SGA-fic: Ghost Walk 4/4 (John/Rodney, PG-13)
Of course, Rodney does not go straight to bed. He’s still there when John wakes up in the morning, snoring away and leaning precariously on the chair. John just doesn’t have the heart to wake him, so he stays quiet and tries not to think about how much his shoulder is throbbing at the moment. Whatever drugs he’s been on, they must be wearing off.
After a while, a nurse comes by to check on him and, upon discovering that he’s awake, promptly runs off to fetch Keller. The doctor turns up a few minutes later and has no qualms about waking Rodney and sending him to bed. She even goes so far as to threaten to have the burly corpsman who serves as an orderly for the day escort him out.
“How long has he been here?” John asks after Rodney has stumbled off, nearly colliding with the doorframe on his way out.
“Too long,” Keller sighs and starts the routine of checking John’s temperature and bloodpressure and of course she has to follow it up by checking his pupils with her little penlight. “It’s not that I don’t like his company, but he can be a little...”
“Annoying?” John says, blinking the black spots out of his eyes when she’s done.
“I was going to say overwhelming.” She smiles. “How do you feel?”
“Not bad,” John lies. He’s been trying not to grit his teeth against the pain in his shoulder.
“I see.” Keller gives him a knowing look. “You’re about due for another round of painkillers and I’m going to ask a nurse to take a look at that sunburn.”
He thinks about asking when he can get out of here, but he decides to save it for later. “Thank you, doc,” he says instead.
Colonel Carter stops by after breakfast to get a preliminary report; he’ll hand in the real one later when his hands have healed enough to type. John tells her as much as he can remember. Most of what happened before the explosion is pretty clear, but his walk through the desert is not. He doesn’t go into any great detail when it comes to his ghosts. That would probably just lead to a couple of more sessions of mandatory counselling and John really doesn’t need a shrink to tell him how screwed up he is.
When he’s finished, they both go quiet. Carter hands him his water glass and this time, he can hold it all by himself. At least there’s progress.
“So, I guess it could have gone better,” he says, just to break the silence. “It was pretty much a waste of time from beginning to end.”
“We won’t give up,” Carter says, with a smile that’s probably meant to be encouraging. “We’ve beaten worse odds.”
“But we’re back to square one again. That was the last lead we had to finding Teyla.”
She goes quiet again and gives him a calculating look, like she knows something he doesn’t and is trying to decide whether to tell him or not.
“We received a transmission from the Genii,” she says eventually. “They say they might have information and they want to know what it’s worth to us.”
“What? When?” John sits up in his bed. His shoulder and head both protest, but he ignores it. “We have to find out what they know.”
Carter shakes her head. “They will contact us again. There’s nothing we can do but wait. Until then, I need you to rest and get well again.”
John lies back again and closes his eyes. His little stroll through the desert left him with the raw memories of all the people he’s failed through the years. Teyla won’t end up as one of them. There’s nothing more he can do for Sumner and Ford and Holland, but until they get absolute proof that Teyla is dead, he will not stop looking.
Come to think of it, there is one more thing he can do. With a little lump of anxiety in his stomach that he turns to Carter and says, under his breath, “I need to speak to my brother”.
She studies him for a moment, and then she nods. “I’ll see what I can do.”
* * *
Carter pulls strings without asking any questions and John loves her for it. The next day, he’s been set up with a secure video-link to the Milky Way and pulls the privacy curtains shut around his bed, waiting for the control room to patch him through to Dave.
It takes longer than he’d like and he’s had more than enough time to start getting worried when Dave finally shows up on his screen. He’s sitting at his desk in his office at home, the one that used to belong to Dad. He looks good, dressed casually in a polo shirt, and with the kind of healthy tan you get from spending time outside instead of on a tanning bed.
John clearly doesn’t look nearly as good.
“My God, John, you look terrible. What the hell did you do to yourself?”
Okay, so the video-call probably wasn’t the best idea. At least not when he’s looking like something out of a horror movie. John ducks his head and goes for a joke. “Word of advice. If your travel agent offers you a budget vacation somewhere warm and sunny, don’t take him up on it.”
Dave is not even a little bit amused. “I can’t believe you. You look... are you in a hospital? What happened?”
“I’m all right, it looks worse than it is.” And apparently he’s managed to start off another conversation on the wrong foot. “I’m... it’s, uh, classified...”
