, lit only by light from the entrance. As the days passed, they gradually settled in, making thick pallets of dried grass to sleep on, and digging a latrine. Ronon’s choice of landing site was explained on day two when he took them in through a nearby cleft in the rocks to a pool at the base of a small cliff, fed by a hot spring and pleasantly warm, if sulfurous-smelling. Lying there later, once Teyla had soaked her fill, John realised that the caves were air bubbles in an ancient lava flow.
Ronon, John and Teyla took turns hunting. Generally it was Ronon with Teyla, or Ronon with John, while the other stayed with Rodney. There were goat-like things grazing the plains, remarkably trusting as they’d never been hunted, and quite good eating. Teyla and Ronon taught John about edible roots and plants, and Teyla gathered medicinals.
It would all have been positively idyllic, but for Rodney. Well, that and the knowledge that he’d trashed his career and any prospect of a return to Earth. John found that he could muster little concern about Earth, but guilt about abandoning Atlantis ate away at him.
Rodney was here, though, and Rodney needed him. They watched him closely, but the confusion and hallucinations did not return, as far as they could tell. Rodney talked very little - monosyllabic replies, and only if asked, never spontaneously. He just sat and lay about, doing very little, watching them go about their tasks with a blank gaze. He slept very little, so they took watches throughout the night, making sure he was never alone.
On the third day John took him to the hot spring and made him strip and get in, clambering in beside him. Rodney was getting a little rank by then but he didn’t seem to care. John found he was talking to him as he would to a horse he was grooming - washing Rodney down, even washing his hair, while he murmured soothing nonsense. It was intimate, yes, but in no way sexual. Rodney in this wan, tired state stirred nothing but protectiveness in John.
Sometimes, on the night watch, with Rodney lying staring into nothing or with eyes shut but clearly not sleeping, John fought to keep panic at bay. What if Heightmeyer was right, and Rodney was broken in ways that were beyond their power to fix? What if the prozac didn’t work? Was one a day, as it said on the container, the right dose? When would it start to work - it had been a week now and there was no change at all, except that he was cleaner and smelled slightly of sulphur, as they all did. Jesus, he’d been unhinged to bring Rodney away, he wasn’t a doctor, he had no real idea how to help him. Staying awake through his watch was no problem. Getting to sleep when Teyla relieved him was infinitely harder.
Rodney had lost weight, but he was eating. Teyla was best at persuading him, gently insistent. Watching him force down a few bites, John had to leave the cave and pace about outside, clenching his fists. He thought of Rodney’s former appetite, his greed for blue jello and pudding cups, for power bars and knowledge. Would it ever return? He seemed so…depleted.
Ronon joined him outside, staring out at the orange horizon as the sun set and three small moons rose one after another. “You gotta give him time, Sheppard.”
“Yeah, but how much, Ronon?”
“Dunno, but more than this. It’s only been a week.”
The silence stretched out between them, filled by the soft sounds of alien animals in an alien night. “I’ve got no fucking idea what I’m doing, Ronon,” John said, his throat tight.
“Yeah, I know, Sheppard. It’s okay.” Ronon gave him the one armed hug. “We‘ve just gotta look after him, that’s all.”
======================
After two weeks and still no change, John realised that Ronon and Teyla were managing him just as much as they were managing Rodney. Ronon took him running - they called it hunting, but in fact he followed Ronon at an easy jog out across the grassland for what seemed like miles, feet pounding the springy turf as his mind slowly cleared of the endless worries about Rodney, Atlantis, Rodney, Atlantis. He felt clearer afterwards, calmer. Teyla made him train with her, while Ronon sat with Rodney. She took him to a patch of grass they’d trampled down flat and put him through his paces with the bantos rods. Later, sweaty, and bruised in some interesting places, he made Rodney walk a little then took him for the ritual of their daily bath in the spring.
They had settled into a pattern, their days bound by hunting and gathering, fetching water from the nearby creek, by training and taking watch and inventorying their supplies. Sometimes they talked about how long they could stay on Darona. John and Ronon and Teyla talked, that is, while Rodney listened silently, or spaced out; John couldn’t really tell.
They still had MREs and powerbars, eked out by their hunting and foraging. Medical supplies were very limited, but they did have some antibiotics, although very little morphine. So far, on Darona, nothing had tried to kill them, a refreshing change. Teyla talked of markets they could visit, to trade some of their equipment if need be. Markets very far from Atlantis, but known to the Athosians. John felt like an idiot: he felt guilty about Atlantis, but he had forgotten her responsibilities to her own people.
The days seemed a little warmer - perhaps it was the local equivalent of spring? One day when John brought Rodney back from their bath in the hot pool, he found Ronon and Teyla crouched over something wrapped up in a blanket. Something wriggling and making spitting, yowling noises.
“It’s a cat-thing,” Ronon said. “I found a nest of them down by the creek, but the mother was gone, probably killed, and the other two young were dead. This one’s not, though.”
“Yeah, I can hear that,” John said, lifting up the blanket and getting his finger nipped. “Ow, dammit, you little-”
“We must try feeding it. I will get the left-over meat from last night.” Teyla cut up some raw meat and offered it to the small furry thing in the bundle. The animal hooked the meat down with a clawed paw through the hole in the blanket, hissing fiercely. It took another piece, and another.
“Not too much,” Ronon said. “Not good if it’s been starving.” He lifted the bundle, which was no longer hissing, and brought it over to where Rodney lay, nestled back in his usual heap of blankets just inside the cave mouth.
“Careful now, Ronon, it might claw him…” John trailed off, Teyla’s hand restraining his arm.
“Look after this will you, McKay?” Ronon said casually. “It’s a cat-thing.” He tucked the bundle in beside Rodney and left it there, rejoining them at the fire.
