fic: Remember
Title: Remember
Author: linziday
Recipient: tepring
Rating: PG 13 (some mild swearing)
Warning: None
Word Count: 4,670
Summary: Pain is easy for John to hide. Other things are not.
A/N: Huge thanks go to kriadydragon , beta-extraordinaire! This is for tepring , who wanted Sheppard toughing out an injury, slice of life, and sweaty Shep. I think I worked in all three, though to varying degrees! :)
Usually when it happens, they’re running for their lives.
Sometimes it’s due to a ritual gone wrong. Or gone right.
And pretty much the rest of the time, John can place the blame squarely on a bad piece of Ancient tech. Or, you know, Rodney.
So he’s completely unprepared when it happens this time. One moment he’s thinking he’ll take jumper three out for a spin after lunch to test the new shield configuration. The next he’s flat on his back, a flash of agony behind his eyes.
Then nothing.
--
John comes to in the infirmary, the sharp smell of disinfectant and the beep-beep-beep of monitors telling him where he is a split second before he opens his eyes to see the gray splotch on the ceiling. The curtain’s drawn, but that splotch tells him he’s in the corner bed farthest from the door. He’s lost count how many times he’s woken to that splotch over the years.
The thought’s unsettling, but John has less than a second to dwell on it before the curtain is flung aside.
“They only had blue,” Rodney says, bustling in with a cup of blue Jell-O and a spoon in each hand and a laptop under his arm. “But this is really the best flavor anyway, so you should be grateful I’m saving you from substandard gelatin.”
John blinks. “O…kay?”
Rodney’s head snaps up so fast that John’s hand automatically twitches toward his 9 mil, or where his 9 mil would be if he wasn’t wearing scrubs. But there are no alarms, no enemies barreling down the hall, nothing looks or sounds like it’s about to explode. There’s just Rodney, who’s holding a cup of blue Jell-O in each fist and scowling at him.
“Again?” Rodney says, sounding annoyed and frustrated and more than a little on edge. “You forgot again?”
“No,” John says immediately. Then, “Forgot what?”
Rodney blows out an exasperated breath. Rather than answer John’s question, he asks one of his own. “What year is it?”
John’s head is pounding to an all-too-familiar familiar beat; he doesn’t need two PhDs to tell him he has a concussion. “1754,” he answers sarcastically, hoping that’ll put an end to it.
But Rodney is nothing if not persistent.
“What’s your name?” Rodney asks.
“Albert Einstein,” John says.
Rodney humphs. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-five. C’mon, McKay, knock it off,” John says. “Besides, shouldn’t Keller be asking the concussion questions?”
“She’s busy,” Rodney says. He bends over one of the two plastic chairs beside John’s bed and lets the laptop slide out from under his arm. “Team Five had an incident off world. And don’t change the subject.”
John tenses, ready to get up. “They -”
Rodney starts to wave away his concern with one of the Jell-O cups, then realizes he’s still holding them. Frowning, he drops the cups and spoons on John’s bedside table. “She’s trying to figure out of to get the Sauren sticky mud off them without taking their skin with it.”
John relaxes, but it’s too late - the jostle awakened something in his right knee. It aches, and under the ache a faint stabbing pain. John shifts, trying to ease it. When that doesn’t work, he reaches down and finds his knee is wrapped. What the hell? They weren’t on a mission. He doesn’t remember playing light switch for any new Ancient tech or -
“Sheppard,” Rodney says, tone serious, and John looks up. “What did you ask me to bring back ten minutes ago?”
John stares at him. He hasn’t seen Rodney since dinner the night before. John doesn’t say this, doesn’t say anything at all, and apparently doesn’t have to. His silence is answer enough.
Rodney thrusts his head past the curtain. “Jennifer!”
--
John’s been knocked in the head so many times that it shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it does.
“Post concussion syndrome,” Keller tells him sympathetically. “You’re having some short-term memory loss.”
John nearly tells her he doesn’t remember losing his memory, but the ridiculousness of it hits him the instant he opens his mouth. Instead he asks, “What happened?”
“You were an idiot,” Rodney informs him.
