Love and Medicine by liketheriverrun [T]
Show: SGA
Rec Category: Sheppard/McKay
Characters: John Sheppard, Rodney McKay
Pairings: Sheppard/McKay
Categories: Hurt/Comfort, Outside POV
Warnings: None
Author on LJ: liketheriverrun
Author's Website:
Link: Love and Medicine by liketheriverrun
Why This Must Be Read:
This is a compelling outside POV of John and Rodney in desperate straits; a offworld physician's observations of a couple in denial, while he tries to save Rodney's life.
"Have you ever… been in love?"
The question was asked through teeth clinched against pain, but considering that the stranger, Rodney, had a Federation barb lodged deep in his shoulder, Harroll could understand why it was spoken that way. Even if he could recognize the tone, the Sarrian physician found himself taken aback by the question, and it took Harroll a moment to realize Rodney was not addressing him.
Not that Harroll’s love life bore any relevance to the situation at hand. As a physician, Harroll firmly believed that love and medicine should not be mixed. They were two opposite ideals that only caused turmoil if allowed to come together. Medicine required discipline, control, an unemotional detachment so that the proper course of action could be taken without the distraction of sentimentality. So, while questions about love might have been appropriate at another time and place, now, with an arrow threatening to bleed the man dry, it seemed rather odd.
Given the way he furrowed his brow, the injured man’s companion felt the same way.
"In love?"
John Sheppard was how the second man dressed all in black had introduced himself when he had woken Harroll in the middle of the night. There had been a title mentioned, as well, but Harroll had missed it in his drowsy state. In his younger days, Harroll would have been wide awake at the first rap of knuckle to door. His younger days, however, were in the past, and Harroll hadn’t woken completely until he was being dragged through the woods by the man with the title he could not recall…with his own shirttails hanging free of his trousers, no less… to the storage barn by the grist mill where Rodney had been hidden. Shirttails out, no jacket, no sash- Marin would have been appalled to see him present himself this way, even to strangers. But Marin was as much in his past as those days when the need for sleep could be easily vanquished by the presence of a patient on his front step no matter what the hour.
Harroll had only learned Rodney’s name by what John had called him. There had been no need to ask what had happened to the men; it was obvious they had come up against the Federal Guard. The flicker of lanterns through the trees and the sound of armed men in the darkness around them as Sheppard moved Harroll quietly out of town and along the river to the mill was proof the Guard were still searching for them.
Nor did Harroll have to ask how the two strangers had known to come to his house for help. Jance’s dead body in the corner of the barn with a barb in his chest had Harroll shaking his head in regret. Sheppard had taken an oiled tarp from the back of a delivery cart and draped it over the body while Harroll examined Rodney’s shoulder. Harroll had delivered Jance into this world, and unfortunate as it was, the young man was a not the first Harroll had held as a mewling babe and now seen as a cooling corpse. Since the rebellion had begun four years before, the aging physician had treated more than he cared to count and been asked to help more than he cared to recall. Even if Harroll had arrived at the barn sooner, it would not have been soon enough to help the young rebel soldier given the severity of his wounds. Jance, however, had known Harroll was sympathetic to the rebels who showed up on his doorstep and would have sent the stranger to him for medical aid.
Jance may have been beyond help, but the stranger was not. Not yet, anyway.
Rec Category: Sheppard/McKay
Characters: John Sheppard, Rodney McKay
Pairings: Sheppard/McKay
Categories: Hurt/Comfort, Outside POV
Warnings: None
Author on LJ: liketheriverrun
Author's Website:
Link: Love and Medicine by liketheriverrun
Why This Must Be Read:
This is a compelling outside POV of John and Rodney in desperate straits; a offworld physician's observations of a couple in denial, while he tries to save Rodney's life.
"Have you ever… been in love?"
The question was asked through teeth clinched against pain, but considering that the stranger, Rodney, had a Federation barb lodged deep in his shoulder, Harroll could understand why it was spoken that way. Even if he could recognize the tone, the Sarrian physician found himself taken aback by the question, and it took Harroll a moment to realize Rodney was not addressing him.
Not that Harroll’s love life bore any relevance to the situation at hand. As a physician, Harroll firmly believed that love and medicine should not be mixed. They were two opposite ideals that only caused turmoil if allowed to come together. Medicine required discipline, control, an unemotional detachment so that the proper course of action could be taken without the distraction of sentimentality. So, while questions about love might have been appropriate at another time and place, now, with an arrow threatening to bleed the man dry, it seemed rather odd.
Given the way he furrowed his brow, the injured man’s companion felt the same way.
"In love?"
John Sheppard was how the second man dressed all in black had introduced himself when he had woken Harroll in the middle of the night. There had been a title mentioned, as well, but Harroll had missed it in his drowsy state. In his younger days, Harroll would have been wide awake at the first rap of knuckle to door. His younger days, however, were in the past, and Harroll hadn’t woken completely until he was being dragged through the woods by the man with the title he could not recall…with his own shirttails hanging free of his trousers, no less… to the storage barn by the grist mill where Rodney had been hidden. Shirttails out, no jacket, no sash- Marin would have been appalled to see him present himself this way, even to strangers. But Marin was as much in his past as those days when the need for sleep could be easily vanquished by the presence of a patient on his front step no matter what the hour.
Harroll had only learned Rodney’s name by what John had called him. There had been no need to ask what had happened to the men; it was obvious they had come up against the Federal Guard. The flicker of lanterns through the trees and the sound of armed men in the darkness around them as Sheppard moved Harroll quietly out of town and along the river to the mill was proof the Guard were still searching for them.
Nor did Harroll have to ask how the two strangers had known to come to his house for help. Jance’s dead body in the corner of the barn with a barb in his chest had Harroll shaking his head in regret. Sheppard had taken an oiled tarp from the back of a delivery cart and draped it over the body while Harroll examined Rodney’s shoulder. Harroll had delivered Jance into this world, and unfortunate as it was, the young man was a not the first Harroll had held as a mewling babe and now seen as a cooling corpse. Since the rebellion had begun four years before, the aging physician had treated more than he cared to count and been asked to help more than he cared to recall. Even if Harroll had arrived at the barn sooner, it would not have been soon enough to help the young rebel soldier given the severity of his wounds. Jance, however, had known Harroll was sympathetic to the rebels who showed up on his doorstep and would have sent the stranger to him for medical aid.
Jance may have been beyond help, but the stranger was not. Not yet, anyway.