Rodney pushed himself up on one elbow, peering down into the bundle, from which occasional squeaks emerged. He pulled it against himself and lay down again, curling around the small animal. After a while he eased the bundle open and began stroking the cat-thing’s fur. A faint purring began to emanate from the nest of blankets. Rodney’s face was half-hidden, but John thought that he might be smiling.
Rodney took over the animal’s care, and for the first time he began to do things without someone else prodding or encouraging him. He fed his new friend and got it to drink water. Ronon made a toy out of a leather lacing with a grass bundle tied to the end, and he teased the cat-thing, actually emerging from his own bed to play with it, although he got winded easily.
It wasn’t really a cat at all, John saw, now that it was running around. More a cat-opossum-otter, with a pointier nose and prominent whiskers, thick fur striped in shades of brown, a bushy black-tipped tail, a cream belly and much shorter legs than a Terran cat. It squeaked and trilled differently from a cat, as well, but it also mewed and purred, or spat and hissed when it was annoyed. Rodney often sat with it purring in his lap, and at other times they could be found sacked out together, the cat-thing curled against Rodney and both of them making soft snuffling noises in their sleep. On the third day, Rodney said “Tiger. He’s called Tiger.”
“Okay,” said John easily, trying to disguise the way his heart was pounding. “Hi, Tiger.” He reached out his hand and gingerly stroked Tiger’s cream furry belly. Tiger bit him. “Ow, fuck, little bastard’s living up to his name.”
Rodney shot him an amused glance and hello - there was life on Mars. About fucking time. “He doesn’t like his stomach being touched.”
“He lets you,” John said, sucking his injured finger.
“He trusts me,” Rodney said softly, stroking under Tiger’s chin. The purring started up again.
That day, as John knelt behind him in the hot spring, Rodney pressed up into his hand like a cat as he massaged in the shampoo. “Be able to let you wash yourself pretty soon,” John said, because he was an idiot, sluicing Rodney’s head with the aluminum cup they kept by the spring.
Rodney shook his head, droplets flying, and wiped water out of his eyes. He half-turned, taking John’s dogtags in his hand, holding onto them. “I like it when you do it.”
======================
Rodney recovered steadily, after that. He was still quiet but he talked more, moved about more, ate better. He seemed to be sleeping more normally as well, but they kept up their watches, in case of Wraith or unforseen predators.
In the fourth week, John got back from hunting with Ronon to find Rodney poring over his laptop. He was just playing sudoku, but still. Two days after that he was rummaging in the jumper, finding crystals, hooking laptops up together, humming quietly under his breath.
John peered over his shoulder at the screen. “Whatcha doing?”
Rodney snorted. “Wouldn’t you like to know? Quit backseat driving John, you’re worse than Tiger.” Tiger was curled up in a mound of blankets at Rodney’s side, bright black eyes following the movements of Rodney’s hands. “He kept trying to sit on the keyboard. I think he’s jealous he’s not getting all the attention.”
“Huh. Am not attention-seeking.”
Rodney shot him a crooked grin. “Yeah, right. Dream on.”
“Will you have tea, John?” Teyla called from the fire.
“Yeah, thanks. I’m coming.” He rested a hand on Rodney’s shoulder, too thin but warm under the cotton T. “Want some?”
“Let me see, do I want a beverage that tastes like grass clippings, possibly as it’s made from grass clippings, as opposed to a nice strong cup of caffeine-filled coffee? Hmmm, tough one.”
“There’s not much coffee left, just what’s in the MRE packs.”
“Yes, and I hold you responsible for that appalling lack of planning, Colonel Dumbo,” Rodney shot back.
John grinned, rising up from his crouch. He’d missed the snark. “Sorry Rodney, we were kinda busy at the time.”
Rodney stilled, hands freezing on the keyboard. “I know. Thank you, I know what you…what you all…”
John rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s okay. You’d’ve done it for any of us.”
Rodney looked up, his face pained. “Would I? All I do is get things wrong, get people killed.”
John crouched back down again, then sat. “That what this is about? The people we’ve lost? ’Cause I’ve been responsible for a fair few myself.” He looked down at his hands.
Teyla appeared at the jumper hatch and handed him a mug of straw-colored tea. He sipped it: it did taste like grass, but he was getting used to it.
“Thanks. Where’s Ronon?”
“He is at the spring, bathing.” Teyla sat down beside them, cross-legged, nursing her tea. “You did nothing wrong, Rodney, when the jumper crashed into the ocean. It was not your fault.”
Rodney looked away. “He was going on and on about tomatoes. And Spaniards. The drive pod was misfiring and I couldn’t shut it off, there was no time.” He swallowed. “Why would he do that? Griffin? Go forward to close the bulkhead doors manually when the mechanism jammed? He must have known that he, that it…” He looked down.
“It was his job to keep you safe,” John said. “He was a soldier.”
“He was a brave man, and he made a brave choice.” Teyla rested a hand on Rodney’s shoulder. He shifted restlessly, but didn’t pull away. “He valued you: we all do.”
“Don’t…” Rodney’s voice was choked with tears. “I’m not…”
“Yeah, you are,” said John.
Tiger clambered into Rodney’s lap, butting at his hand. He stroked the animal absently. Teyla squeezed his shoulder.
Ronon stuck his head into the hatch, smelling strongly of sulfur. “We going hunting?”
======================
Elizabeth read John’s letter again, brought to Atlantis by one of the Athosians. She would send her reply the same way. They were all okay. Rodney was recovering well and he had even reconfigured the jumper’s scanners and located a shielded installation on a planet they’d already written off, which they were going to explore. The planet was not named, of course. She smiled wryly and picked up her pen.