“Naturally,” Dave interrupts, looking sour.
“...but I’ll be fine. I’m getting out of here later today.”
“Okay.” Dave nods, clearly trying to get his head around that fact. “All right.”
There’s a brief uncomfortable silence while both of them try to figure out what to say next. John was never any good at this.
“So. What have you been up to?” he finally says.
Dave shrugs. “I was out hiking with the girls when I got the call. We had to hurry back. I thought at first...” he trails off and there’s something in his voice that John can’t quite identify, but sounds a little bit like fear. It strikes him that his brother probably wouldn’t expect any good news to come out of an urgent call from the United States Air Force.
He wants to say sorry, apologise for worrying Dave, but he doesn’t know how. Instead he tries to continue the current awkward conversation topic. “You... um. You do that often?”
“As often as I can. Renée’s not much for the outdoors, but the kids love it. We went fishing last weekend.”
John met his niece Shannon once when she was only a few days old, but he’s never met Sophia. They weren’t at the wake and the funeral. The only thing he can remember about Dave’s wife is that she’s nice and very polite, well-polished if a bit distant. He barely knows his closest family. What does that say about him?
“You didn’t use to be the outdoorsy type either,” John says. “Not... back then.” John was the one who took after Mom in that, the one who used to live in the stables and spend all his summers riding horses and riding his bike.
There’s actually a hint of a smile on Dave’s face when he answers. “Well, I got over it. When Shannon was born I remembered all those things Mom used to do with us when we were growing up. It was... nice. I want the girls to have that.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah, it is.” Dave’s face softens while he talks about his daughters, but then he takes a deep breath and straightens up. “I guess it won’t do much good to ask what you’ve been up to?”
“No, not really.” John wants to tell him, has wanted to ever since they had their long talk after the funeral. He said as much as he possibly could, but he knows it wasn’t enough. “I wish I could...” he begins, and then swallows the rest of the sentence. “Things have been a bit rough here lately,” is what he settles for. It’s an understatement, but it’s the best he can come up with at the moment.
Dave snorts. “Yeah, I can tell.”
There’s more silence. John is beginning to think that this entire call was a mistake. Then Dave leans forward and sighs. He runs one hand through his hair, a heartachingly familiar mannerism he must have picked up from Dad.
“John, why are you calling? It wasn’t just to chat.”
“No, it wasn’t.” He doesn’t know what to say, just keeps thinking about what Dave’s ghost told him in the desert and he’s terrified to bring that old ugliness out in the open.
“So tell me.” When John keeps hesitating, Dave bursts out, “John, I’m your brother.“
He’s going to have to say it. John takes a deep breath and asks the question that’s been on his mind for a long time now.
“Are we okay?”
Dave looks a little puzzled. “Yes. Yes, of course we are. Why do you ask that?”
“I’ve been thinking. I shouldn’t have left like I did. I put the company, Dad, everything, on your shoulders and that wasn’t fair to you. I’m sorry.” There, he said it. John feels a little lightheaded and chalks it up to the smoke inhalation, even if Keller took him off the oxygen this morning.
Dave goes quiet and there’s something distant in his eyes, like he’s remembering a time long past. When John looks closely, he can still see the faint traces of the kid with the button downs and the sneer.
“I was angry, for a long time,” Dave says at last. There’s a little wrinkle between his eyebrows, but it’s more sad than resentful. “And I think I was a bit jealous too, that you were strong enough to walk out the door. I never would have dreamed about saying ‘no’ to Dad.”
“And now?” John catches himself holding his breath.
“Now...” Dave pauses, looks to the side of his desk, where John remembers he keeps a photo of his daughters. “I think we’ve both grown up a lot since then, don’t you? Besides, I’m good at this. It might not have been what I dreamed about when I was eighteen but... I bet what you’re doing right now wasn’t exactly part of your dreams either, am I right?”
The relief punches a sharp little bark of a laugh out of John. “Not really. It’s... it’s been tough. But I’ve seen some incredible things. Met some pretty awesome people.” He doesn’t say anything about the people he’s lost.
“I wish you could tell me,” Dave says.
“I know. I want to, but... “ John wouldn’t even know where to start, doesn’t know how Dave would handle the truth of what he’s actually doing. But Dave’s right, they are brothers and he does have the right to know, eventually. ”As soon as all this gets declassified, you’ll be the first one to know, I promise.”
