SGA: Got Lost Sometimes
Title: Got Lost Sometimes
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Summary: Rodney didn’t remember moving; one second he was standing over John, the next, he was kneeling beside him, trying to hold John’s head up and fumble for his cell phone at the same time.
Author's Notes: My thanks go to the_acrobat for all her gracious beta help! Spoilers up to and including SGA 320. First posted here as a response to the Sickness Challenge at sga_flashfic. (And I Cannot Feel The Sun is a kind of a companion piece to this story, and I may write more in this universe later on.)
We have biofeedback. We know there are levels
where light’s too large to land, so “being” anything isn’t
being visible or countable - levels where dream is
logic, levels where you could fall lost in the space
between your own hand and its shadow.
From “Reality Organization”, by Albert Goldbarth
After his last debriefing had ended at a godforsaken four-o-clock in the morning, Rodney snuck into the infirmary. The room seemed quiet after the inane questions of the SGC scientists and the even more pointless ones of the military, with only the hum of instruments accompanying the low sounds of people breathing.
Rodney stood watching just inside the door, afraid to go any further in case he bumped into something and woke someone up. Eighteen hours of talking and a dozen cups of coffee later, he didn’t trust his body to do what it was told.
But there was enough light that he could see familiar outlines of people on the beds: Elizabeth, unconscious for five days now and whose doctors muttered about neurological damage and wouldn’t meet Rodney’s eyes; John, diagnosed with malnutrition and exhaustion; Simpson, marked with second-degree burns all over her hands; Jacobs, with a broken leg, and a half dozen others, ’Lanteans all.
Refugees, thought Rodney bitterly, we’re all refugees now.
John’s bed was the closest to the door, and Rodney gazed at his sleeping form for several minutes, following the lines of the IV tubing up into his arm and finally rising his eyes to meet his face, already paling under the unfriendly light under the mountain. John was very still, with only the rise and fall of his chest betraying the fact that he was breathing at all. An unnatural stillness, Rodney thought, half-hysterical, stillness without deliberation or intent. His hand clutched at the doorframe, and he breathed in deep himself then, attempting to conjure up sunny fields and clear blue skies, far away from the suddenly too dark and still infirmary.
It worked, kind of, or at least Rodney told himself that he didn’t have time for a nervous breakdown right now. Relaxing his hand from the doorframe, he fished in his pocket with the other, finding by feel a scrap of paper that wasn’t too crumbled up. Before he could change his mind, he walked over to the table next to John’s bed and bent down to write a simple 10-digit number on the paper, signing it R.M. Picking up an empty glass on table, Rodney placed it over the piece of paper. He turned and looked at John again, and then stepped away from the bed and out of the infirmary.
*
Rodney had to choke down his anger during the debriefings, trying not to scream out the betrayal that he felt. The SGC made excuses, said that messages had been sent to Atlantis, and they did not know why the expedition hadn‘t received them; cited planetary security as reason neither to send a ship to pick up the teams caught off world when the attack happened nor one to check on the new Athosian settlement, where Teyla and Ronon had been. They refused to even consider any attempt to return to the city and power it up again.
And then they turned around and demanded a full and precise account of his every move on Atlantis, all his decisions made under fire. When they started to ask him questions that were nearly accusations about Elizabeth and John and the choices they had made, Rodney almost walked out.
But he had noted the extra Marines at every corner he turned, and inferred that the cost of freedom was cooperation, so he swallowed hard and answered all their questions as calmly as he could. At night, he used his own encrypted communication programs to mask the fact that he was getting in touch with Elizabeth’s contacts, pleading for all the help he could secure. There were still ten people in that infirmary, and there were disturbing whispers about new enemies, alien and domestic, and Elizabeth was still unresponsive, and Rodney was damned if he trusted the SGC to do right by any of them.
*
Back at the hotel, Rodney did three things. He spent a half an hour on his laptop, sending emails to the non-military professional contacts he had started building up again during his leaves on Earth since the last time they found themselves exiled from Atlantis, when he had thought he would blow up the complex if he had to work at Area 51 again. Fumbling with the phone, he ordered a large, greasy pizza with green peppers and mushrooms and pepperoni and sausages, and ate all but two pieces. Then he gave into the haze of exhaustion and let his body succumb gratefully to sleep.
Two days later, he was on a plane to San Francisco, where he had already rented a house on the bay and secured a job heading up a small lab at the Space Sciences Laboratory at Berkeley, having turned down yet another wonderful opportunity to work with the U.S. Government at Lawrence National Laboratory. Though his business-class seat was uncomfortable and he had no work to distract himself with yet, every mile that carried him away from Colorado Springs and the SGC allowed Rodney to breathe just a bit easier.
His house, it turned out, was full of windows which let in the late spring sunlight. Already furnished in green and blue and white, it seemed more like a summer home than a place to make a life. He could smell the ocean from his front door; he could walk to the bay in five minutes. He was surrounded by pine, the solidity of earth that the light burnished like bronze and gold and Pegasus janya, but Rodney was like air, slipping between himself and his memories, between freedom and grief.
Rodney busied himself with setting up his lab; he had inherited two postdocs and a grad student from a professor who had to retire rather suddenly after a heart attack, and it was a relief to have people to order around. Gleefully, he deleted emails from undergraduate students breathlessly asking for research opportunities and independent study, drawn to a new lab like stupid jocks to a bowl game. His contract didn’t call for any teaching duties at all, thank god. He tried not to think about his people, scattered around the world by now, or Elizabeth, who had been moved to a long-term care facility at a military hospital. He told himself that he wasn’t waiting for his cell phone to ring.
When it finally rang, early on a Saturday morning, Rodney burned himself with coffee in his rush to get to it, and was rewarded for his valour by the sound of John’s drawl, coming in loud and clear.
“Hi, Rodney,” he said, sounding so completely unlike the still figure in the infirmary bed that Rodney nearly laughed with relief, “Miss me?”
“Not at all,” Rodney lied.
“Well, that’s too bad, because I’m here.”
“What do you mean, you’re here?” Rodney demanded, but he was already heading for his front door.
He flung open the door as John’s voice murmured, “your car sucks,” in his ear. Rodney snapped the cell phone shut and stuffed it in his jeans pocket. John was standing next to a red Corvette in the driveway, holding a duffle bag. “At least mine isn’t overcompensating for anything!” he yelled.
John patted the car lovingly. “Pay no attention to Rodney,” he told it, “He’s just a jealous old hag.”
From the front step, Rodney snorted. “Hey, Hairdo! What are you waiting for - an engraved invitation?” He jerked his head towards the house. “My coffee is getting cold.”