I can intercede for you with SGC and the airforce, John. We managed to hush most of the details up, and neither Kate or Carson will cause difficulties. Carson’s put it about that you and Rodney were suffering from the after-effects of prolonged deep-sea submersion, and Radek obligingly took a few days off and received “treatment” as well (I think, vitamin C). The official line is that you made Ronon and Teyla assist you while delirious, and that now you must have all run into a difficulty and gotten stuck somewhere. It’s not as though we haven’t had that sort of thing happen before, not to mention all SG1’s misadventures. Just come home. Please.
After a moment she added one last line.
I’m sorry I agreed to send Rodney back to Earth. I was wrong.
======================
Teyla and Ronon had already gone hunting by the time John woke up with a headache, his mouth furred.
Beside him, Rodney groaned. “Gah, why did I drink all that Athosian wine last night? My head’s falling off. Which would be a considerable improvement.”
John found some painkillers and handed two to Rodney, passing him the water container after he’d knocked back his own pills. He tossed Rodney the prozac bottle as well.
“Ah, my happy pills. Better living through chemistry.” Rodney fished one out and swallowed it.
“Worked, though,” John yawned, casting about for his sweats.
“Yeah, I guess. Although Tiger was a more immediate comfort, I have to say.” He extricated himself from underneath the snoring animal, all four paws in the air. John knew better that to try to rub that tempting cream-furred belly.
“C’mon, Rodney, bathtime.”
“Yes, yes, hold your horses, I just have to check the tests I was running last night on the you-know-what. I’ll join you there in five.”
John shrugged. He knew Rodney would probably get sidetracked and have to be dragged out of the jumper later on, but whatever. It was a special day, after all. He stripped rapidly and immersed himself. God, but that was good. He closed his eyes.
“John! John!” Rodney was already in the water, splashing over to his perch on a favorite flat rock. Then Rodney was pressed up against John and kissing him, all wet and warm and…oh yeah.
“I really should be insulted. Or jealous. I think you’re seeing someone else. Someone all red and yellow and glowy.” But it was hard to feel anything other than happy with an incandescent Rodney rubbing against him. “It’s good news then?”
“Half-charged, John, the damn thing’s half-charged!”
They grinned wildly at each other.
“Whereas I, Rodney, am fully charged.”
“I’ll just need to check that empirically” Rodney said, eyes round and blue. “You can never have too much data, after all.”
- the end
Author: Santa (aka mific)
Recipient: Pinch Hitter # 1
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard (and team)
Rating: R
Wordcount: 6192
Disclaimer: Don’t own them, just like playing with them.
Summary: H/C and angst, but I promise, no actual dying. Follows “Grace Under Pressure”, but goes AU I guess, unless you envisage the next ep (“The Tower”), as happening quite a bit later.
======================
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.
Stevie Smith - Not Waving But Drowning
======================
They got Rodney out of the sea, but they couldn’t get the sea out of Rodney.
John, Teyla and Ronon took turns sitting with him in the infirmary, and for a while it seemed okay. He had an IV line, and machines that went ping, and the ancient scanners gave him the once over. Normal post-mission stuff, when one of them was injured. He’d been sedated, so he slept, and Carson pronounced himself happy with the treatment of his hypothermia, congratulating Radek on doing the right things as they’d resurfaced. He wasn’t injured, Carson said, just dehydrated and cold.
It was when he woke up the next day that the problems began. He seemed confused, asking plaintively for Carter and staring around at things no-one else could see, jumping at shadows. Carson called Heightmeyer in of course, and they frowned and muttered together after she’d seen Rodney until John couldn’t take it any more.
“Just - what the fuck’s wrong with him?” He asked Carson urgently, pulling him aside. Teyla was sitting with Rodney; he seemed to be calmer if one of the team was there, even though he wasn’t able to talk with them coherently. Elizabeth hovered, looking worried, but Rodney didn’t want to see her, or anyone other than John, Teyla or Ronon. Ronon hadn’t been able to stand it, he’d gone to the gym to beat up some marines. “Is it the bends or something? I thought that wasn’t possible in a jumper, that they compensated-”
“It’’s not decompression sickness, Colonel. The scans are all fine.”
“Then what-?”
Carson patted his arm reassuringly. John clenched his jaw; he didn’t need to be patronised, he needed answers, dammit.
“I’m not sure I can talk with you about it, there’s patient confidentiality-”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, Carson, we’re his family here. We’re his team. We’re the only ones he wants around him, except maybe for Carter, and she’s back at the SGC. Just give me some idea what the hell’s going on!”
Carson looked pained, but he nodded. “Very well. We’re not really sure what it is, I’m afraid. Kate thinks it may be post-traumatic stress with a stress-induced psychotic break. He seems to be hallucinating - seeing Colonel Carter, going on about whales, hearing voices.” Carson shot John a look. “To be honest, it’s been coming for a while, Colonel. I mean, he destroyed most of a solar system, and then you turned into a bug-” John flinched, and Carson shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sorry, I - I’m sorry, lad, I’m a little tired. That was uncalled-for. But you didn’t see him withdrawing from the Wraith enzyme; he’d taken a near-lethal dose and the detox half-killed him. I don’t think he’s been quite right since then, to be honest. Not that any of you’ve had any respite. As soon as he was coherent again after the enzyme overdose he had to head off with the Daedalus to try to rescue you from the Hive. And then when the Hives exploded…he thought you were all dead. It broke him, John, and I’m not sure he really believed it when he got back and there you were, all three alive.” John recalled Rodney’s stunned face, his: why aren’t you dead? Carson sighed. “He’s always been highly strung, well…” Caron shrugged, “I don’t need to tell you that. He’s Rodney. Even before Pegasus he was a walking bundle of neuroses. It’s not so much a shock that he’s broken now, but that he didn’t break months ago.”