“Rodney,” Keller admonishes. “I told you before, stop it.”
“He slipped getting out of the shower!” Rodney says. “He knocked himself out for want of a bathmat, for chrissakes. I think ‘idiot’ sums it up pretty well.”
John remembers running with Ronon , then going back to his room and stripping to shower before the morning staff meeting. After that it’s all. . . blank. No matter how hard he searches his memory, unnervingly blank.
“You slipped,” Keller tells him, echoing Rodney’s explanation but without the insults. “You dislocated your right knee and you hit your head against the floor.”
“Now your brain is scrambled. Congratulations,” Rodney says, folding his arms across his chest. He’s scowling again, but he also looks freaked out.
“Post concussion syndrome,” John says slowly. He doesn’t know a lot about it, but he knows it’s not good. He vaguely remembers Carson warning him about the possibility years ago.
Keller pats his arm. “In some ways you’re very lucky. You don’t have the sensitivity to light and sound that a lot of people get. You’re not dizzy. You haven’t had a problem with double vision.”
All good. “But?” John prompts.
Keller sighs. “Your short term memory is temporarily but significantly impaired.”
John goes cold. He’s done the absent memory thing before, and it was losing himself piece by piece. “Temporarily” he can deal with, but - “How significantly?” he asks.
He means the question for Keller, but it’s Rodney who answers. “This is the third time we’ve had this conversation.”
--
The third time must be the charm because John retains the conversation. It’s an hour, then two, then three before he starts to trust that it’s going to stick. Both his head and knee ache the whole time, but it’s the knee that bothers him most, growing worse with each passing minute until the ache turns sharp and stabbing. John flatly refuses anything stronger than an aspirin. It could be his imagination, but it feels like the pain keeps him grounded, keeps him there.
“You’ve always been here,” Rodney insists after he’s badgered John into revealing why he’s shunning all the good drugs. “You just don’t remember it. Take the damn pain medicine.”
“No,” John grits out.
“You know,” Rodney says, setting aside his laptop and standing up, “I could just shoot you up with morphine from one of the jumper med kits. It’s not like you’ll remember -”
“I know how to write a note to myself, McKay,” John says with as much menace as he can muster. “You wouldn’t live through the day.”
Rodney scoffs but sits back down and pulls the computer into his lap. A few minutes later he looks at John, issues an ominous-sounding “Hm,” then gets up and leaves. He’s gone long enough that John’s seriously considering writing that note, but when Rodney returns it’s not with the jumper’s first aid kit.
“I assume you don’t have any problem with distracting yourself from the pain,” Rodney says, brandishing the infirmary’s worn chess set.
It’s an idea, a good idea, and relief blossoms bright in John’s chest. He shifts as far as he can without jostling his knee again, making enough room on the bed so Rodney can set up the board next to him. “I assume you don’t mind losing,” John responds with a grin.
They play for an hour, right up until Ronon and Teyla arrive with dinner. His knee continues to ache, but it’s not overwhelming.
As he dips a slice of bread into his Calint stew, John catches sight of the chess board. It’s been cleared of pieces.
“Too afraid I’d beat you, McKay?” he asks motioning toward the board.
Everyone stops eating. Ronon actually pauses mid-chew, and John hadn’t thought that was even possible.
“Rodney already won, John,” Teyla tells him gently.
John starts to nod, but his headache reminds him that’s a bad idea. “Okay,” he says instead, going for nonchalance. Suddenly nauseous, he puts the bread down. “Okay,” he says again.
“It was a close game. Very close,” Rodney says. “Well, not that close, but you do have a concussion, so there’s an extenuating circumstance.” Rodney pauses. “We, um, shouldn’t even count it.”
John doesn’t ask if he’s dying, but it’s a near thing.
--
Keller won’t release him.
“Temporarily impaired,” he reminds her.
“Yes, but that could mean months, Colonel, and I -”
“I am not staying in the infirmary for months,” John tells her flatly. He doesn’t like being confined to the infirmary. Never has.
