Hover by LinziDay (The Shrine missing scene)
Title: Hover
Author: linziday
Words: 1,600
Genre/Rating: Gen, PG13 (I think there's some swearing)
Spoilers: It's a missing scene from The Shrine. So.
Disclaimers: If I owned them, the show would run forever. So, obviously....
Summary: Sheppard didn't hover. Advance, retreat, slouch... sure. But hover? Never. Even if he had been standing just outside Rodney's lab for the last five minutes.
AN: This will be, I'm sure, one of many tags/missing scenes I write for The Shrine because.... well, did you see that ep? :) The scene in which Rodney runs to John's quarters in the middle of the night, shouting for him? This is the run up to that.
Sheppard didn’t hover. Advance, retreat, slouch… sure. But hover? Never. Even if he had been standing just outside Rodney’s lab for the last five minutes.
Listening.
Checking up.
Not hovering.
“What’s this thing do again, Radek?” Rodney asked, obviously trying for light, but to Sheppard's ears the tone was unsure, almost hesitant. Wrong.
“Is power regulator for the naquadah generators,” Radek said as if Rodney’s question had been perfectly normal.
“Ah.” Rodney paused. “Okay.”
“Naquadah generators are - ”
“I know what they are.”
“All right.” Radek paused this time. “So in your calculations you showed a - ”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Rodney snapped, and Sheppard smiled at the familiar impatient tone.. . . until Rodney continued, “These are my calculations?”
Sheppard clenched his jaw.
“Yes, Rodney, your calculations,” Radek said, patiently, softly. “Your idea.”
“My idea?” Rodney echoed, sounding so lost that Sheppard broke and strode toward the doorway, ready to drag Rodney out with an excuse about Teyla wanting help with Torren or the jumpers needing a diagnostic or, hell, that there were fresh chocolate chip cookies in the mess. Something. Anything to get him away from the lab.
But just as he passed through the door, Rodney announced clearly and confidently “Of course my idea. Genius,” and Sheppard immediately dropped the excuses in favor of a grin and a lazy “Hey, guys.” More time. Rodney would get more time here.
“Hi,” Rodney said and smiled as Sheppard sauntered over. “Come to see us in action, Colonel? Live the magic?”
“Yes, Rodney is filling me in on the power regulator he created.” Radek glanced up from the laptop but did not meet Sheppard’s eye. “Is amazing work.”
Sheppard stuffed his hands in his pockets and leaned nonchalantly against the table. “Nah, I have to - ” he hitched a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of the hallway - “I just wanted to stop by and you know - ”
“Hover?” Radek asked.
“No!” Sheppard said a little too loudly. He cleared his throat. “I mean, no. I just….” Sheppard trailed off as he watched Rodney type at the laptop, hunting and pecking with two fingers.
Last night Rodney’s hands had flown over the keys.
“Hey, how about a team night tonight?” Sheppard asked suddenly, not even aware he was going to speak until the words were out of his mouth.
Rodney looked up at him curiously. “A team night?”
“Yeah, you know, movies, popcorn, team,” Sheppard razzed automatically, then mentally kicked himself.
Rodney rolled his eyes. “I know what team night is. I’m not that far gone.” He frowned at the laptop and waved Sheppard away with one hand. “Yeah, yeah. Sounds good. Tonight.”
“Your place,” Sheppard called as he walked backward toward the door.
“My place,” Rodney confirmed absently, eyes still on the screen.
Sheppard turned and made it into the hallway before he had to close his eyes and lean his head against the wall.
“Wait, wait, Radek,” he heard Rodney say. “These are my calculations?”
--------
They showed up at Rodney’s quarters at 8 p.m. Sheppard had reminded him of team night twice - once at lunch and once at dinner, just an hour before they chimed - but he still saw Rodney’s eyes flicker in surprise when the door slid open to reveal three teammates laden with two bowls of popcorn, two bags of cookies and a selection of DVDs.
“Come on in,” Rodney said, smothering his surprise and moving out of the way. Ronon clapped him on the shoulder as he passed. Teyla smiled and pulled him forward to touch her forehead to his. Rodney was wearing sweatpants and a gray t-shirt, and Sheppard realized with a start that he had been getting ready for bed.
At 8 p.m.
“Hey, buddy, ready for team night?” Sheppard asked, handing him the DVDs. “Your choice.”
“Oh, yeah. Okay.” Rodney said and glanced through the DVDs. He held one up uncertainly. “Back to the Future? I don’t remember seeing that recently - ”
Sheppard practically lunged at him. “No, maybe not that one,” he said and pulled it out of Rodney’s hand
Rodney nodded and swallowed hard as he looked through the rest. “I don’t know. I, um, don’t really - ” He stopped and shoved the DVDs at Sheppard. “You pick, John.”
John.