In the kitchen, Rodney avoided any awkward moments by making food for himself and John - bacon and eggs, toast and hash browns. John dropped his duffle bag on the floor and raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure that’s safe to eat?”
Rodney waved a spatula at him threateningly. “I’ll have you know that I’m a very fine cook.”
“Uh huh, I’m sure.”
“You’re in no position to turn down food; you still look like a fifteen-year-old girl starving herself for winter formal.” John just looked at him, and Rodney deflated slightly. “I can only do breakfast foods,” he admitted. “I survived on eggs and frozen hash browns all through grad school.”
After they had eaten, John gulping down all the food Rodney could press on him despite dire predictions of poisoning and emergency room visits; Rodney took a deep breath and asked the first question. “So, they didn’t offer you a 'gate team this time?”
“I quit,” John said tightly. Rodney studied him intently for a moment and decided not to push for more. He was pretty sure he knew John’s reasons. Besides, the man did still look thin and pale and (oh god) Rodney had turned into his grandmother, bent on feeding up all strays, human or otherwise. He was going to die surrounded by sixteen cats and they were going to eat his face. “Rodney?” John asked, “You all right?”
“I’m never getting more than one cat,” Rodney blurted out.
John looked taken back. “O-o-o-kay.”
Rodney rubbed at his face. “Sorry,” he offered. ‘It’s - it’s been a long few weeks.”
“Yeah,” said John, after a moment, “it has.”
Then he yawned, a huge, jaw-cracking yawn, and Rodney yelled, “Oh my god, you just drove from Colorado, didn’t you, you reckless idiot?” He picked up the duffle bag - which was heavier than it looked and was probably doing his back no favours - and hauled it towards the spare room, John insisting that he didn’t feel tired all the hall. But as Rodney put the duffle bag down on the floor and turned to explain to John how he was going to go to sleep right this minute, John stumbled, bumping into him and Rodney’s arms came up to catch him instinctively, wrapping him in an unintentional embrace.
He could feel John’s stubble, scratching his cheek. He could smell John, road dust and gasoline oil and sizzling bacon. John’s hair, longer than usual, tickled his nose, and if he wanted to, he could have counted the numbers of John’s ribs by just pressing his fingers a little tighter. John said, “I guess I am a little tired,” in an amused breath which tickled Rodney’s ear, and Rodney flushed and abruptly stepped back, dropping his arms.
“That’s why you should listen to me,” he said, nervously crossing his arms across his chest.
“Well, as long as I get to play with the crayons afterwards, I’ll lie down on the mat and take my nap, ” John replied. Then he smiled, and said “Rodney,” and closed the door. Rodney stared at it for a few seconds then padded off softly, slightly confused. By the time he emailed the postdocs to tell them he wouldn’t be coming in today after all, he was smiling.
John woke up in the late afternoon, looking disturbingly cute with his face sleep-creased and his hair mussed, like one of those kids in an Osh Kosh B‘Gosh commercial that would probably puke on you as soon as it was off-screen. Rodney shut down his laptop and walked with him outside, showing him the path that led down to San Francisco bay. The sun was beginning to set as they came to the bay, pink and orange and gold on the horizon, sinking into the blue of the Pacific. Rodney watched John’s body relax from the tension he had been carrying since the attack on Atlantis as he drank in the sight, and was secretly, fiercely glad that he had come to Berkeley instead of Chicago or MIT or Waterloo.
They ate Chinese for dinner and Rodney told John about his lab and the research program he was putting together. He told him about the ridiculousness of passing the SETI institute each day and John laughed, that horrible braying sound which eased the knot in Rodney’s chest. Neither of them mentioned Atlantis, or the SGC, or everyone and everything they had been forced to leave behind.
The days slipped into a pattern, with John coming to the lab in the mornings, working out equations with a kind of a lazy ease when Rodney asked and messing around on the Internet with such a contrasting intensity that Rodney told him, haughtily, that he hoped John wasn’t downloading porn on the lab computers. One of the postdocs giggled, but John just smirked at Rodney and continued what he was doing.
John would disappear in the afternoons, coming back to the house in the evening with Asian pears from the market or tacky 49ers caps for himself and Rodney. Sometimes his hair would be still damp and Rodney would know that he had been in the ocean, ducking beneath the surface of the water and rising again, sure and swift.
He slept a lot, often conking out on the couch when they watched movies after dinner and blinking blearily at Rodney when he suggested that John should go to bed. He ate a lot too, more than Rodney had ever seen him do on Atlantis, but didn't gain much weight, if any. Rodney worried a little about that, like he worried about the sounds he heard sometimes at night, something low and painful from down the hall. However, it wasn't like Rodney didn’t wake up, two nights out of seven, tangled in his sheets and hyperventilating, sweat slipping down his forehead into his eyes. As for the other, Rodney told himself that it was just the lingering effects of the exhaustion and malnutrition, and didn’t ask John about it, afraid of pushing him too far, of upsetting the careful balance they had created between them.
John never said a word about leaving, and Rodney didn’t, either. The spare room became John’s room in his mind, and it became impossible for him to imagine Berkeley without John.
So he shouldn’t have been surprised to come home one Friday to see John standing over a brand-new grill, looking ridiculously pleased with himself. Smoke was rising lazily from it as Rodney hurried down the steps, shouting “Hey, I don’t pay someone a lot of money to do the landscaping just for you to burn down the backyard!”
John just grinned. “Hi, Rodney.”
Rodney sniffed. “I mean it, Sheppard, I - oh.” He sniffed the air again. “That smells fantastic.”
“You’re not the only one who can cook,” John said, whacking him on the shoulder with the spatula.
“Ow!” Rodney glared at John, who was wearing a ludicrously tight black T-shirt whose red lettering read REAL MEN BARBECUE. “I’ll forgive your violent behaviour if you give me a burger right now.” The T-shirt even, in yet another example of the supreme unfairness of the universe, looked disgustingly good on him.
“Patience, young Jedi.” John was openly smirking now.
“No, you don’t understand, I spent all day surrounded by tofu-eating hippies who smoke way too much weed, I deserve some red meat. God.”
John raised his eyebrows. “In that case, McKay, pick your fixins, and I’ll see what I can do,” he said, pointing to a whole collection of condiments and toppings on a picnic table Rodney had never seen before. Mouth watering, Rodney only spared a second for another suspicious glare at John before rushing to do what he was told.
They ate on that wooden picnic table, sitting side-by-side, watching through the vegetation as the sun sank down into the bay. Rodney groused half-heartedly about splinters and tetanus shots, but mostly focused his attention on his burger, almost moaning with pleasure.
“You know,” John remarked, “the sounds you’re making are illegal in 30 states.”
