Siege II/III Tag - In a Box
Title: In a Box
Author: padawan_aneiki
Rating/Pairing: G/None
Characters: John and Rodney
Summary: John and Rodney prepare to head back to earth.
In A Box
John Sheppard cupped both hands around the steaming mug of coffee, appreciative for the hot brew. The East Pier had been a little chilly this morning but he’d gone running anyway; he’d needed to clear his head and find some space to do it in; seemed as good a place as any.
Bringing the mug to his lips, he closed his eyes and savored the first swallow. He might not be a praying man but he thanked whoever was watching out for him that the Daedalus had not only come in just the nick of time to help break the Wraith siege over Atlantis. She’d brought along fresh supplies, including coffee, and for a moment John had thought Rodney might kiss Caldwell’s feet for it. He had to admit, as he took another swallow, that having regular supplies would be a welcome thing.
Reestablishing contact with Earth, however, had its own set of potentially difficult problems. John exhaled softly and put the coffee mug down; both hands came up to scrub over his face briefly. Elizabeth had been kind enough to handle most of the video messages for the families of both civilian and military expedition members lost here in Pegasus, prior to the Wraith siege.
Now that the siege was over, and Atlantis survived, there were more messages to be sent, and John would not ask Elizabeth to bear that burden a second time. This time, it was his and his alone. It was the hardest duty of any commander, to inform loved ones that their son or daughter, husband or wife was not coming home and he despised it with every fiber of his being. Elizabeth was taking the entire senior staff with her on the journey to Earth to help brief the SGC on the current situation in Pegasus and to help screen prospective additional staff to come back with them; John intended to make a few face to face visits to some of the family members.
Swirling what was left of his coffee around in the mug, John sighed softly. Finishing it off, he again mentally thanked whoever it had been at the SGC that had considered it to be important enough to include with the initial run of supplies from the Daedalus. Pushing away from the table, John refilled the mug and took it with him; he had the feeling he was going to need the caffeine to get through the rest of today.
“You’re up early.”
John glanced over his shoulder at the familiar sound of Rodney McKay; the scientist coming at a slight jog to catch up with him. He paused to wait for McKay, taking the opportunity for a bit more coffee.
“So are you,” he shot back as Rodney drew even with him and he started walking again. “Since when did you join the dawn patrol?”
“Not me,” McKay protested. “That’s your department, patrolling. Scientific wonder-working is mine. Is that coffee I smell?”
“Hmm,” John grunted, holding the coffee mug out of McKay’s reach.
“It’s a miracle somebody back there had the presence of mind to send us some,” Rodney declared, and John raised his mug slightly in a salute.
“Uh huh.”
“You’re chatty today,” McKay observed and Sheppard very nearly snorted coffee.
“It’s not even oh-six-thirty in the morning, Rodney, what do you want?” John grumbled. This wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind when it came to finding space. Swallowing more coffee, he missed the rather concerned look the scientist threw his way before taking on a more cavalier expression.
“So...you all packed?” Rodney inquired, waving one hand animatedly. “All I can say is that they’d better allow for more than one personal item on the way back. I have my whole CD collection I want to bring back with me, and oh! I promised Zelenka some Tim Horton’s doughnuts. The man has absolutely no idea what he’s missing; he was just born in the wrong place.” He glanced at John again, noting the thoughtful expression on the major’s face. “So? You ready to go back?” he prompted once again.
“Almost,” John responded quietly and there was a faraway look in his eyes. “There’s one more thing I have to do first.” He thrust the now-empty coffee cup into Rodney’s hands and took off at a slow jog, forcing the scientist to either keep up or shove off, and at this point Rodney was not about to just leave. Still holding the mug, he trotted along behind the major.
John’s determined footsteps took them both toward the areas designated for living space, but he didn’t take the familiar turn that led to his own quarters. Rodney hurried to catch up once again, and he frowned. Before he could demand the major to tell him what was going on, however he realized where they were, and he simply stopped dead, right beside Sheppard.