Keller gives him a tight, sympathetic smile. “I’m not suggesting you should stay that long. But right now your condition’s unstable. The memory loss is bad enough, but with that you could develop irritability, irrationality, anxiety, depression, paranoia, problems with concentration, poor judgment. At best you could forget where you are, what you’re doing. At worst. . . .” she trails off looking uncomfortable.
“At worst I set the citywide self destruct in a fit of irrationality and poor judgment, and then forget I’ve set it until the moment we explode?” John fills in. He’s at least half kidding.
“Look,” she says, studiously ignoring the comment, which doesn’t make John feel any better at all, “maybe in a few weeks I’d feel comfortable releasing you to Rodney’s custody, or Ronon’s or Teyla’s, but not right now.”
“Why not?” Ronon rumbles.
John looks up to find him pulling aside the curtain to John’s cubicle.
“She thinks I’ll destroy Atlantis,” John tells him.
“Heard that,” Ronon says with the barest trace of amusement. “But we can take him. Won’t even let him get near the chair room.”
“Ronon, no,” Keller says with exasperation.
“Why not?” Ronon asks. “We can watch him better than you can.”
“Yeah,” John agrees without thinking about it, “they can - Wait, what?”
“You know he’ll find a way out of here,” Ronon tells Keller.
Keller pauses at this. John’s pretty sure she’s thinking about the last time he was in the infirmary. She told him to stay the night. He slipped out after thirty minutes.
“You can’t just check in on him every couple of hours,“ Keller says after a long moment. “He needs constant supervision.”
“Got it,” Ronon says.
John opens his mouth to tell them he does not need a babysitter, but he smothers the impulse and snaps his jaws shut before the words can form. Confined in the infirmary or sent to his room with his team. In the grand scheme of things, he’s winning.
“And he needs to take it easy. No paperwork, no video games. Absolutely no interfacing with Ancient technology. No leaving his room until I say he’s cleared to do so. He’s got a traumatic brain injury and over stimulation will only set him back.” She looks at John. “Temporary will become permanent, Colonel, if you don’t let your brain rest. I can’t emphasize that enough.”
John raises his hands in surrender. “Deal.”
“I’ll need to come see him once a day. More if other symptoms develop,” Keller says.
Ronon shrugs. “No problem.”
Keller eyes Ronon. “I’m not kidding here. If I even get a hint that he -”
“We’ll watch him,” Ronon promises.
Keller pauses again, this time assessing John. “He’ll need a wheelchair.”
“No,” John says immediately. “I can walk.”
“Crutches,” Ronon says. “Take it or leave it.”
“Take it,” John says, sitting up and swinging his good leg over the side of the bed. “Now let’s get out of here.”
--
There’s a spreadsheet. Of course there’s a spreadsheet, John thinks, because Rodney is involved and wherever Rodney goes a spreadsheet or two is sure to follow.
“Four hour shifts, except for overnights,” Rodney says, handing him a tablet with John’s watch schedule pulled up. “Nights are handled on a rotating basis, starting in alphabetical order.”
“So who gets me every second Sunday?” John jokes. He’s propped up in his own bed, wearing his own sweatpants and t-shirt. It feels good to be out of the infirmary.
“We ship you to grandma’s house so the grownups can have quiet time,” Rodney answers. He’s cleared John’s desk and is setting up a kind of McKay mini lab - three laptops, a networked tablet, and three small pieces of Ancient tech John’s never seen before.
John watches him set up the whole thing. Rodney is obviously settling in for the long haul.
“If you have things to do and you need to go, feel free,” John says. “I can hold down the fort. I’m just going to doze, maybe watch the Doctor Who episodes that you smuggled in with the latest data burst.”
Rodney snorts and plops down in John’s desk chair. “Did you really think that would work?”
John shrugs. “I just don’t want you to feel like you have to sit here every second. I’m fine.”
“You’re fine,” Rodney echoes.
John’s head is pounding, has been pounding relentlessly, but Rodney doesn’t need to know that. It would only take one radio call to get him sent back to the infirmary, and this time Keller would probably drug him up to keep him there. “Fine enough,” he says.
“Uh huh,” Rodney says. “6,343.”
“Prime,” John says.
“10,692”
“Not prime.”