Unembarrassed, Rodney swallowed his last bite. “Then it’s a good thing we’re in the 31st.”
John smiled at him - almost fondly, Rodney thought - and said, “Yeah, good thing.” They finished off the last of the burgers, and stayed, sated, with their shoulders touching, sipping at the beers Rodney had brought out from the fridge. John started to hum something under his breath, and Rodney giggled - he couldn’t help himself - when he recognised it as “Cheeseburger In Paradise”. John’s face turned to meet his, head cocked quizzically to one side, and Rodney, meaning to make a sarcastic comment unfavourably comparing Jimmy Buffet to Johnny Cash, kissed him instead.
It was only a fleeting moment of contact, but Rodney was aware of everything - John’s chapped lips, warm and slightly open, the day-old stubble on his chin, the widening of his green eyes - before pulling back, already panicking. “I didn’t - I mean I know you don’t, and that’s fine, this is nothing, really,” he babbled, already seeing his future unravel before him: John standing abruptly, John storming out of the house, John driving away to another part of the state, the country, the world, - and leaving Rodney, alone with his stupidity.
But John only looked at Rodney thoughtfully and raised his thumb to Rodney’s lips, tracing them slowly, oh so slowly. “Shh,” John said, “Let me.” He slid his hands up to cup Rodney’s face - Rodney shivered, barely breathing - and kissed him, fully, deeply.
Needing to get closer, closer, Rodney pulled away just long enough to get them both standing, before wrapping his arms around John and letting himself return the kiss, as slowly and sweetly as his desperation would allow. Their bodies pressed up close to each other, close enough that Rodney could feel John getting hard. When they finally broke the kiss, they still stood, arms on each other’s shoulders and foreheads touching, breathing hard.
“Bed?” suggested Rodney at last, sounding tentative and breathless even to himself.
“God, yes,” John murmured, and then lifted his head to whisper into Rodney’s ear, “I want you to fuck me.”
Rodney jerked back in shock - exactly like an electric shock, the current traveling through him, frying all his systems with the idea. His dick was ready to grant John’s request, right there on the table, splinters be damned, but Rodney found himself saying, “Yes, of course, I would love to, if you’re sure - are you sure you’re sure? - but, um, damn, I don’t have any stuff, I don’t think -”
“Hey,” John interrupted, touching Rodney’s lower lip with his thumb again. Rodney went still, eyes locked on John’s face, whose lips were quirked up in a small smile. “Hey,” John repeated, his voice low and amused, “I have lube, and unless you’ve been studying more than science with that blond postdoc of yours -” Rodney mutely shook his head “-then I believe we were both cleared in our last physical.”
John Sheppard had been surprising him since Rodney told an unknown pilot to think about his place in the universe and watched galaxies spiral out above him. “In that case,” Rodney managed to say, “I think this is one of your better plans.”
In John’s room, they pulled each other’s shirts and pants off, fingers running down bodies in teasing anticipation. John was skinnier than the last time Rodney had seen him naked, covered in mud and pouting on M7X-314, but he still had that casual beauty that made Rodney’s mouth go dry. All long legs and deep eyes, which made Rodney feel like an awkward romance novel heroine, rhapsodising about the hero while stumbling around after his easy grace. Suddenly it all seemed too weird - him and John? having sex? outside one of his carefully orchestrated midnight fantasies? Rodney must be hallucinating again.
But then John pulled Rodney onto the too-narrow single bed, almost making both of them tumble out immediately afterwards, and Rodney had to laugh. He found himself kissing John again, all awkwardness forgotten, just him and John again, doing what came next. John let him, looking up at Rodney with laughter in his eyes. When Rodney pulled away, fumbling for the lube, he rolled over, spreading his legs in clear invitation.
Rodney, lube in hand, looked back and caught his breath - all this, John waiting for him. He slicked his fingers quickly as he could and slid one into John, carefully, slowly, because, despite his dick, stiff and single-minded with need, he wanted to do this right. Except John moaned and John said “more, god, Rodney, more” and he could feel tiny muscles jump, could feel John straining upwards already, and he slid the next finger in faster. John moaned again, deeper this time, “Rodney, c’mon, I want to feel you,” and Rodney was broken and pushed inside - so incredibly tight and hot - and he found his rhythm, short, fast strokes, with John shuddering beneath him. He heard John, going “oh, oh, oh“ and was vaguely aware that he was saying John’s name over and over again. He felt it everywhere when John came, so fast it was shocking, pushing him over to orgasm a few seconds later, howling into John’s shoulder.
The next morning, he woke up with a crick in his neck, the sensation that his right arm had been used as a pillow and a ridiculous grin on his face.
“Hey,” John said, already up and wearing a T-shirt and swim trunks. He leaned down and kissed Rodney, and then said, “We’re going swimming today.”
“Wait,” Rodney protested, “no, no, and did I say no. Water-related activities and I do not get along.”
“C’mon, Rodney, it’ll be fun.” John whined and god, now Rodney was having flashbacks to last night and he was never going to be able to be out in public with John Sheppard ever again, much less swimming.
“I don’t have any swimming trunks!” Rodney said, inspired. “Therefore I absolutely cannot go swimming.” He folded his arms. John only grinned and threw something at him, and he automatically caught it, belatedly realising that it was a piece of blue fabric. “I got you some,” John explained, still smiling.
Rodney gave up, figuring the fact that his ridiculous grin hadn’t faded was already giving him away. “Fine. But I’m going to blame you if I get stung by a jellyfish and die horribly.”
“Like that’s new,” John replied, but his voice was a little wistful and Rodney looked away, not willing to mention Atlantis, even in this new intimacy.
At the beach, they ended up mostly playing in the water, splashing each other like little kids. On the way back, they kissed every few steps, turning a five-minute journey into a hour-long one. Rodney delighted in every touch, in every new piece of John he discovered, and decided he could get to like swimming if every time was like this.
People who passed them only gave them amused and tolerant smiles and Rodney thought that this was something he could get used to as well - a freedom they could have never had on Atlantis. He expected that revelation to hurt, as nearly every thought about Atlantis had since they had come out, broken and betrayed, of the ’gate into the SGC. But somewhere in the past couple of months, the weight of grief and bitterness that surrounded his last memories of the city had lightened. Rodney’s heart lifted, and he leaned into John, brushing a few strands of hair away, and kissed the corner of his left eye.
Later that night, with the sky a deep velvety blue and the stars shining in the windows, they fucked again, slower and sweeter and fell asleep as if there was nothing and no-one else in the whole world.