They were outside Aiden Ford’s quarters. Rodney sucked in a nervous breath. He’d known John had taken this hard, harder in many ways than a lot of things he’d seen John face to this point. Over the past few days he’d watched the major closely; he wasn’t sure if it was just Ford or if it was just a cumulative effect of everything that had happened, but the major had taken to odd hours, little sleep and a ceaseless, restless oversight of Atlantis.
It’d been like that after the freak storm and the Genii attempt to take over Atlantis, too. For days afterward, John had prowled the corridors of the city in the wee hours of the morning, practically hovered over Rodney and Elizabeth, and been generally difficult to deal with until he’d worked through and processed what had happened on his own.
Only this was different; that time he hadn’t lost any of the members of his team. Ford, for all intents and purposes... Rodney swallowed; if John even had a hint he was thinking along those lines, he’d be in for the dressing-down of his life, civilian or not.
“Sheppard?” he finally said, as John had not moved or spoken, or even really acknowledged that Rodney was standing there with him. At last the major drew in a slow breath and glanced over at him before activating the override and entering the room. Rodney followed him, and unconsciously shivered. “Okay, this is just creepy, even for you,” he accused. “What do you have to do?”
“Finish,” John muttered tightly, motioning ahead of them. On top of the neatly made bed was a footlocker, lid open, and on closer inspection Rodney could see there were a few items already inside. “There’s new personnel coming in and while we’ve got the whole city practically...” John swallowed hard and simply moved to pick up a nearby picture.
John assumed it was Aiden’s grandparents; there was certainly some family resemblance in the picture. The faces were burned into his memory, and he made a vow to himself-and to them-then and there. I won’t give up on him. I swear it. I’ll find him, I’ll bring him back...we’ll find a way to beat what’s happened to him.
“Where’s all this stuff going, anyway?” Rodney asked hesitantly as he put down the coffee cup and moved to help John, gathering up one of Ford’s ballcaps in one hand, idly tracing the bill with the other in a nervous gesture. “You’re not sending this back to...what, Graves Registration or something? I mean, technically he’s not...”
“No,” John replied simply, and quietly, going about the task of packing away Aiden’s things. “They’re staying right here until he comes back.” It had that sound of stubborn finality that Rodney had learned was the major’s staunch conviction that you don’t leave people behind. It was comforting knowledge, in a way, knowing that Sheppard would come after him if he ever...well, yeah but at the same time it was also disconcerting to see the burden his friend carried.
“We’re still working on those Gate addresses,” McKay asserted, uncertain if that was the right thing to say or not, and when Sheppard didn’t reply, he paused from neatly folding a shirt to go into the footlocker. “I’m doing everything I can do to help, Major.” There was something in Rodney’s voice that made John look up, and he could read the worry in his friend’s eyes.
“I know you are,” John answered now, quietly, and in the hazel eyes there was a wealth of pain. “He’s like a kid, really, y’know?”
Rodney blinked; it was the first that the major had spoken of Ford except to ask about progress with the Gate addresses. He placed the shirt into the open footlocker, and pulled another one from the closet and proceeded to fold it as neatly as the first.
“And you’re his big brother,” he finally ventured, not daring to look at John’s reaction to the statement, but in true McKay fashion simply plunged ahead. “Figuratively speaking, of course. But I think that’s why this is bugging you so much. It’s not a matter of...guilt. Okay, maybe it is; you tend to take it personally but I’m just saying...I think it’s more a matter that he became family, kinda and you miss having him around.”
The silence was so total after Rodney finished, that he had to look up after depositing the second shirt, and he was surprised to see John simply staring at him. Rodney swallowed and shifted his weight uncertainly. “Look, if you want to do this yourself, I can just...”
“Yeah,” John murmured, and Rodney nodded.
“Good, good...I’ll be...Uhm. I’ll be in the lab.”
“No, stay,” Sheppard blinked himself out of his thoughts and moved to place Aiden’s camo jacket into the footlocker. McKay paused at the doorway and looked back, a slight frown. “I just meant...you’re right. I miss him. He’s a good kid and a good officer.” Sheppard glanced around the small room. “I hope we get him back.”
“So do I,” Rodney came back into the room, but he agreed with the major. He offered a slight smile. “He’s too easy a target; we can’t get you on ‘Prime, Not Prime’.” To his surprise, John actually chuckled.