“I don’t believe it.” John didn’t want to hear this bullshit. “Rodney’s stronger than you’d think, and braver than most of the goddam marines, in a pinch. Well, as brave. He’s not gonna totally lose it just because he gets stuck in a jumper.”
“You don’t know how he’s been John, not really. You lost six months in the time dilation field - yes, I know Rodney didn’t lose you for that long, but he knew. He was the only one who really understood what was happening, how long it was for you. He blamed himself that you were trapped there so long, that you thought we’d abandoned you.”
John grimaced, thinking how betrayed he’d felt, how he’d been unable not to carp on about it a bit when they’d finally shown up. Damn.
“So what do we do then, to fix him? What does Heightmeyer say? Doesn’t he just need some sleep? Knock him out with the good drugs until he’s properly rested?” Rodney never slept enough. John was used to dragging him out of his lab in the small hours and frogmarching him back to his quarters. He probably didn’t sleep much, even so, but what could John have done - gone in with him? Stayed in his room and supervised to make sure he didn’t just open up his laptop again? Try explaining that one away if it got back to Caldwell: Yes Sir, I was just ensuring Dr McKay got to sleep - Oh really Colonel, you were sleeping together? - yeah, no, especially as he’d want to, he’d be tempted... Hell. Not that anyone was taking much notice of Caldwell these days after he’d been snaked, so maybe he should have just…
“John?” Crap, now Carson was frowning at him.
“Uh, yeah, sorry about that. Thinking. You were saying?” He tried to look half way sensible.
Carson rubbed his stubbled jaw. He had dark rings under his eyes, too; no-one got enough sleep on Atlantis. “Well, Kate and I think Rodney needs more than sleep, Colonel. And no, I can’t pump him full of opiates and swap one problem for another, that’s no answer. He needs antipsychotic medication and a complete break, maybe antidepressants as well, but it’s too soon to tell.”
John tensed. “You can’t send him back to Earth. Anything could…it’s not safe. The Trust, and…” And they might not let him come back. “He needs to be with us, with people he knows.” Carson tried to say something, but John overrode him. “Yeah, I know there’s his sister, but he hasn’t seen her in years, Carson, it’s not the same as us. We’re his team.” He wasn’t pleading, so why did he feel like a kid again, powerless? Rodney would have said it was all voodoo, he’d have hated this.
Carson sighed. “It may not be my decision, or Kate’s, in the end. Elizabeth might not have a choice, if he doesn’t pull out of this quickly. The IOA might insist on recalling him.”
“Not gonna happen.” John made himself relax, his hands were fisted, nails cutting into his palms.
“Let’s hope not, no.” Carson’s eyes were kind, concerned.
John turned away, heading blindly back to Teyla and to Rodney, to his team.
======================
They gave Rodney drugs, and he quieted a little. He wasn’t so confused, and he didn’t talk to Carter any more, or call out for her. Maybe he wasn’t hearing the voices any more, or he was recovered enough to shut up about it, anyway.
Heightmeyer came and went, looking grave. She wouldn’t say what she talked about with Rodney and they wouldn’t let the team stay when she was seeing him; he got wheeled into a private room off the infirmary. John hated it, and he sensed that Teyla didn’t like it either. Rodney just seemed lost, staring back at them forlornly as he was wheeled away by an orderly. Teyla reached out and gripped John’s hand, and he squeezed it gratefully. Ronon made a harsh noise and paced up and down in the hallway.
Rodney was oddly listless, even with the team, hardly smiling and somehow slowed, not his usual quicksilver self. He seemed to doze a lot, and maybe that was the drugs, or maybe he just didn’t want to talk; John suspected it was the latter. Teasing and tall stories about John’s College days all failed to get a rise out of him, just a wan smile on a good day. Teyla sat and sang to Rodney quietly; John thought they might be lullabies. Ronon recited Satedan epic poetry about brave warriors that featured a lot of detail about weapons and fighting technique. Rodney shut his eyes.
After two weeks, Elizabeth called them to a meeting. John collected Teyla and Ronon before heading for the conference room: he didn’t want to be in there alone. His stomach hurt. Elizabeth had called in Carson and Heightmeyer, also Radek. This was it, then.
“I know how stressful this must be-” she started.
“Doubt it,” John ground out, hands clasped before him on the table, knuckles white.
Elizabeth frowned. “I care about Rodney too, John.”
He hunched his shoulders, then made himself calm down. “Yeah. Sorry.”
She turned to Carson and Heightmeyer. “Can you bring us up to date with Rodney’s progress, please?”
Carson looked at Heightmeyer, who inclined her head and spoke. “It seems most likely to be a stress-related disorder.” John hated that word: disorder. He tried not to hate Heightmeyer’s bland, smiling, professional façade. It was hard. “He was psychotic initially - apparently brought on by the isolation and fear when he was trapped in the puddlejumper, and the sensory deprivation. That seems to have settled, or at least he’s not admitting to it at present.” Elizabeth’s face tightened. Heightmeyer continued her report. “But he’s quite depressed, as I think we’ll all have seen. Withdrawn, not talking much, low energy. He’s not eating a lot and his concentration’s poor.”
Radek nodded. “I have tried to interest him in our new system to recalibrate power grid.” He shrugged expressively. “Nothing. He turns away, will not even look at laptop screen. This is not Rodney.” His face was miserable, etched with worry.
John bit his lip. “So - you mentioned antidepressants, Carson - that he might need them? Is he gonna start on those?” Too many damn drugs, too much voodoo.