The pattern of their days didn’t change much, except that Rodney was now hyperaware of John’s every movement, the way their fingers brushed, reaching for the last piece of pizza. The way John sometimes seem to hover just of out of Rodney’s sight, a comfortable presence in the in and outs of daily life. They touched more often now too, and any innocent moment could easily turn sexual - once, in Rodney’s lab, early in the morning, with the sunlight streaming down and Rodney on his knees on the hard floor and John groaning above him, hand fisted in Rodney’s hair.
Rodney found that he had no desire to talk about it, to trap John with words, to force some kind of conclusion out of this new experiment. He was content to let their relationship fall into this new rhythm and let the days go by, easy in his body for once, tangling it with John’s.
Still, something in him became more and more hopeful, as the summer passed, and John stayed, and talked of looking into teaching a few self-defense classes at the university rec centre, or going on to do his doctorate in the math department there (he had a Master’s in Applied Mathematics from MIT, which had surprised Rodney four years ago, hacking into John’s files). Rodney couldn’t keep from grinning as he said, “You do know that those so-called students would much rather twist their bodies into inexplicable positions and then go get high than actually do any kind of real exercise, don’t you?” and “If you can manage to deal with the morons who pass for Berkeley’s math department, you deserve a degree on those grounds alone.”
Mid-July, Rodney got an email from the friendliest of Elizabeth’s doctors and when John returned home that evening, Rodney bounced up to him, grinning, “She’s awake, Dr. Abbot said, Elizabeth’s awake and talking, even!”
John grinned back at him, Rodney’s own delight mirrored in his eyes. “We should go see her,” he drawled.
“Exactly what I was thinking,” Rodney replied, and enthusiastically kissed him.
They drove to Fort Carson in John‘s car, because John disliked flying on aircraft he wasn’t personally piloting. Rodney got to drive the Corvette much more than he expected, because John was still sleeping a lot, flying down the highway with Bach and Johnny Cash and Celine Dion keeping time to the way John breathed, in and out, slouched down on the passenger seat.
Elizabeth greeted them with bright eyes and a wide smile, and a part of Rodney that had been tense with fear and anticipation relaxed. They talked physical therapy and recovery time - John, with a look at Rodney, invited Elizabeth to come visit them in Berkeley once she got out of the hospital. Elizabeth raised an eyebrow, and looked at them with a knowing smile, but merely said, “I’ll love to.” Rodney flushed red with embarrassment anyway and promised untold revenge on John’s poker face and aw-shucks-‘taint-me pose.
Elizabeth hugged both of them when they had to leave. She whispered in his ear, “Thanks for everything, Rodney,” and he remembered how he had went down Elizabeth’s list of contacts when she was unconscious, half beseeching and half demanding all their help and influence for all those who had made it out of Atlantis before the city sank once more. “You took care of all of us,” she continued, and he went red for the second time in a hour.
“Be careful,” he managed to say, blinking his eyes as he stepped back. “Just - be careful, okay?”
Elizabeth nodded, her face drawn once again in her more usual severity. “You too.”
*
Afterwards, Rodney only remembered bits and pieces of that day -the first blue lights that came in from the jury-rigged long-range sensors -
- “We have confirmed 11 Replicator ships, repeat, confirmed 11 Replicator vessels” -
- “Lts. Bryant’s and May’s teams are still off world, m’am, and Teyla and Ronon ’gated out to the new Athosian settlement” -
- sudden terror after months of peace, rebuilding on this new planet, but the mind remembered, the fingers remembered, adrenaline coursed through his system -
- “Earth isn’t responding to our hails!” -
- the first blast, but the shield took it, depleted levels to 86%, but it took it -
- “Colonel, head to chair, the drones - ” “Got it, McKay” -
- the second blast, down to 74%, damn it -
- and then Atlantis shook, he almost fell, and fire spit out into the sky -
- Elizabeth’s voice, beating his by a nanosecond, yelling, “John, what’s going on?” -
- “I don’t know - it feels - I think we have more than drones!”
- more fire shot out - it was like an earthquake -
- “Colonel, you took out two, no, three enemy ships - keep doing what you’re doing!”
- more blasts - shield was down to 33% -
- Zelenka, awed, “Emergency weaponry systems are on-line - I did not we had these!” -
- John was screaming, “it feels” as three, four, five Replicator ships disappeared from the screen -
- the last blast came through as the shield went down -
- the emergency system fired, and the ’gate room was burning, damaged again, and he couldn’t see Elizabeth again -
- but the Replicators were gone gone gone -
- the shield was back up -
- and then John yelled, voice cracking, “the city is going to seal itself off, we have to get out of here!”
*
Yet, after that visit, when the last of Rodney’s major worries, the ones that kept him up at night sometimes, tracing the constellations on John’s pale back, should have let go of him, Rodney found instead that they were focused on John. Maybe it was just that Elizabeth’s signs of returning health highlighted the fact that John seemed to have lost weight, if anything, and that he slept more now than three months ago rather than less. He missed more mornings in the lab now, because Rodney couldn’t bear to wake him up when he slept through the loud radio alarm where once he would have woken instantly if you had but muttered something in his ear. Most of the time, John didn’t even seem irritated with him for failing to wake him up, which scared Rodney more than the constant sleeping.
When he did have the energy, John craved the kind of fast, furious fucking they had done that first night, urging Rodney on to almost brutal strokes, leaving bruises on both of them. More often, though, he seemed to be caught halfway between the dreaming and waking worlds, only vaguely aware of Rodney’s touches, of his kisses on John’s bruises, letting Rodney soothe him into sleep.
One or twice a week, Rodney would wake to find John, not curled up beside him in Rodney’s queen-sized bed, but in his room down the hall, huddled in a fetal position, looking pale and small, lying on top of the made-up bed. And once, terrifyingly, Rodney had found John scrunched up next to the bathtub, and when Rodney touched his shoulder, he didn’t even seem to recognise him.
A few days after that incident, Rodney, waiting for John to get back to the house and tense with worrying and the stress of not saying anything, strode down to the path to the bay - and found John, walking where the water met the sand. He was damp with the mist that followed the late summer storm that they had earlier today, looking like an acrobat walking a wire in a circus, intense and afraid of missing a single step. Rodney thought, as fear and fury shot through him, That’s it. We‘re going to talk, and we‘re going to do it today.
He stomped back to the house and paced around the kitchen floor until John came through the door, looking almost deliberately relaxed now. “Hey, Rodney,” he said.
“Something's wrong,” Rodney said flatly. “Something’s wrong with you and I want to know what it is, right now.” He folded his arms and glared at John.
John went a little pale, but his voice was steady as he said, “Nothing’s wrong, McKay. You’re just being paranoid.”
“Like hell I am,” Rodney snapped. But then John stumbled backwards, and as Rodney watched in horror, slid down the side of the counter, his eyes rolling up into their sockets.