Dave nods. “Good enough.” He looks down and fiddles with something on his desk and then continues, “John, I’m... glad we had this talk. I’ve been thinking too, lately. It’s been too long and I don’t want us to grow apart any more than we already have. I want the girls to get to know their uncle.”
John thinks about the two little girls he only knows from photographs. Damn, he’s spent more time together with Rodney’s niece than he has with his own. “I’d like that,” he says, and he means it. “I’m just a little busy right now. There are people here counting on me. I can’t let them down.”
“I get that,” Dave says. He hides his disappointment well, but it’s there on his face. “Well, when you’ve taken care of... whatever you have to take care of where you are, maybe you can take some time off, come here for a vacation?” he’s talking slowly, almost a little hesitantly, like he’s trying the idea on for size. “We could all go out together for a weekend, maybe take the horses and bring some camping gear? Like we used to do with Mom when we were kids.”
John remembers those summer weekends, just him and Dave and Mom, riding along little forest paths under bright green leaves, making camp by small streams, fighting mosquitoes and waking up to birdsong. In a lot of ways, that was the last time everything was perfectly right with the world. After Mom died, they never did it again.
“We’ll do that,” John says. “I don’t know when, but we’ll do it. Soon, I hope.”
“Good.” Dave smiles. “Take care of yourself, Johnny.” He hesitates again. “You have friends there, right? You’re not alone in that... that tough thing?”
There’s been a steady stream of people coming by his hospital bed since yesterday morning. Rodney and Ronon bring their meals to the infirmary and stay until they get thrown out. Carter drops by with updates on the Genii situation as often as she can. Both Lorne and Zelenka have visited more than once. Dave doesn’t have anything to worry about there.
“I’m not alone,” he says.
* * *
Rodney’s in a staff meeting when John is released from the infirmary after dinner, but Ronon is there to follow him back to his room. Usually, he’d protest and insist that he’s fine to go on his own, but he’s still a little shaky on his legs and he’s grateful to have Ronon by his side, ready to take his weight if he should stumble.
Dave has a point, and so did hallucinatory Teyla. John has a lot of friends here. Maybe it’s time he started acknowledging that. He’s been taking care of himself for as long as he can remember, but it’s not like he’s doing a very good job of it anyway.
John is a little bit winded by the time they make it to his room. Exertion still makes him cough and even though Keller assured him it’s only temporary, it’s still irritating. He heads for the bathroom, pours himself a glass of water, and drinks it slowly in small sips. Ronon sits down on the chair by his bed and waits.
John studies his own face in the bathroom mirror and doesn’t quite recognise himself, even if it’s a little better now than it was when he first woke up. The split lip is healing and the blisters on his cheeks and forehead aren’t so bad anymore. It’s still not a pretty sight.
“You okay?” Ronon asks when he comes out.
John thinks about it for a split second and then decides to let his guard down, just this once. This is Ronon, the one person who always has his back, no matter what. There’s no one he trusts more with his weaknesses.
“I’m pretty fucking scared, actually,” he says and nervously waits for the reaction.
If Ronon’s surprised, he doesn’t show it. Instead he just gives a short nod. “Me too.” He looks up at John with a frustrated scowl. “All this waiting’s the worst. Wish someone could find Michael and point me at him.”
John sinks down on the edge of the bed. Now that he’s started admitting to all the things he doesn’t want to think of, it’s like he can’t stop. “What if we’re too late? What if we don’t find her in time?”
Ronon’s quiet for a long time and a brief glimpse of resignation flashes over his face. John realises he’s probably spent all these weeks thinking the same thing, long enough to be prepared to accept the possibility.
“Then we find Michael and we make him pay,” Ronon says at last.
A simple answer to a difficult question. Ronon’s used to dealing with loss, knows how to take grief and anger and turn it into action. In a way, John is jealous of that ability. On the other hand, it makes him so sad on Ronon’s behalf. If there’s anyone who doesn’t deserve to lose any more loved ones, it’s him.
The door chimes, interrupting them, and Rodney steps inside. He looks tired and harried, and is clearly in a bad mood. “Sorry, the meeting ran late. Seriously, I work with morons. Sometimes I think I’d get more done if I just fired them all and replaced them with trained monkeys.”