Carson shifted, uncomfortably. To John’s left, Ronon tensed. Bad news, then. Teyla had her “difficult negotiations” face on. Shit.
“Well, yes, he needs to start something, like an SSRI. We have prozac, that should work. But…” He looked across at Heightmeyer, and trailed off.
She picked up the baton. “But that won’t be enough. He needs a complete break, to get away. Professional help.” She held up a hand, palm out, forestalling his protest. “Yes, I’m a professional but we have limited resources here to treat him compared to Earth, and depression can take months for a full recovery. If the medications don’t work, he might need ECT, or-”
“No fucking way!” John was on his feet, chair overturned. Ronon hadn’t gotten up but he was poised, muscles tense, ready to act on John’s word. “You want to zap his brain? Rodney’s brain? He’s never gonna say yes to that!”
Heightmeyer gazed at him calmly, her eyes sad. “It’s a very effective treatment for depression, John, and he may not have a choice, if this doesn’t improve. He’s not fully competent to decide-”
“Oh, I have heard enough of this bullshit!” John wheeled, accusing. “Elizabeth, this is wrong. It’s Rodney, we can’t-”
“John,” she said. “Sit down, please.” She stared him down. Finally, he sat. Ronon remained tense. Poised. “We’re all concerned. We’re all stressed. This is hard for everyone.” John sucked in a breath, counted to ten. Teyla put her hand on his knee, under the table. He slid his own hand on top of it, gripped it hard. Elizabeth nodded. “Thank you. The IOA have decided: he’s to go home, to a private hospital they have for the SGC there, and for Special Forces personnel. It’s very well-resourced, they have psychotherapists, modern-”
“It’s a prison,” John gritted out. “As far as they’re concerned he’s crazy, right? He’s a security risk, might say anything. They’re not gonna let him out of there once he goes in. And, they’re sure as shit not gonna let him come back here again!”
Elizabeth and Heightmeyer both spoke at once. “We don’t-” “They won’t-” Elizabeth nodded.
“They’ll discharge him to his family as soon as he’s well enough, Colonel,” Heightmeyer said soothingly. Yeah, he definitely hated her now, it was official. “They won’t keep him any longer than they need to.”
“His family,” John said, deadpan. “This would be his sister, right? Who he hasn’t seen in years? Who lives in fucking Canada? Yeah, that’ll certainly help him get back on the horse again, help him get back here.” Ronon made a soft snarling noise and moved restlessly. Teyla’s hand tightened on his knee.
“Nonetheless, she is his family, John. It might be for the best that they’re reunited - we can’t know that.” Elizabeth was almost pleading with him. He hated her too, but at least he believed she was hurting, even if she was full of crap and about to make the wrong fucking decision.
“He needs to stay here.” John fixed her with his sternest Lieutenant Colonel stare, put his best command voice on. “Don’t do this, Elizabeth. It’s wrong. We can help him better here.”
Teyla shifted and straightened, spreading her hands on the table as though offering reason to Heightmeyer and Elizabeth. “Dr Weir, I must concur. This is Rodney’s home; we are his family. To exile a person - especially one who is troubled as Rodney is troubled - cannot have a happy outcome. Healing takes time, but most of all, it takes care and support. We can provide that, and I do not think that Rodney will receive the same attention and love in this hospital far away.”
“Yeah,” growled Ronon. “This is crap.”
Elizabeth looked down. When she lifted her head, her face was drawn and tired. “I’m sorry. I hear what you say, but the decision has been made at IOA level. Rodney will be sent back through the Stargate tomorrow morning. Teyla, Ronon, I know our ways are not your ways, but please believe me, this is a first-class hospital and there are treatments on Earth that are effective in ways you cannot imagine in Pegasus. I believe that this is for the best.”
The room erupted, John and Teyla protesting and Ronon growling as Heightmeyer repeated her arguments. Elizabeth raised her voice. “The meeting is closed. I’m sorry, there’s no more to be discussed. Make the most of the time you have left with Rodney. I’m not sure when we’ll be able to free-up any of you to go and visit with him there.”
Yeah, that’d be when pigs fucking fly, John thought viciously. Ronon gripped his shoulder and steered him out, Teyla leading the way. Her jaw was set, mouth a grim line. They were silent as they walked back to the infirmary. Ronon fingered his blaster.
======================
“You sure you can do this, Sheppard?” Ronon was in the passenger seat, with Teyla in back with Rodney.
“Yeah,” said John tightly, closing the rear hatch and lifting them up, out of the bay and toward the central well. Could he conspire with two Pegasus natives to desert his command and kidnap McKay? He swallowed. Sure thing.
It had been all go since the Atlantis night shift started and the city bedded down. They’d taken turns, leaving one person sitting with Rodney so as not to arouse suspicion, while the other two collected all the clothing and supplies they’d need and loaded it into duffels. Rodney’s favorite laptops, his toolkit and a naquadah generator he’d been fixing in his lab went into a bag as well. Damn heavy, but it was worth it.
Rodney had frowned when John explained that they had to leave, casting anxious looks between him and Teyla and twisting the sheet in his hands.
“It will be all right, Rodney. We will take care of you.” She’d rested her forehead against his and the familiar gesture seemed to calm him.
John hated to see him so indecisive, so lost. “C’mon then, Buddy, we gotta go now.” Rodney had come with them passively, holding Teyla’s hand. They’d picked the quietest time in the night, when the solitary nurse on duty at the entrance-way had gone for her coffee break. John had also raided the infirmary’s store room where they kept the more often-used meds, as opposed to the locked cupboard for Class A substances. They didn’t lock the main store room, and he’d been in there often enough to grab ibuprofen so he knew how it was organised. The prozac was obvious, instructions to take one a day printed right on the containers. He’d taken one with 300 pills inside. That was almost a year - surely it’d be enough?