Rodney didn’t remember moving; one second he was standing over John, the next, he was kneeling beside him, trying to hold John’s head up and fumble for his cell phone at the same time. He was about to call 911 when John moaned, and said, “Atlantis est inacies plenes , flos florens, duo sunt de caelo tangi, scuta sex et tres et unum, quinque sunt de caelo tangi, scuta tres et quinque et unum, secundus concentus requirit -” and then stiffened and screamed, “Talia!”
Ancient, thought Rodney in frightened amazement. But why? how? He was distracted as John’s voice changed, sounding like a little kid, saying “I want to go home, I want to go home,” again and again.
“Shh, shh,” Rodney said ineffectually, “it’s all right now, you’re home, you’re home.” Not knowing what else to do, he gathered John in his arms and held him until he stopped shaking. “Do you think you could make it to the couch?” he asked, as John seemed to be dropping off into sleep.
“’kay,” John replied softly, still sounding like a five-year-old, and let Rodney lead him to the couch. Rodney covered him with a fleece blanket and allowed himself the indulgence of brushing John’s hair away from his face before retreating to the kitchen, where he could both keep a fearful eye on John and make a phone call. That stream of Ancient sounded familiar, like he might have read it in the database, and he knew there was one person who could tell him for sure.
Rodney dialled Elizabeth’s new number and when she answered, immediately repeated the words and pleaded for a translation, an explanation, anything.
Something in his voice must have gotten through, because Elizabeth didn’t ask any questions, but said thoughtfully, “Loosely translated, it sounds like 'Atlantis is fully on-line, weapons firing, two hits, shields at 63%, five hits, shields at 35%, need backup systems -'” She paused. “What did you say the name was again?”
“Talia,” Rodney said tightly.
“Yes, that fits.” Elizabeth's voice took on a firmer tone. “This sounds like part of Yarin’s log of the first Wraith attack on Atlantis. It’s actually quite a tragic story - I believe Talia was his lover - she died when a Wraith blast got through the shield.”
“Oh,” said Rodney, feeling like he was going to throw up. It’s the damn chair, John’s ATA gene, it’s got to be.
“Now,” Elizabeth said, “will you tell me what this is about?”
“It’s John,” Rodney said, trying to breathe normally, “He had - I don’t know - a fit, I guess, and started saying all that, and god, Elizabeth, you know that Sheppard never really learned Ancient, he never read that log.” His voice broke.
Rodney could hear Elizabeth take a sharp intake of breath. “Shit.” She said and he laughed, despite it all, at this most unElizabeth imprecation. “Do you think -”
“That this has something to do with the chair and the ATA gene, yes.”
“Then I think you should get in touch with Dr. Keller,” Elizabeth said. “She inherited all of Carson’s notes and files with his job, so she’s the expert on the ATA gene now,” Outside the SGC went unspoken. Elizabeth continued, “I have her contact information; she’s at Johns Hopkins now. I could call her right now and set up an appointment for John.”
That was another thing Rodney hated about Earth: the people he needed were always a country away instead of just two hallways and a transporter ride. “Yes, please.” He couldn’t stop staring at John, sleeping peacefully on the couch when just moments before he had been shaking in Rodney’s arms.
“All right,” Elizabeth said. “Keep me posted.”
“I will,” Rodney promised.
“And, Rodney?” She added. “Take care of yourself too.”
Rodney let John sleep for a good few hours. Not wanting to stray too far from him, Rodney brought his laptop into the living room and tried to work. But he couldn't concentrate on the research that had seemed so exciting the day before. When he found himself pacing, moving in circles between the living room and the kitchen, glancing anxiously at John every few seconds, he decided to put his coiled-up energy into making omelettes for himself and John. Big, fluffy ones, full of sausage and ham, green peppers and mushrooms. After Elizabeth called back with a date, Rodney walked back into the living room and gently shook John awake.
“Wha’?” he said, squinting upwards, “Rodney?”
“Yeah,” Rodney said and was surprised to hear how calm his voice was. “C’mon, there’s food.”
John followed him into the kitchen and obediently sat down at the table. “Eat,” Rodney said, pointing to the omelette on the plate in front of John, “and after you’re done, we can discuss how incredibly stupid it was of you to keep this from me.” John looked like he wanted to say something, but wisely kept his mouth shut and ate the damn omelette instead.
Rodney, trembling with anger and fear, wanted to scream at him, “Don’t you ever scare me like that again!” - shades of his mother this time - but instead said, quite evenly, “Elizabeth made you an appointment with Dr. Keller. We’re flying out to Johns Hopkins tomorrow.” John merely nodded.
When he had finished eating, he reached out for Rodney’s hand, and Rodney let him take it, let him rub his thumb across his palm. “It was just nightmares at first. Nothing that unusual. Then I thought was having combat flashbacks,” he said. “But then some of them started to get confusing, like I was remembering fighting someone else's battles.” He bit his lip, looked away for a moment, and then back at Rodney. “Woke up in strange places a couple of times.” All of Rodney’s words, accusations, insults - they all seemed strangled in the face of this quiet confession. “Thought I was going crazy, then.”
“You’re not,” said Rodney. I won’t let you. “You’re not.”
When their flight left early the next morning, both John and Rodney were groggy from lack of sleep. They hadn’t talked much more that night, but John had let Rodney hold him, curled together in bed, staring up at the ceiling and listening to him breathe. On the plane, their hands found each other across the armrest, and Rodney clenched John’s hand in his own, glaring at the man across the aisle who gave them a strange look until he blanched and turned back to hide behind his newspaper. John slept through most of the flight, waking up only when the plane skidded down the runaway in rainy Baltimore, jerking both him and Rodney forward.
Dr. Keller’s office was very modern, though decorated with warm colors. Rodney watched the rain stream down the long windows as she greeted both of them. It couldn’t match the mingled sense of hope and terror that Rodney had associated with the medilab on Atlantis, and, for a moment, he deeply wished for Carson, cold hands and annoying habit of calling everybody lads and lasses and all, despite the fact that his friend had been dead for a year and a half now.
“Dr. Weir’s given me a brief précis of what had happened,” she told John gently. Wisely, she didn’t ask Rodney to leave. Doctor-patient confidentiality had been honoured more in the breach than the presence in Atlantis and he was grateful for the persistence of the custom. Not that even the wild children of M9X-254 could drag him away from John now. “But why don’t you tell me what has been happening, Colonel? From the beginning, please.”