Ronon stands. “You two should talk,” he says under his breath, low enough that only John can hear. Then he ducks his head and disappears out the door.
“So, what was that about?” Rodney asks, rubbing his hands together.
“Nothing,” John answers. “We were just talking.”
He knows he should tell Rodney the same thing he just told Ronon, but he finds that it’s much more difficult. The words just won’t come.
“Oh, okay. Are you all right? Did you eat? I could go get us something if you want. I, um, I told Jennifer I’d stay here and help you out until you’re better, you know, with... buttons and stuff. That’s probably going to be difficult with your hands.” Rodney stays by the door, keeping his distance, and John’s heart falls a little. Before, in the infirmary just after he woke up, Rodney couldn’t stay away. Now it’s like he can’t wait to get out of here.
“I already ate, McKay,” John answers. “And I’m fine. Just a little tired.”
“All right.” Rodney looks like he’s already halfway out the door. “I’ll just let you get some rest then. So, um, good night.” He begins to turn.
“Wait!” John didn’t expect that to come tumbling out, Either he’s more tired than he thought, or his mouth knows something he doesn’t. But Rodney stops and turns his head, looking almost a little hopeful. That does it.
“Stay?” John asks, and he hates how needy he sounds, but Rodney doesn’t seem to mind. Rodney closes the door and comes inside, walks up to the bed and sits down beside John. He keeps rubbing his hands together, like he’s not sure what to do with them.
“Is there anywhere I can touch you that doesn’t hurt?” he asks.
In truth, there isn’t, but John won’t tell him that. “Don’t worry about it,” he says instead and Rodney seems to relax a little bit.
“You almost died, you know,” he says quietly. “I thought we were going to die too, but when we made it through the transporter and you weren’t right behind us...” Rodney lets a shaky little laugh slip out and holds up his hand, thumb and forefinger half and inch apart. “I was this close to punching Ronon in the face.”
“It wasn’t his fault.”
“I know it wasn’t his fault. Still, I might have said some things I shouldn’t have, which,” Rodney raises a finger, “I already apologised for, by the way.”
“And then you rebuilt a jumper.”
“In five hours!” Rodney crows. He’s clearly not going to let that go anytime soon, and under the circumstances, John is willing to allow him some bragging room. Then Rodney goes grim-faced and serious again. “Just... try not to almost die again, please? I don’t think I could handle losing you too.”
John reaches out to take his hand, ignoring how it stings his burned skin. “I’m not planning on it.”
Rodney gives him a long, soft-eyed look, and then leans in to brush his lips against John’s temple. It’s gentle and tender and makes the tight knot John has been carrying around in his chest for so long now loosen up a little bit.
* * *
John wakes up a few hours later, alone. He doesn’t know if he actually expected Rodney to stay or if it was just wishful thinking, but it leaves him with a strange aching in his chest that has nothing to do with his irritated lungs. His first instinct is to just try to get comfortable and go back to sleep, but after he’s tossed and turned for twenty minutes, it’s pretty obvious it’s not going to happen.
He gets out of bed and finds a pair of sweats that he can manage to get into even with his clumsy hands. He can’t manage to tie his shoelaces, but it’s not like he usually bothers with that anyway.
It’s close to midnight and the city is quiet, save for the occasional night owl. John stops by Rodney’s room and lab first, just in case, but they’re both empty. Of course. He sighs and heads down to the stasis room instead, wondering what he’s going to say and what he’s going to do. Ronon’s right, they do need to talk, but John has no idea how.
The door to the stasis room is open, and there’s a faint light coming from inside. John walks the last steps as silently as he can. He doesn’t know why he’s trying to sneak up on Rodney, just that it feels very important that his arrival goes unnoticed.
John hasn’t been down here since they locked Carson away, but it’s pretty obvious that Rodney has more or less turned it into a second home. He’s set up a fold-out table with several computers and there’s a cot with a blanket and a pillow tucked away in a corner. There are several empty coffee mugs on the table and the floor around it is littered with empty powerbar and snack-food wrappers. The whole room stinks of desperation and misery.
Rodney’s sitting hunched over the table, head buried in his arms. He’s fast asleep. There’s tons of information on the computer screens, dancing, spinning double helixes and medical research way beyond what John can grasp.