He turned on the cloak. It wouldn’t disguise that a jumper had left its bay but the night-shift in the Gateroom these days didn’t watch for that sort of thing - Ford’s escape was long ago. They hovered invisibly in the Gateroom, the empty ring dead ahead. John lowered the hatch. Ronon gave him the nod and leaned out, stunner trained on the duty techs. From this angle, no-one could see inside, or shoot them. Well except for Ronon, but he’d insisted they cloak rather than shielding, to avoid notice for as long as possible.
Then it was pandemonium, John dialing and readying to switch from cloak to shield. Ronon roared threats, but a Gate tech ignored him and tried to override them. He got stunned for his trouble. The other was hiding under the console and Ronon swung inside as the last chevron locked. The hatch closed, shields up, and they were sliding forward into the rippling blue, with slugs from a couple of marines’ P-90s pinging impotently off the shield. Ronon had stunned two of them as well, before ducking inside.
No-one had seen John. He’d darkened the jumper’s windshield, but they’d know that he'd been flying. He wondered, before the wormhole took them, if they would ever be able to return. Ronon and Teyla planned to insist that they’d kidnapped him and Rodney and then held John at gunpoint and forced him to fly the jumper. John planned to insist that he’d ordered them to accompany him, pulling rank as team leader. He hadn’t told Teyla and Ronon that part yet; save that fight for later. He figured that if there was no hard evidence and their stories all contradicted, it was possible that the IOA and the USAF might not have a case so as to court-martial him. Yeah, right.
Four gates later they emerged into late afternoon sun on P5G-788. Ronon remembered the address from his time as a Runner, he called it Darona, which meant “caves” in Satedan. It was uninhabited, temperate, had good hunting, and the rocks were riddled with spherical caves. Not deep enough to save Ronon from the Wraith when he’d had the tracker in him, but useful to them now. AR4 had surveyed it from a jumper some time ago, finding no energy signatures, so it had been crossed off the list for missions. It was also a hell of a long way away - right across the far side of the galaxy and far beyond the long-range sensors, even if the IOA did get Radek to beef them up somehow. A good place to hide.
John set the jumper down where Ronon indicated. “Why here?” It all looked much the same - rocky outcrops behind them, some cavemouths, and grassland all around, dotted with groves of trees.
“You’ll see. I’m gonna find us a cave, check there’s no other tenants.”
“Thought this place was uninhabited?”
“Yeah, Sheppard, but there are cat-things. They like holing up in the caves same as we do.”
“Big cat-things? You need a hand?”
“Nah, not so big. S’okay, I got it covered.”
John helped Teyla settle Rodney into a nest of blankets in the grass while they unloaded essentials from the jumper. Rodney watched them apathetically. Teyla brought him water, and made him drink some of it. John brought him a prozac, explained what it was, and got Rodney to swallow it with some water. Rodney’s eyes were dull when he explained about the depression and that the medicine would help, there was no spark at all. It made John want to go and hit something hard, to throw himself against something smashable, to break. But he couldn’t break, not now.
That day, they moved only what they needed into the cave, which was kind of like a geodesic dome inside, but darker, lit only by light from the entrance. As the days passed, they gradually settled in, making thick pallets of dried grass to sleep on, and digging a latrine. Ronon’s choice of landing site was explained on day two when he took them in through a nearby cleft in the rocks to a pool at the base of a small cliff, fed by a hot spring and pleasantly warm, if sulfurous-smelling. Lying there later, once Teyla had soaked her fill, John realised that the caves were air bubbles in an ancient lava flow.
Ronon, John and Teyla took turns hunting. Generally it was Ronon with Teyla, or Ronon with John, while the other stayed with Rodney. There were goat-like things grazing the plains, remarkably trusting as they’d never been hunted, and quite good eating. Teyla and Ronon taught John about edible roots and plants, and Teyla gathered medicinals.
It would all have been positively idyllic, but for Rodney. Well, that and the knowledge that he’d trashed his career and any prospect of a return to Earth. John found that he could muster little concern about Earth, but guilt about abandoning Atlantis ate away at him.
Rodney was here, though, and Rodney needed him. They watched him closely, but the confusion and hallucinations did not return, as far as they could tell. Rodney talked very little - monosyllabic replies, and only if asked, never spontaneously. He just sat and lay about, doing very little, watching them go about their tasks with a blank gaze. He slept very little, so they took watches throughout the night, making sure he was never alone.
On the third day John took him to the hot spring and made him strip and get in, clambering in beside him. Rodney was getting a little rank by then but he didn’t seem to care. John found he was talking to him as he would to a horse he was grooming - washing Rodney down, even washing his hair, while he murmured soothing nonsense. It was intimate, yes, but in no way sexual. Rodney in this wan, tired state stirred nothing but protectiveness in John.
Sometimes, on the night watch, with Rodney lying staring into nothing or with eyes shut but clearly not sleeping, John fought to keep panic at bay. What if Heightmeyer was right, and Rodney was broken in ways that were beyond their power to fix? What if the prozac didn’t work? Was one a day, as it said on the container, the right dose? When would it start to work - it had been a week now and there was no change at all, except that he was cleaner and smelled slightly of sulphur, as they all did. Jesus, he’d been unhinged to bring Rodney away, he wasn’t a doctor, he had no real idea how to help him. Staying awake through his watch was no problem. Getting to sleep when Teyla relieved him was infinitely harder.