John didn’t correct her form of address, but rubbed at his face, and haltingly told her what he had said to Rodney last night. More questions from Keller drew out a more descriptive account, complete with times and places of what John called “flashbacks”. Rodney learned that they seemed equally divided into memories of his own time in the chair - “It was like I was part of the city, feeling what she felt, hurting when she did” - and somehow memories of the Ancient chair-bearers. Rodney shivered a little at John’s uncharacteristic use of the Ancient term. He threw in his observations of John’s eating and sleeping habits. John glared at him, but Rodney didn’t care at all, as thus primed, Keller asked John about his diet and the fatigue. Finally, she fell quiet, eyeing John thoughtfully.
Rodney broke into the silence. “It has to be something to do with either the gene or the chair. Or both,” he said urgently. “We didn’t have time to figure out how Sheppard managed to turn on that emergency weapons system, and, and all his symptoms date from that fight.” Rodney turned to look at John, expecting him to add something, dry and laconic, but John was silent and closed off.
“I don’t like to reason in front of my hypothesis,” Keller said apologetically, “and I’ll like to run a few tests first, Colonel Sheppard, if you can stay for couple of days.”
John cleared his throat. “That’s fine,” he said. “Go ahead.”
*
Atlantis shook once more, and then begin to descend, sinking into the sea. “What do you mean, seal itself off?” Rodney yelled into his radio, fingers flying over the miraculously undamaged console, trying to figure out what was going on. Behind him, somebody called for a medical team to ‘gate room.
“It’s a last-ditch subroutine, cloaking and conserving the city at low power levels.” John’s voice sounded more distant now. Were the radios dying? “It’s going to make the Stargate unusable.”
“Well, can you block it?” Rodney demanded, failing to find any kind of override himself.
“Negative,” John said, breathing hard. “I can get us just enough power to dial Earth, but you’ve got to do it now, Rodney.”
“Fuck,” Rodney muttered, but begin to dial the address. “We better hope that they acknowledge my IDC, Sheppard, or we’re all screwed.”
“Yeah,” John’s voice came back, high and light.
Rodney switched on the citywide channel. “Okay, people, we’re evacuating to Earth right now. We’ll have 38 minutes, so bring what you can, but we do not leave anyone behind, I repeat, we do not leave anyone behind.”
“Good,” John murmured in his ear as the ’gate flared open. “Me and Zelenka are coming to you now.”
People began to stream to the ’gate room, and Rodney told them, “go, go.” Two marines carried Elizabeth through the Stargate on a stretcher. John and Radek appeared, John leaning heavily on Radek’s shoulder, looking pale and close to collapse. Rodney nodded at them. They watched as everybody else walked through the wormhole, before reluctantly turning to go themselves. Rodney took one last longing look at Atlantis - broken and underwater once more, but it was still beautiful. Still home.
*
Two days later, Rodney and John found themselves back in now familiar office. Dr. Keller looked tired but hopeful, and Rodney started to relax just a bit at that one good sign. “Basically,” she began, looking at John, “it’s as if your body is lacking an essential nutrient while also going through withdrawal.”
John’s forehead creased. “You mean, I’m addicted to Atlantis?”
“That’s not how I would put it, but, well, yes.” She turned to Rodney. “As you thought, this was triggered by Colonel’s experiences in the chair. My guess is with the combination of the Ancients awakening older systems during their stay in the city and the Colonel’s strong ATA gene, he became like an Ancient chair-bearer, who according to Dr. Weir, drew strength from the city, but rarely left it. They also seemed to have extraordinary mental access to the database, which may explain the Colonel's retrieval of their memories.”
John looked grim. “So, the flashbacks?”
“Are the result of certain neurotransmitters in your brain sending out signals that cannot be answered anywhere on Earth.”
“Okay, fine,” Rodney was getting impatient, “But can you, oh, I don’t know, work some voodoo and cure him?”
“I was getting to that,” Dr. Keller said patiently. “I devised a liquid solution that should stop the neurotransmitters from firing quite so often.” She nodded to John. “You may still have some flashbacks, but they should decrease in intensity and frequency. I’m also prescribing a mix of vitamins that should help with the fatigue and weight loss.”
“All right,” John spoke up. “How do we do this?”
“The solution will have to be injected so that your stomach acid doesn’t dissolve it. I can give you an injection now, and a dose for you to self-inject next week as well. There may be some side effects - such as nausea, dizziness and a hypersensitivity to cold temperatures. I’ll also advise you to not to drive until we figure out the dosage.”
Rodney’s hands clenched into fists at this description of a palliative, and not a cure. He noted that John’s face was carefully blank.
“I’ll also want to see you in two weeks, if that’s possible, to check on your condition.”
“We’ll be back,” Rodney promised.
“All right,” John repeated, “Thanks.”
Keller smiled brightly. “It‘s no problem at all, Colonel.”
Back in California, they sat outside on the picnic table and watched the stars come out. Their knees and shoulders were touching, and Rodney was aware of every point of contact, of being at a turning point of some kind without even a compass to guide him. Finally, John stirred and said, “You know, Earth sucks.” Rodney cracked up, almost crying from laughter when John joined in, making them sound like a couple of drugged-out hyenas.
Trailing off, Rodney took a chance and said, “If Teyla was here, she would make you her tuttleroot soup.”
“Oh yeah,” John replied, grinning. “That’s one cure that is definitely worse than the disease.” Rodney looked up and saw his eyes, crinkled with laughter. Impulsively, he drew John down to him in long, deep kiss, tasting his mouth, his John, alive if not whole, and here with him. John’s hands clutched at his shoulders, and when they broke the kiss, he slid one hand up to cup Rodney’s cheek for a moment, looking affectionately at him.
Above them, the stars unfurled in the sky, and Rodney smiled at him, glowing with relief and happiness, asking, “Do you remember the dance Elizabeth organised?"
John leaned into Rodney and laughed again. “I had no idea that Ronon knew how to breakdance.”
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Summary: Rodney didn’t remember moving; one second he was standing over John, the next, he was kneeling beside him, trying to hold John’s head up and fumble for his cell phone at the same time.
Author's Notes: My thanks go to the_acrobat for all her gracious beta help! Spoilers up to and including SGA 320. First posted here as a response to the Sickness Challenge at sga_flashfic. (And I Cannot Feel The Sun is a kind of a companion piece to this story, and I may write more in this universe later on.)
We have biofeedback. We know there are levels
where light’s too large to land, so “being” anything isn’t
being visible or countable - levels where dream is
logic, levels where you could fall lost in the space
between your own hand and its shadow.
From “Reality Organization”, by Albert Goldbarth
After his last debriefing had ended at a godforsaken four-o-clock in the morning, Rodney snuck into the infirmary. The room seemed quiet after the inane questions of the SGC scientists and the even more pointless ones of the military, with only the hum of instruments accompanying the low sounds of people breathing.