He can’t bring himself to look at Carson’s stasis chamber. If he did, he’d probably want to join Rodney down here.
John tries to tread softly when he enters the room, but Rodney must have been sleeping lightly, because just as John’s going to shake his shoulder, he starts awake, blinking owlishly.
“What? Ow, my back!” he turns around and his red-rimmed eyes take on a look of alarm. “What are you doing here?”
“Couldn’t find you anywhere else,” John says and holds his hand out. “C’mon McKay. It’s bedtime.”
Rodney looks away, at the stasis chambers, at the computer screens, and sighs. “I guess. I thought I was onto something but...” he makes a frustrated gesture. “I can't wrap my head around this. Carson spent his entire life studying this and I can’t learn it fast enough.” There’s so much sorrow and defeat in his voice and John thinks that he should have come down here long ago to drag Rodney away from the impossible task he’s assigned himself.
“Hey,” he says softly. “You rebuilt a jumper in five hours. You can’t be an expert at everything, Rodney.”
“Well, I should be.” Rodney stands up so fast that the chair falls backwards and clatters to the floor. “I’m useless like this!” He starts pacing back and forth and John watches, unsure what to say, what to do.
“Rodney...” he starts, but Rodney isn’t listening.
“I mean, how many times has he saved my life? And I can’t do anything to help him.” He sounds so exhausted, so miserable, and John can’t stand it.
“McKay!” he moves into Rodney’s path to stop him. “We can find Michael, okay? We can find the son of a bitch and force him to give us the cure.” Suddenly, he’s angrier than he can remember being in a long time. Michael has stolen so much already and it doesn’t matter how he came to be and what reasons he has for doing what he does; he needs to be stopped.
Rodney stands still, hands limp by his sides. He looks exhausted, pale under the sunburn and unshaven and so very sad. Then he leans forward without a word, presses his forehead against John’s good shoulder. At first, John doesn’t know what to do, but then Rodney emits a small soft noise that sounds like he’s trying to hold back a sob. That does it. John wraps his arms around him and holds him tight and he can’t help but think that while Rodney might need this, John does too. They’ve barely touched each other lately, not out of bed, and while sex has been a necessary outlet, this is almost even more important.
“I’m just so tired,” Rodney murmurs into John’s shirt.
“Me too, buddy,” John answers. “Me too.”
He doesn’t know how long they stand like that, or who’s holding onto who the most, but it’s more restful than any sleep John has had lately. It’s true, what he told hallucinatory Teyla in the desert. He’s always needed people, he just never thought he could have them.
It looks like he was wrong.
It’s Rodney who moves first. He ducks out of the embrace and turns his head a little to wipe at something that might possibly be moisture on his cheeks.
“Okay, so that was a little embarrassing.” He gives a trembling little laugh. “That was so not what I meant to do.”
“No one here but us,” John says. He’s feeling a little shaky himself but still better somehow, even though the current situation really hasn’t changed. “It’ll be all right,” he says, and it’s almost like he can believe it now. “We’ll find a way to fix all this. But I don’t think we can do it on our own.”
“I guess you’re right.” Rodney glances at his makeshift desk and the screens and notebooks there. “I just got so caught up in all this, I lost track of everything else. History repeats itself.”
He's thinking about Doranda, John can tell, and that makes him grab Rodney's hand and hold on. ”Hey, it's going to be okay,” he says. ”But I... I need you.” Saying the words makes his breath hitch a little, but the world doesn't end or anything.
Rodney swallows and steps closer. ”God, John, me too. I don't even know how to do this without you anymore.”
John leans his forehead against Rodney's, an imitation of an Athosian greeting. It's late and he's so tired he can barely think. Rodney looks like he crossed that line long ago. ”Let's go back to bed,” he says. ”We need to rest. Maybe there'll be news from the Genii in the morning.”
Rodney nods and leans in to brush his lips against John's. It's almost like the last kiss they shared before the mission, but it's still different. This time, Rodney is here, not lost somewhere in his own thoughts.
They power down the computers and Rodney sends one last glance at Carson's stasis chamber. Then they go back to John's room, walking as close together as they possibly can without actually holding hands.
Rodney stays the night.
- fin -
Prompt: Off-world injury or being pitted against the elements, confrontation with something from John's past, John being forced to rely on others for help.