Rodney had lost weight, but he was eating. Teyla was best at persuading him, gently insistent. Watching him force down a few bites, John had to leave the cave and pace about outside, clenching his fists. He thought of Rodney’s former appetite, his greed for blue jello and pudding cups, for power bars and knowledge. Would it ever return? He seemed so…depleted.
Ronon joined him outside, staring out at the orange horizon as the sun set and three small moons rose one after another. “You gotta give him time, Sheppard.”
“Yeah, but how much, Ronon?”
“Dunno, but more than this. It’s only been a week.”
The silence stretched out between them, filled by the soft sounds of alien animals in an alien night. “I’ve got no fucking idea what I’m doing, Ronon,” John said, his throat tight.
“Yeah, I know, Sheppard. It’s okay.” Ronon gave him the one armed hug. “We‘ve just gotta look after him, that’s all.”
======================
After two weeks and still no change, John realised that Ronon and Teyla were managing him just as much as they were managing Rodney. Ronon took him running - they called it hunting, but in fact he followed Ronon at an easy jog out across the grassland for what seemed like miles, feet pounding the springy turf as his mind slowly cleared of the endless worries about Rodney, Atlantis, Rodney, Atlantis. He felt clearer afterwards, calmer. Teyla made him train with her, while Ronon sat with Rodney. She took him to a patch of grass they’d trampled down flat and put him through his paces with the bantos rods. Later, sweaty, and bruised in some interesting places, he made Rodney walk a little then took him for the ritual of their daily bath in the spring.
They had settled into a pattern, their days bound by hunting and gathering, fetching water from the nearby creek, by training and taking watch and inventorying their supplies. Sometimes they talked about how long they could stay on Darona. John and Ronon and Teyla talked, that is, while Rodney listened silently, or spaced out; John couldn’t really tell.
They still had MREs and powerbars, eked out by their hunting and foraging. Medical supplies were very limited, but they did have some antibiotics, although very little morphine. So far, on Darona, nothing had tried to kill them, a refreshing change. Teyla talked of markets they could visit, to trade some of their equipment if need be. Markets very far from Atlantis, but known to the Athosians. John felt like an idiot: he felt guilty about Atlantis, but he had forgotten her responsibilities to her own people.
The days seemed a little warmer - perhaps it was the local equivalent of spring? One day when John brought Rodney back from their bath in the hot pool, he found Ronon and Teyla crouched over something wrapped up in a blanket. Something wriggling and making spitting, yowling noises.
“It’s a cat-thing,” Ronon said. “I found a nest of them down by the creek, but the mother was gone, probably killed, and the other two young were dead. This one’s not, though.”
“Yeah, I can hear that,” John said, lifting up the blanket and getting his finger nipped. “Ow, dammit, you little-”
“We must try feeding it. I will get the left-over meat from last night.” Teyla cut up some raw meat and offered it to the small furry thing in the bundle. The animal hooked the meat down with a clawed paw through the hole in the blanket, hissing fiercely. It took another piece, and another.
“Not too much,” Ronon said. “Not good if it’s been starving.” He lifted the bundle, which was no longer hissing, and brought it over to where Rodney lay, nestled back in his usual heap of blankets just inside the cave mouth.
“Careful now, Ronon, it might claw him…” John trailed off, Teyla’s hand restraining his arm.
“Look after this will you, McKay?” Ronon said casually. “It’s a cat-thing.” He tucked the bundle in beside Rodney and left it there, rejoining them at the fire.
Rodney pushed himself up on one elbow, peering down into the bundle, from which occasional squeaks emerged. He pulled it against himself and lay down again, curling around the small animal. After a while he eased the bundle open and began stroking the cat-thing’s fur. A faint purring began to emanate from the nest of blankets. Rodney’s face was half-hidden, but John thought that he might be smiling.
Rodney took over the animal’s care, and for the first time he began to do things without someone else prodding or encouraging him. He fed his new friend and got it to drink water. Ronon made a toy out of a leather lacing with a grass bundle tied to the end, and he teased the cat-thing, actually emerging from his own bed to play with it, although he got winded easily.
It wasn’t really a cat at all, John saw, now that it was running around. More a cat-opossum-otter, with a pointier nose and prominent whiskers, thick fur striped in shades of brown, a bushy black-tipped tail, a cream belly and much shorter legs than a Terran cat. It squeaked and trilled differently from a cat, as well, but it also mewed and purred, or spat and hissed when it was annoyed. Rodney often sat with it purring in his lap, and at other times they could be found sacked out together, the cat-thing curled against Rodney and both of them making soft snuffling noises in their sleep. On the third day, Rodney said “Tiger. He’s called Tiger.”
“Okay,” said John easily, trying to disguise the way his heart was pounding. “Hi, Tiger.” He reached out his hand and gingerly stroked Tiger’s cream furry belly. Tiger bit him. “Ow, fuck, little bastard’s living up to his name.”
Rodney shot him an amused glance and hello - there was life on Mars. About fucking time. “He doesn’t like his stomach being touched.”
“He lets you,” John said, sucking his injured finger.
“He trusts me,” Rodney said softly, stroking under Tiger’s chin. The purring started up again.
That day, as John knelt behind him in the hot spring, Rodney pressed up into his hand like a cat as he massaged in the shampoo. “Be able to let you wash yourself pretty soon,” John said, because he was an idiot, sluicing Rodney’s head with the aluminum cup they kept by the spring.
Rodney shook his head, droplets flying, and wiped water out of his eyes. He half-turned, taking John’s dogtags in his hand, holding onto them. “I like it when you do it.”
======================
Rodney recovered steadily, after that. He was still quiet but he talked more, moved about more, ate better. He seemed to be sleeping more normally as well, but they kept up their watches, in case of Wraith or unforseen predators.