“11,897”
“Prime. Rodney, see, I’m fine.” John sighs and picks up the tablet with the schedule pulled up. Rodney and his spreadsheets. “So who gets me every second Sunday?”
--
It’s actually not bad for the first few days. His memory lapses, but it’s all small stuff - whether he asked for mayo on his turkey sandwich, where he put his laptop, what time his appointment is with Keller. He and Rodney watch Doctor Who to fill the hours. He and Ronon eat junk food and talk combat strategy. He and Teyla meditate, which is actually fun when she doesn’t mind that he falls asleep once or twice. Or three times.
But by the end of the week John is stir crazy, bored, and entirely sick of everyone.
“Think of it like a vacation,” Rodney tells him. “With your closest friends.”
“Shut up, McKay,” John tells him.
“Irritability,” Rodney points out. “One of the symptoms.”
“Shut up,” John says again, just barely resisting the urge to do something unfriendly with one of his crutches.
It doesn’t help that he’s sick of feeling sick. His knee’s starting to feel better, but this pain in his head isn’t going away. More often than not it wakes him up in the middle of the night.
But when Keller asks him to give his pain a number from one to ten, John tells her, at precise intervals, five, then three, then one, then zero, where it stays. He says yes when Rodney suggests another round of chess, even though he feels like a blood vessel is about to burst after five minutes. He holds back a wince when Tayla brightens the lights after a meditation session and the room - and his head - buzzes for an instant with an energy only the city’s strongest gene carriers can feel.
Pain is easy to hide. His memory is more problematic.
John stops asking questions when things seem out of place. He acts as if nothing’s happened when times jumps and skips. He can’t help repeating himself, so he tries not to say anything.
It’s not the best time John’s ever had, but it’s worth it. By the middle of week two Keller puts him on light duty - “Still no Ancient tech, Colonel. No flying. No gate travel.” - and declares him well enough to lose his babysitters.
“It’s been fun. Don’t forget to write,” he wants to joke as Rodney packs up his computers and assorted work gadgets, but John isn’t entirely sure he hasn’t said it already. He settles for a cheerful wave.
When Rodney is gone - when they’re all gone - John takes thirty seconds to relish the solitude. Then he changes into his running clothes and heads toward the pier. He’s pretty sure his knee can handle a short run, just up and back. He needs this, needs warm muscles and loose limbs and the easy pace out in open air. . . .
Two hours after Rodney left his room, John finds himself standing on the west tower balcony, staring into the inky black water below and gripping the railing so tightly his fingers won’t release without a concentrated effort. His head and his knee throb in concert.
John has no idea how he got there.
--
Despite what Rodney thinks, John does not have a death wish. Unless he’s the only thing standing between the city or his team and certain doom, John’s perfectly happy not putting himself in peril.
But if he tells anyone about this latest lapse, he’ll end up back in the infirmary. He knows this. Keller will certainly drug him up. Maybe send him back to earth. After spending so much time playing babysitter, his teammates would probably welcome having him back in the infirmary and maybe back on earth. Might even help.
So he limps back to his room, downs two aspirin with water, and falls into bed. It’s fine, he reasons. He’s kept quiet this long.
When the questions do come, they’re easy to deflect.
“Ran too hard,” he tells Teyla when she raises an eyebrow at his limp the next morning at breakfast.
“No memory problems that I recall, doc,” he tells Keller a couple of days later at his regular bi-weekly check in, throwing in a grin.
“Sorry, fell asleep,” he tells Rodney later in the week when the other man comes banging on his door to find out why John didn’t meet him in the jumper bay to go over the new shield configuration as planned.
Rodney narrows his eyes. “I don’t believe you.”
John leans against the door and folds his arms across his chest, casual perfected. “You think I didn’t fall asleep?”
“I think you told me the same thing when I radioed you an hour ago,” Rodney says. “And again when I radioed you thirty minutes after that.”
John’s heartbeat kicks up. He doesn’t remember either conversation. “Saying the same thing means it’s true, McKay, not a lie.”
“2,087,” Rodney says.
John rolls his eyes. “Rodney -”
“2,087 or I drag your ass down to the infirmary.”