Rodney stood watching just inside the door, afraid to go any further in case he bumped into something and woke someone up. Eighteen hours of talking and a dozen cups of coffee later, he didn’t trust his body to do what it was told.
But there was enough light that he could see familiar outlines of people on the beds: Elizabeth, unconscious for five days now and whose doctors muttered about neurological damage and wouldn’t meet Rodney’s eyes; John, diagnosed with malnutrition and exhaustion; Simpson, marked with second-degree burns all over her hands; Jacobs, with a broken leg, and a half dozen others, ’Lanteans all.
Refugees, thought Rodney bitterly, we’re all refugees now.
John’s bed was the closest to the door, and Rodney gazed at his sleeping form for several minutes, following the lines of the IV tubing up into his arm and finally rising his eyes to meet his face, already paling under the unfriendly light under the mountain. John was very still, with only the rise and fall of his chest betraying the fact that he was breathing at all. An unnatural stillness, Rodney thought, half-hysterical, stillness without deliberation or intent. His hand clutched at the doorframe, and he breathed in deep himself then, attempting to conjure up sunny fields and clear blue skies, far away from the suddenly too dark and still infirmary.
It worked, kind of, or at least Rodney told himself that he didn’t have time for a nervous breakdown right now. Relaxing his hand from the doorframe, he fished in his pocket with the other, finding by feel a scrap of paper that wasn’t too crumbled up. Before he could change his mind, he walked over to the table next to John’s bed and bent down to write a simple 10-digit number on the paper, signing it R.M. Picking up an empty glass on table, Rodney placed it over the piece of paper. He turned and looked at John again, and then stepped away from the bed and out of the infirmary.
*
Rodney had to choke down his anger during the debriefings, trying not to scream out the betrayal that he felt. The SGC made excuses, said that messages had been sent to Atlantis, and they did not know why the expedition hadn‘t received them; cited planetary security as reason neither to send a ship to pick up the teams caught off world when the attack happened nor one to check on the new Athosian settlement, where Teyla and Ronon had been. They refused to even consider any attempt to return to the city and power it up again.
And then they turned around and demanded a full and precise account of his every move on Atlantis, all his decisions made under fire. When they started to ask him questions that were nearly accusations about Elizabeth and John and the choices they had made, Rodney almost walked out.
But he had noted the extra Marines at every corner he turned, and inferred that the cost of freedom was cooperation, so he swallowed hard and answered all their questions as calmly as he could. At night, he used his own encrypted communication programs to mask the fact that he was getting in touch with Elizabeth’s contacts, pleading for all the help he could secure. There were still ten people in that infirmary, and there were disturbing whispers about new enemies, alien and domestic, and Elizabeth was still unresponsive, and Rodney was damned if he trusted the SGC to do right by any of them.
*
Back at the hotel, Rodney did three things. He spent a half an hour on his laptop, sending emails to the non-military professional contacts he had started building up again during his leaves on Earth since the last time they found themselves exiled from Atlantis, when he had thought he would blow up the complex if he had to work at Area 51 again. Fumbling with the phone, he ordered a large, greasy pizza with green peppers and mushrooms and pepperoni and sausages, and ate all but two pieces. Then he gave into the haze of exhaustion and let his body succumb gratefully to sleep.
Two days later, he was on a plane to San Francisco, where he had already rented a house on the bay and secured a job heading up a small lab at the Space Sciences Laboratory at Berkeley, having turned down yet another wonderful opportunity to work with the U.S. Government at Lawrence National Laboratory. Though his business-class seat was uncomfortable and he had no work to distract himself with yet, every mile that carried him away from Colorado Springs and the SGC allowed Rodney to breathe just a bit easier.
His house, it turned out, was full of windows which let in the late spring sunlight. Already furnished in green and blue and white, it seemed more like a summer home than a place to make a life. He could smell the ocean from his front door; he could walk to the bay in five minutes. He was surrounded by pine, the solidity of earth that the light burnished like bronze and gold and Pegasus janya, but Rodney was like air, slipping between himself and his memories, between freedom and grief.
Rodney busied himself with setting up his lab; he had inherited two postdocs and a grad student from a professor who had to retire rather suddenly after a heart attack, and it was a relief to have people to order around. Gleefully, he deleted emails from undergraduate students breathlessly asking for research opportunities and independent study, drawn to a new lab like stupid jocks to a bowl game. His contract didn’t call for any teaching duties at all, thank god. He tried not to think about his people, scattered around the world by now, or Elizabeth, who had been moved to a long-term care facility at a military hospital. He told himself that he wasn’t waiting for his cell phone to ring.
When it finally rang, early on a Saturday morning, Rodney burned himself with coffee in his rush to get to it, and was rewarded for his valour by the sound of John’s drawl, coming in loud and clear.
“Hi, Rodney,” he said, sounding so completely unlike the still figure in the infirmary bed that Rodney nearly laughed with relief, “Miss me?”
“Not at all,” Rodney lied.
“Well, that’s too bad, because I’m here.”
“What do you mean, you’re here?” Rodney demanded, but he was already heading for his front door.
He flung open the door as John’s voice murmured, “your car sucks,” in his ear. Rodney snapped the cell phone shut and stuffed it in his jeans pocket. John was standing next to a red Corvette in the driveway, holding a duffle bag. “At least mine isn’t overcompensating for anything!” he yelled.
John patted the car lovingly. “Pay no attention to Rodney,” he told it, “He’s just a jealous old hag.”
From the front step, Rodney snorted. “Hey, Hairdo! What are you waiting for - an engraved invitation?” He jerked his head towards the house. “My coffee is getting cold.”
In the kitchen, Rodney avoided any awkward moments by making food for himself and John - bacon and eggs, toast and hash browns. John dropped his duffle bag on the floor and raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure that’s safe to eat?”
Rodney waved a spatula at him threateningly. “I’ll have you know that I’m a very fine cook.”
“Uh huh, I’m sure.”
“You’re in no position to turn down food; you still look like a fifteen-year-old girl starving herself for winter formal.” John just looked at him, and Rodney deflated slightly. “I can only do breakfast foods,” he admitted. “I survived on eggs and frozen hash browns all through grad school.”
After they had eaten, John gulping down all the food Rodney could press on him despite dire predictions of poisoning and emergency room visits; Rodney took a deep breath and asked the first question. “So, they didn’t offer you a 'gate team this time?”
“I quit,” John said tightly. Rodney studied him intently for a moment and decided not to push for more. He was pretty sure he knew John’s reasons. Besides, the man did still look thin and pale and (oh god) Rodney had turned into his grandmother, bent on feeding up all strays, human or otherwise. He was going to die surrounded by sixteen cats and they were going to eat his face. “Rodney?” John asked, “You all right?”