“Yeah, after all the fuss settled down, he told me about that one. Radek almost got his lights punched out, you know that.”
They made short work of packing up Ford’s few belongings, and Rodney watched as John padlocked it and picked up one end, motioning for him to take up the other. Rodney grunted a bit as he did so.
“I’m meant to be working on groundbreaking scientific research here, not carting around someone’s luggage,” he grumbled, before realizing what that sounded like and he tried to backpedal. “I mean...I realize this is Ford’s stuff and I don’t mean that...”
“Oh yes, you do,” Sheppard answered with a wise look. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you volunteered. C’mon, it’s not that far to my quarters.”
The two of them deposited the footlocker in front of John’s bed and he shoved it underneath. He figured it was the most logical place and least likely to be lost there. He straightened up to see Rodney still staring at him.
“What?”
“You ready to go back now?” McKay picked up the thread of their previous conversation as if it had never been interrupted. Sheppard blinked, shook his head slightly in disbelief, and pointed at the small duffel bag by the door. “That’s it?” he exclaimed. “Three weeks on Earth and that’s all you’re taking with you?”
“I figure I’ll be bringing more stuff back, McKay,” John responded, and this time it was the scientist’s turn to shake his head.
“In what? That little thing wouldn’t even hold my CD’s,” Rodney asserted, and then looked at John appraisingly. “Are you going to get some sleep while we’re there, or what?” he demanded. John shrugged slightly.
“Maybe,” he replied. “What about you? I doubt you’ve been sleeping all that well.” The accusation earned him an uneasy shrug from the scientist and John knew he’d hit the mark.
“Want more coffee?” Rodney invited then, anything to stave off the inevitable conversation about nightmares about Wraith and fallen marines and dead scientists and...well yeah, Ford.
“You’re buyin’,” John said, and waved Rodney through the doorway.
“You know, they should really let me bring back my cat,” McKay grumbled.
“I want my ten-speed.”
“They should let us have our own furniture...I really miss my couch.”
“Your couch...?”
“Hey, it’s comfortable.”
“You know, Rodney...I think I’m ready to go back, now. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
Author: padawan_aneiki
Rating/Pairing: G/None
Characters: John and Rodney
Summary: John and Rodney prepare to head back to earth.
In A Box
John Sheppard cupped both hands around the steaming mug of coffee, appreciative for the hot brew. The East Pier had been a little chilly this morning but he’d gone running anyway; he’d needed to clear his head and find some space to do it in; seemed as good a place as any.
Bringing the mug to his lips, he closed his eyes and savored the first swallow. He might not be a praying man but he thanked whoever was watching out for him that the Daedalus had not only come in just the nick of time to help break the Wraith siege over Atlantis. She’d brought along fresh supplies, including coffee, and for a moment John had thought Rodney might kiss Caldwell’s feet for it. He had to admit, as he took another swallow, that having regular supplies would be a welcome thing.
Reestablishing contact with Earth, however, had its own set of potentially difficult problems. John exhaled softly and put the coffee mug down; both hands came up to scrub over his face briefly. Elizabeth had been kind enough to handle most of the video messages for the families of both civilian and military expedition members lost here in Pegasus, prior to the Wraith siege.
Now that the siege was over, and Atlantis survived, there were more messages to be sent, and John would not ask Elizabeth to bear that burden a second time. This time, it was his and his alone. It was the hardest duty of any commander, to inform loved ones that their son or daughter, husband or wife was not coming home and he despised it with every fiber of his being. Elizabeth was taking the entire senior staff with her on the journey to Earth to help brief the SGC on the current situation in Pegasus and to help screen prospective additional staff to come back with them; John intended to make a few face to face visits to some of the family members.
Swirling what was left of his coffee around in the mug, John sighed softly. Finishing it off, he again mentally thanked whoever it had been at the SGC that had considered it to be important enough to include with the initial run of supplies from the Daedalus. Pushing away from the table, John refilled the mug and took it with him; he had the feeling he was going to need the caffeine to get through the rest of today.
“You’re up early.”
John glanced over his shoulder at the familiar sound of Rodney McKay; the scientist coming at a slight jog to catch up with him. He paused to wait for McKay, taking the opportunity for a bit more coffee.