“Yeah, sure, all right,” Sheppard said carefully casual, trying to ignore the way his stomach twisted. Heplucked a disc from the pile at random and shoved it in the laptop without glancing at it.
Jesus. John.
By the time the movie started - he’d chosen Star Trek II, apparently - the four of them had settled in: Sheppard and Teyla on either ends of the bed, with Rodney between them and Ronon on the floor in front. Although they traded off rooms for team nights, they generally ended up in something close to this seating arrangement no matter where they were, and tonight Sheppard was glad. Passing popcorn, explaining the movie’s nuances to Teyla, stretching, they all gave him good opportunity to keep an eye on -
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” Rodney groused, glaring at him. “I’m fine. I’m… fine.”
Rodney did seem almost fine. He ate the popcorn, plunging his hand repeatedly into the bowl and shoveling fistful after fistful into his mouth until Ronon smacked his leg and demanded a cookie/popcorn exchange. He shushed Sheppard loudly and with an annoyed glare - backed up with few well-thrown pieces of popcorn - when his conversations with Teyla got in the way of the action on screen. He dimmed the lights “So this might pass as an actual movie night and not a 13-year-old girl’s sleepover.”
But he watched the screen a little too intently. He didn’t harangue Ronon for taking too many cookies or shout at the screen about the physical impossibility of warp drive. And when Spock died, Sheppard turned to say something and found Rodney’s eyes glistening in the flickering light of the laptop screen.
At the credits, Rodney swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand and muttered, “Damn, uh…allergies.” Sheppard bumped his shoulder when he got up to change the disc.
“So what’s next?” Sheppard asked, determinedly upbeat. He turned up the lights and thumbed through the stack of DVDs. “We’ve got the rest of the Star Treks, the first the Star Wars, X-Men one and two, The Sixth Sen-”
“You guys are staying?” Rodney asked quietly.
Sheppard’s head snapped up. “Of course we are, buddy.”
Rodney frowned. “But that’s… that’s great, I mean… but you don’t have to babysit me. I’m not… I’m okay, you know, and I’m sure you have important stuff to do and I don’t want to keep you from - ”
“Nothing’s more important, Rodney,” Sheppard said firmly.
Rodney blinked. “Really?”
Teyla patted his leg and leaned forward until Rodney met her eyes. “Really.”
“Not goin’ anywhere,” Ronon added matter-of-factly and shoved one of the popcorn bowls back into Rodney’s lap. “None of us.”
“Oh.” The word was so quiet it might have only been a breath. Then Rodney straightened and seemed to gather himself. “I vote for Star Trek five.”
“Five it is,” Sheppard said and dug through the discs.
“Why five?” Teyla asked.
“Whales,” Rodney answered around a mouthful of popcorn.
Sheppard tucked Star Trek five back in the pile and pulled out four.
Rodney fell asleep during bus scene, his head lolling on Sheppard’s shoulder just as Spock silenced the punk on screen. Sheppard shifted until Rodney’s head was better supported. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Teyla drape a blanket across Rodney’s legs.
When the movie was done, they watched the credits.
When the credits were done, they sat in the semi-dark, Rodney’s steady breaths the only sound.
Finally, Sheppard said quietly, “We should go.”
Ronon turned. “We told him we’d stay, Sheppard.”
“I believe Rodney would be more comfortable sleeping in his bed rather than on John’s shoulder,” Teyla whispered, rising smoothly from the bed.
“Then we move him.” Ronon stood. “But we can’t just leave.”
Sheppard began slowly, carefully levering Rodney from his shoulder to the bed. “He’s asleep, big guy.”
“And if he wakes up -”
“If he wakes up, he’ll be pissed that we stayed here all night babysitting him.” Sheppard shifted Rodney until his head was on the pillow. “You know that.”
Ronon growled. “I don’t like this.”
Rodney curled onto his side and tucked a fist under his chin as Sheppard pulled the covers up to his shoulders. He’d seen Rodney sick, injured, scared out of his mind and half a step away from death, but the scientist had never looked as vulnerable as he did asleep, without his myriad defenses. He wondered how long it would be before those defenses were gone when he was awake as well.
He wouldn’t make Rodney deal with that indignity one second before he had to.
“I don’t like it either,” Sheppard said, shutting down the laptop. “But Rodney deserves to sleep and wake without us… hovering.”
Ronon didn’t look happy about it, but he gathered up the popcorn bowls and cookie bags and paused only for a moment over Rodney’s bed before silently leaving.
Teyla paused for longer, sweeping her fingers over Rodney’s forehead and murmuring, “Sleep well,” before she left, too.
Sheppard lingered between the door and the bed, torn between staying and going, hovering and giving Rodney some time alone without the need to pretend he remembered what he didn’t.
Sheppard didn’t know what else he could give him.
On his way out, he heard Rodney mumble faintly in his sleep. “… one four one five nine two six five. . . .”