John straightens, feeling a sudden flash of anger. “You want to try it, McKay?”
Rodney doesn’t move. “2,087.”
“Prime.”
“12,376.”
“Not prime.”
“17,030.”
“Not prime,” John says. He steps back into his room. “I think we’re done here.”
He lets the door close.
--
John always did dislike Jason Peters.
“Major!” John barks. “Drop it!”
Peters startles and looks up. He’s on a mat in the middle of the gym, a bantos rod in his hand. An unarmed man at his feet.
“Colonel, we were just -”
John stalks toward him. His head pounds with each step. “Which part of ‘Drop it’ did you not understand?” He pulls the bantos rod from Peters’ grip.
The unarmed man - Lieutenant Webster, John realizes now - stands. “He was just showing me a maneuver before Ronon got here,” Webster says.
Out of the corner of his eye John can see a half a dozen other men and women arriving for the training session. His irritation boils into anger. How dare Peters play around like this. How dare he let the others think this is how a Marine acts.
“You never, ever pick up a weapon against an unarmed fellow soldier,” John grinds out. “Do I make myself clear?”
Peters’ eyes go a little wide. “Sir, we really weren’t -”
John throws the bantos rod across the room. It hits the wall and clatters to the floor.
“Don’t tell me what you weren’t doing!”
“Sheppard.”
John swivels his head. Ronon is in the doorway, a gym bag full of bantos rods in his hand.
“Problem?” Ronon asks.
John honestly isn’t sure what to say to that. A moment ago… a moment ago he was ready to throw Peters’ off his city, literally. But the anger that had fueled him vanished as quickly as it had come, leaving an uneasy emptiness in its wake.
Ronon tosses the gym bag onto the mat in the center of the room. “Peters, Webster, hand those out. Then get to work. One-on-one.” There’s a feral flash of teeth. “First person down gets me as their new partner.”
The students move, parting around John like a river flowing around a rock. After a moment he can’t even see Peters anymore through the crowd.
“Sheppard?” Ronon is at his side.
John shakes his head. “I -” He doesn’t know what happened to him, doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t dare tell that to Ronon. Keller would definitely send him to earth in this condition. He doubts he would ever be allowed to come back. “- I shouldn’t have interrupted.”
He’s gone before Ronon can respond.
--
John doesn’t know how he got to the gate room. One minute he’s finishing reports in his office, the next he’s… here. Looking up at the gate. The gate room’s lights are dimmed and only one person is on duty, which means it’s night. But it was just 3 p.m. Two minutes ago it was 3 p.m.
“John?”
John turns to find Teyla is standing in the doorway. He wonders if she’s following him.
“Are you all right?” she asks. Her head is cocked slightly to the side, a gesture John’s come over the years to associate with an imminent discussion or an impending ass kicking, sometimes both.
“Yeah,” John says. “I’m just -” He flounders for a second. What should he say here? What would she believe? “I’m just doing an extra evening sweep. Felt like a walk.”
“Ah,” Teyla says and comes closer. “I also felt like a walk. I find it helps me sleep when sleep doesn’t come so easily.”
John nods and moistens his lips. His head is pounding in time to his heart. He feels suddenly claustrophobic as Teyla comes closer and closer. He fights the urge to step away.
“Would you like to walk together?” Teyla asks.
No, no, no, no
. “No!” John nearly shouts. He winces and offers her an apologetic smile. “Sorry,” he says, this time using his inside voice. “No. I mean, I need to -” He hitches his thumb over his shoulder to indicates someplace vaguely elsewhere. He has to leave before she calls Keller and he loses the city, his team, everything that means anything.
“I understand. Continue your walk.” Teyla gives him a small smile and reaches out to touch his arm. “If you change your mind, I will be awake.”
John leaves the gate room at a quick pace, popping two aspirin as he goes. The pills don’t do a damn thing for the pounding headaches, but he hopes they’ll help with the growing buzzing in the back of his head.
--
His head is killing him.
John leans forward in the jumper seat and rests his forehead on the console. It’s cool and it’s hard, and it puts just the right amount of pressure exactly where he needs it. The jumper bay is quiet, peaceful. There’s the hum of the city, there always is in the back of his head, but it’s barely noticeable, most of the time barely noticeable.