“So are you,” he shot back as Rodney drew even with him and he started walking again. “Since when did you join the dawn patrol?”
“Not me,” McKay protested. “That’s your department, patrolling. Scientific wonder-working is mine. Is that coffee I smell?”
“Hmm,” John grunted, holding the coffee mug out of McKay’s reach.
“It’s a miracle somebody back there had the presence of mind to send us some,” Rodney declared, and John raised his mug slightly in a salute.
“Uh huh.”
“You’re chatty today,” McKay observed and Sheppard very nearly snorted coffee.
“It’s not even oh-six-thirty in the morning, Rodney, what do you want?” John grumbled. This wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind when it came to finding space. Swallowing more coffee, he missed the rather concerned look the scientist threw his way before taking on a more cavalier expression.
“So...you all packed?” Rodney inquired, waving one hand animatedly. “All I can say is that they’d better allow for more than one personal item on the way back. I have my whole CD collection I want to bring back with me, and oh! I promised Zelenka some Tim Horton’s doughnuts. The man has absolutely no idea what he’s missing; he was just born in the wrong place.” He glanced at John again, noting the thoughtful expression on the major’s face. “So? You ready to go back?” he prompted once again.
“Almost,” John responded quietly and there was a faraway look in his eyes. “There’s one more thing I have to do first.” He thrust the now-empty coffee cup into Rodney’s hands and took off at a slow jog, forcing the scientist to either keep up or shove off, and at this point Rodney was not about to just leave. Still holding the mug, he trotted along behind the major.
John’s determined footsteps took them both toward the areas designated for living space, but he didn’t take the familiar turn that led to his own quarters. Rodney hurried to catch up once again, and he frowned. Before he could demand the major to tell him what was going on, however he realized where they were, and he simply stopped dead, right beside Sheppard.
They were outside Aiden Ford’s quarters. Rodney sucked in a nervous breath. He’d known John had taken this hard, harder in many ways than a lot of things he’d seen John face to this point. Over the past few days he’d watched the major closely; he wasn’t sure if it was just Ford or if it was just a cumulative effect of everything that had happened, but the major had taken to odd hours, little sleep and a ceaseless, restless oversight of Atlantis.
It’d been like that after the freak storm and the Genii attempt to take over Atlantis, too. For days afterward, John had prowled the corridors of the city in the wee hours of the morning, practically hovered over Rodney and Elizabeth, and been generally difficult to deal with until he’d worked through and processed what had happened on his own.
Only this was different; that time he hadn’t lost any of the members of his team. Ford, for all intents and purposes... Rodney swallowed; if John even had a hint he was thinking along those lines, he’d be in for the dressing-down of his life, civilian or not.
“Sheppard?” he finally said, as John had not moved or spoken, or even really acknowledged that Rodney was standing there with him. At last the major drew in a slow breath and glanced over at him before activating the override and entering the room. Rodney followed him, and unconsciously shivered. “Okay, this is just creepy, even for you,” he accused. “What do you have to do?”
“Finish,” John muttered tightly, motioning ahead of them. On top of the neatly made bed was a footlocker, lid open, and on closer inspection Rodney could see there were a few items already inside. “There’s new personnel coming in and while we’ve got the whole city practically...” John swallowed hard and simply moved to pick up a nearby picture.
John assumed it was Aiden’s grandparents; there was certainly some family resemblance in the picture. The faces were burned into his memory, and he made a vow to himself-and to them-then and there. I won’t give up on him. I swear it. I’ll find him, I’ll bring him back...we’ll find a way to beat what’s happened to him.
“Where’s all this stuff going, anyway?” Rodney asked hesitantly as he put down the coffee cup and moved to help John, gathering up one of Ford’s ballcaps in one hand, idly tracing the bill with the other in a nervous gesture. “You’re not sending this back to...what, Graves Registration or something? I mean, technically he’s not...”
“No,” John replied simply, and quietly, going about the task of packing away Aiden’s things. “They’re staying right here until he comes back.” It had that sound of stubborn finality that Rodney had learned was the major’s staunch conviction that you don’t leave people behind. It was comforting knowledge, in a way, knowing that Sheppard would come after him if he ever...well, yeah but at the same time it was also disconcerting to see the burden his friend carried.