In the fourth week, John got back from hunting with Ronon to find Rodney poring over his laptop. He was just playing sudoku, but still. Two days after that he was rummaging in the jumper, finding crystals, hooking laptops up together, humming quietly under his breath.
John peered over his shoulder at the screen. “Whatcha doing?”
Rodney snorted. “Wouldn’t you like to know? Quit backseat driving John, you’re worse than Tiger.” Tiger was curled up in a mound of blankets at Rodney’s side, bright black eyes following the movements of Rodney’s hands. “He kept trying to sit on the keyboard. I think he’s jealous he’s not getting all the attention.”
“Huh. Am not attention-seeking.”
Rodney shot him a crooked grin. “Yeah, right. Dream on.”
“Will you have tea, John?” Teyla called from the fire.
“Yeah, thanks. I’m coming.” He rested a hand on Rodney’s shoulder, too thin but warm under the cotton T. “Want some?”
“Let me see, do I want a beverage that tastes like grass clippings, possibly as it’s made from grass clippings, as opposed to a nice strong cup of caffeine-filled coffee? Hmmm, tough one.”
“There’s not much coffee left, just what’s in the MRE packs.”
“Yes, and I hold you responsible for that appalling lack of planning, Colonel Dumbo,” Rodney shot back.
John grinned, rising up from his crouch. He’d missed the snark. “Sorry Rodney, we were kinda busy at the time.”
Rodney stilled, hands freezing on the keyboard. “I know. Thank you, I know what you…what you all…”
John rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s okay. You’d’ve done it for any of us.”
Rodney looked up, his face pained. “Would I? All I do is get things wrong, get people killed.”
John crouched back down again, then sat. “That what this is about? The people we’ve lost? ’Cause I’ve been responsible for a fair few myself.” He looked down at his hands.
Teyla appeared at the jumper hatch and handed him a mug of straw-colored tea. He sipped it: it did taste like grass, but he was getting used to it.
“Thanks. Where’s Ronon?”
“He is at the spring, bathing.” Teyla sat down beside them, cross-legged, nursing her tea. “You did nothing wrong, Rodney, when the jumper crashed into the ocean. It was not your fault.”
Rodney looked away. “He was going on and on about tomatoes. And Spaniards. The drive pod was misfiring and I couldn’t shut it off, there was no time.” He swallowed. “Why would he do that? Griffin? Go forward to close the bulkhead doors manually when the mechanism jammed? He must have known that he, that it…” He looked down.
“It was his job to keep you safe,” John said. “He was a soldier.”
“He was a brave man, and he made a brave choice.” Teyla rested a hand on Rodney’s shoulder. He shifted restlessly, but didn’t pull away. “He valued you: we all do.”
“Don’t…” Rodney’s voice was choked with tears. “I’m not…”
“Yeah, you are,” said John.
Tiger clambered into Rodney’s lap, butting at his hand. He stroked the animal absently. Teyla squeezed his shoulder.
Ronon stuck his head into the hatch, smelling strongly of sulfur. “We going hunting?”
======================
Elizabeth read John’s letter again, brought to Atlantis by one of the Athosians. She would send her reply the same way. They were all okay. Rodney was recovering well and he had even reconfigured the jumper’s scanners and located a shielded installation on a planet they’d already written off, which they were going to explore. The planet was not named, of course. She smiled wryly and picked up her pen.
I can intercede for you with SGC and the airforce, John. We managed to hush most of the details up, and neither Kate or Carson will cause difficulties. Carson’s put it about that you and Rodney were suffering from the after-effects of prolonged deep-sea submersion, and Radek obligingly took a few days off and received “treatment” as well (I think, vitamin C). The official line is that you made Ronon and Teyla assist you while delirious, and that now you must have all run into a difficulty and gotten stuck somewhere. It’s not as though we haven’t had that sort of thing happen before, not to mention all SG1’s misadventures. Just come home. Please.
After a moment she added one last line.
I’m sorry I agreed to send Rodney back to Earth. I was wrong.
======================
Teyla and Ronon had already gone hunting by the time John woke up with a headache, his mouth furred.
Beside him, Rodney groaned. “Gah, why did I drink all that Athosian wine last night? My head’s falling off. Which would be a considerable improvement.”
John found some painkillers and handed two to Rodney, passing him the water container after he’d knocked back his own pills. He tossed Rodney the prozac bottle as well.
“Ah, my happy pills. Better living through chemistry.” Rodney fished one out and swallowed it.
“Worked, though,” John yawned, casting about for his sweats.
“Yeah, I guess. Although Tiger was a more immediate comfort, I have to say.” He extricated himself from underneath the snoring animal, all four paws in the air. John knew better that to try to rub that tempting cream-furred belly.
“C’mon, Rodney, bathtime.”
“Yes, yes, hold your horses, I just have to check the tests I was running last night on the you-know-what. I’ll join you there in five.”
John shrugged. He knew Rodney would probably get sidetracked and have to be dragged out of the jumper later on, but whatever. It was a special day, after all. He stripped rapidly and immersed himself. God, but that was good. He closed his eyes.
“John! John!” Rodney was already in the water, splashing over to his perch on a favorite flat rock. Then Rodney was pressed up against John and kissing him, all wet and warm and…oh yeah.
“I really should be insulted. Or jealous. I think you’re seeing someone else. Someone all red and yellow and glowy.” But it was hard to feel anything other than happy with an incandescent Rodney rubbing against him. “It’s good news then?”
“Half-charged, John, the damn thing’s half-charged!”
They grinned wildly at each other.
“Whereas I, Rodney, am fully charged.”
“I’ll just need to check that empirically” Rodney said, eyes round and blue. “You can never have too much data, after all.”
- the end