“Trying to mind meld with the jumper?”
John jerks. He pulls himself upright and is ridiculously proud when he doesn’t groan aloud. He feels wrung out, strung out. Under his t-shirt a trickle of sweat rolls down his back.
“Hey, Rodney,” he says, forcing an upbeat note into his voice. It still sounds thin. He leans back into the pilot seat and doesn’t turn around. “What’s up?”
“Oh, you know, the usual.” Rodney comes around to the front of the jumper and takes the other front seat. “Berating minions. Circumventing the laws of physics. Wrangling wayward colonels.”
A surge of fear. “I’m not wayward and I don’t need to be wrangled.”
“I heard about -”
“I’m fine,” John says. He doesn’t know what Rodney’s heard about, but it doesn’t matter.
From the other seat Rodney sighs with frustration. “You’re so damned - Jesus, John, talk to me.”
But John won’t. Can’t. The words won’t form. I’m fine, he thinks. I have to be fine. He closes his eyes.
“449,” Rodney says quietly.
The city’s hum is louder. So loud now it competes with the pounding in his head.
“449,” Rodney repeats.
John opens his eyes, squints against the light of the jumper bay. He’s in a jumper, but not flying. Not preparing to fly. Why is he here?
“John,” Rodney says. “449.”
John’s head buzzes with white noise. Prime. Not prime. Prime.
“Not prime,” John whispers.
He stays conscious just long enough to hear Rodney say, “Wrong answer.”
--
John comes to in the infirmary, the sharp smell of disinfectant and the beep-beep-beep of monitors telling him where he is a split second before he pulls open heavy eyes to see the gray splotch on the ceiling. The curtain’s drawn, but that splotch tells him he’s in the corner bed farthest from the door. He’s lost count how many times he’s woken to that splotch over the years.
A sense of déjà vu settles over him. He half expects Rodney will fling aside the curtain and storm in, but oblivion takes him before he has a chance to see.
--
Somewhere, a bird is singing.
John opens his eyes. He’s in sleeping bag. In a tent. On hard-packed dirt floor. Decidedly not on Atlantis.
John swallows back the rising panic. He has no idea where he is or when. He’s lost everything this time.
John gets up and staggers out on stiff legs to find morning dawning on a full-fledged campsite complete with a campfire.
And around the campfire, his team eating breakfast.
Relief hits him solidly in the chest. “Guys,” he greets cautiously.
Although he tries to hide it, his confusion must show because Teyla gives him an indulgent smile. “You have not forgotten, John,” she says. “We brought you here last night while you were asleep.”
John raises an eyebrow, but Rodney jumps in before he can say anything. “It was come here or risk you with permanent brain damage. Did we pick wrong?” Rodney challenges, daring John to say that, yes, he would prefer brain damage to camping.
“We are on Nera,” Teyla explains. “We have supplies enough for three weeks, though Dr. Keller believes you will heal much faster than that away from Atlantis.”
Atlantis. The buzzing that didn’t seem bad until it was. “I stayed away from Ancient tech,” John says. It was probably the only rule of Keller’s that he did follow.
“The whole city is Ancient tech, and you’re it’s favorite ATA gene,” Rodney says, pointing at John with a plastic spork.
John sits down on a fallen log. The anger, the irritability, the fear of going to the infirmary and Keller, the belief he couldn’t tell anyone, couldn’t trust his team -
“It was messing with your head,” Ronon says as if he could read John’s mind.
John thinks about what he’d done, what he’d said. The lies he told.
The people he’d run from.
John rubs at his face with his hands. “Guys, I -”
“Three weeks,” Rodney interrupts, putting down his half-eaten MRE and pulling a fresh one from his pack. “I’m really the one making the sacrifice here, you know. No Ancient anything. We couldn’t even bring a jumper. Roughing it,” he says distastefully. He stands and hands the meal to John. “Three weeks.” He looks John in the eye. “Think you can stand us that long?”
John takes the meal. Three weeks with his team.
“It’ll be a vacation,” he says and means it.