“We’re still working on those Gate addresses,” McKay asserted, uncertain if that was the right thing to say or not, and when Sheppard didn’t reply, he paused from neatly folding a shirt to go into the footlocker. “I’m doing everything I can do to help, Major.” There was something in Rodney’s voice that made John look up, and he could read the worry in his friend’s eyes.
“I know you are,” John answered now, quietly, and in the hazel eyes there was a wealth of pain. “He’s like a kid, really, y’know?”
Rodney blinked; it was the first that the major had spoken of Ford except to ask about progress with the Gate addresses. He placed the shirt into the open footlocker, and pulled another one from the closet and proceeded to fold it as neatly as the first.
“And you’re his big brother,” he finally ventured, not daring to look at John’s reaction to the statement, but in true McKay fashion simply plunged ahead. “Figuratively speaking, of course. But I think that’s why this is bugging you so much. It’s not a matter of...guilt. Okay, maybe it is; you tend to take it personally but I’m just saying...I think it’s more a matter that he became family, kinda and you miss having him around.”
The silence was so total after Rodney finished, that he had to look up after depositing the second shirt, and he was surprised to see John simply staring at him. Rodney swallowed and shifted his weight uncertainly. “Look, if you want to do this yourself, I can just...”
“Yeah,” John murmured, and Rodney nodded.
“Good, good...I’ll be...Uhm. I’ll be in the lab.”
“No, stay,” Sheppard blinked himself out of his thoughts and moved to place Aiden’s camo jacket into the footlocker. McKay paused at the doorway and looked back, a slight frown. “I just meant...you’re right. I miss him. He’s a good kid and a good officer.” Sheppard glanced around the small room. “I hope we get him back.”
“So do I,” Rodney came back into the room, but he agreed with the major. He offered a slight smile. “He’s too easy a target; we can’t get you on ‘Prime, Not Prime’.” To his surprise, John actually chuckled.
“Yeah, after all the fuss settled down, he told me about that one. Radek almost got his lights punched out, you know that.”
They made short work of packing up Ford’s few belongings, and Rodney watched as John padlocked it and picked up one end, motioning for him to take up the other. Rodney grunted a bit as he did so.
“I’m meant to be working on groundbreaking scientific research here, not carting around someone’s luggage,” he grumbled, before realizing what that sounded like and he tried to backpedal. “I mean...I realize this is Ford’s stuff and I don’t mean that...”
“Oh yes, you do,” Sheppard answered with a wise look. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you volunteered. C’mon, it’s not that far to my quarters.”
The two of them deposited the footlocker in front of John’s bed and he shoved it underneath. He figured it was the most logical place and least likely to be lost there. He straightened up to see Rodney still staring at him.
“What?”
“You ready to go back now?” McKay picked up the thread of their previous conversation as if it had never been interrupted. Sheppard blinked, shook his head slightly in disbelief, and pointed at the small duffel bag by the door. “That’s it?” he exclaimed. “Three weeks on Earth and that’s all you’re taking with you?”
“I figure I’ll be bringing more stuff back, McKay,” John responded, and this time it was the scientist’s turn to shake his head.
“In what? That little thing wouldn’t even hold my CD’s,” Rodney asserted, and then looked at John appraisingly. “Are you going to get some sleep while we’re there, or what?” he demanded. John shrugged slightly.
“Maybe,” he replied. “What about you? I doubt you’ve been sleeping all that well.” The accusation earned him an uneasy shrug from the scientist and John knew he’d hit the mark.
“Want more coffee?” Rodney invited then, anything to stave off the inevitable conversation about nightmares about Wraith and fallen marines and dead scientists and...well yeah, Ford.
“You’re buyin’,” John said, and waved Rodney through the doorway.
“You know, they should really let me bring back my cat,” McKay grumbled.
“I want my ten-speed.”
“They should let us have our own furniture...I really miss my couch.”
“Your couch...?”
“Hey, it’s comfortable.”
“You know, Rodney...I think I’m ready to go back, now. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”