“I’m never getting more than one cat,” Rodney blurted out.
John looked taken back. “O-o-o-kay.”
Rodney rubbed at his face. “Sorry,” he offered. ‘It’s - it’s been a long few weeks.”
“Yeah,” said John, after a moment, “it has.”
Then he yawned, a huge, jaw-cracking yawn, and Rodney yelled, “Oh my god, you just drove from Colorado, didn’t you, you reckless idiot?” He picked up the duffle bag - which was heavier than it looked and was probably doing his back no favours - and hauled it towards the spare room, John insisting that he didn’t feel tired all the hall. But as Rodney put the duffle bag down on the floor and turned to explain to John how he was going to go to sleep right this minute, John stumbled, bumping into him and Rodney’s arms came up to catch him instinctively, wrapping him in an unintentional embrace.
He could feel John’s stubble, scratching his cheek. He could smell John, road dust and gasoline oil and sizzling bacon. John’s hair, longer than usual, tickled his nose, and if he wanted to, he could have counted the numbers of John’s ribs by just pressing his fingers a little tighter. John said, “I guess I am a little tired,” in an amused breath which tickled Rodney’s ear, and Rodney flushed and abruptly stepped back, dropping his arms.
“That’s why you should listen to me,” he said, nervously crossing his arms across his chest.
“Well, as long as I get to play with the crayons afterwards, I’ll lie down on the mat and take my nap, ” John replied. Then he smiled, and said “Rodney,” and closed the door. Rodney stared at it for a few seconds then padded off softly, slightly confused. By the time he emailed the postdocs to tell them he wouldn’t be coming in today after all, he was smiling.
John woke up in the late afternoon, looking disturbingly cute with his face sleep-creased and his hair mussed, like one of those kids in an Osh Kosh B‘Gosh commercial that would probably puke on you as soon as it was off-screen. Rodney shut down his laptop and walked with him outside, showing him the path that led down to San Francisco bay. The sun was beginning to set as they came to the bay, pink and orange and gold on the horizon, sinking into the blue of the Pacific. Rodney watched John’s body relax from the tension he had been carrying since the attack on Atlantis as he drank in the sight, and was secretly, fiercely glad that he had come to Berkeley instead of Chicago or MIT or Waterloo.
They ate Chinese for dinner and Rodney told John about his lab and the research program he was putting together. He told him about the ridiculousness of passing the SETI institute each day and John laughed, that horrible braying sound which eased the knot in Rodney’s chest. Neither of them mentioned Atlantis, or the SGC, or everyone and everything they had been forced to leave behind.
The days slipped into a pattern, with John coming to the lab in the mornings, working out equations with a kind of a lazy ease when Rodney asked and messing around on the Internet with such a contrasting intensity that Rodney told him, haughtily, that he hoped John wasn’t downloading porn on the lab computers. One of the postdocs giggled, but John just smirked at Rodney and continued what he was doing.
John would disappear in the afternoons, coming back to the house in the evening with Asian pears from the market or tacky 49ers caps for himself and Rodney. Sometimes his hair would be still damp and Rodney would know that he had been in the ocean, ducking beneath the surface of the water and rising again, sure and swift.
He slept a lot, often conking out on the couch when they watched movies after dinner and blinking blearily at Rodney when he suggested that John should go to bed. He ate a lot too, more than Rodney had ever seen him do on Atlantis, but didn't gain much weight, if any. Rodney worried a little about that, like he worried about the sounds he heard sometimes at night, something low and painful from down the hall. However, it wasn't like Rodney didn’t wake up, two nights out of seven, tangled in his sheets and hyperventilating, sweat slipping down his forehead into his eyes. As for the other, Rodney told himself that it was just the lingering effects of the exhaustion and malnutrition, and didn’t ask John about it, afraid of pushing him too far, of upsetting the careful balance they had created between them.
John never said a word about leaving, and Rodney didn’t, either. The spare room became John’s room in his mind, and it became impossible for him to imagine Berkeley without John.
So he shouldn’t have been surprised to come home one Friday to see John standing over a brand-new grill, looking ridiculously pleased with himself. Smoke was rising lazily from it as Rodney hurried down the steps, shouting “Hey, I don’t pay someone a lot of money to do the landscaping just for you to burn down the backyard!”
John just grinned. “Hi, Rodney.”
Rodney sniffed. “I mean it, Sheppard, I - oh.” He sniffed the air again. “That smells fantastic.”
“You’re not the only one who can cook,” John said, whacking him on the shoulder with the spatula.
“Ow!” Rodney glared at John, who was wearing a ludicrously tight black T-shirt whose red lettering read REAL MEN BARBECUE. “I’ll forgive your violent behaviour if you give me a burger right now.” The T-shirt even, in yet another example of the supreme unfairness of the universe, looked disgustingly good on him.
“Patience, young Jedi.” John was openly smirking now.
“No, you don’t understand, I spent all day surrounded by tofu-eating hippies who smoke way too much weed, I deserve some red meat. God.”
John raised his eyebrows. “In that case, McKay, pick your fixins, and I’ll see what I can do,” he said, pointing to a whole collection of condiments and toppings on a picnic table Rodney had never seen before. Mouth watering, Rodney only spared a second for another suspicious glare at John before rushing to do what he was told.
They ate on that wooden picnic table, sitting side-by-side, watching through the vegetation as the sun sank down into the bay. Rodney groused half-heartedly about splinters and tetanus shots, but mostly focused his attention on his burger, almost moaning with pleasure.
“You know,” John remarked, “the sounds you’re making are illegal in 30 states.”
Unembarrassed, Rodney swallowed his last bite. “Then it’s a good thing we’re in the 31st.”
John smiled at him - almost fondly, Rodney thought - and said, “Yeah, good thing.” They finished off the last of the burgers, and stayed, sated, with their shoulders touching, sipping at the beers Rodney had brought out from the fridge. John started to hum something under his breath, and Rodney giggled - he couldn’t help himself - when he recognised it as “Cheeseburger In Paradise”. John’s face turned to meet his, head cocked quizzically to one side, and Rodney, meaning to make a sarcastic comment unfavourably comparing Jimmy Buffet to Johnny Cash, kissed him instead.
It was only a fleeting moment of contact, but Rodney was aware of everything - John’s chapped lips, warm and slightly open, the day-old stubble on his chin, the widening of his green eyes - before pulling back, already panicking. “I didn’t - I mean I know you don’t, and that’s fine, this is nothing, really,” he babbled, already seeing his future unravel before him: John standing abruptly, John storming out of the house, John driving away to another part of the state, the country, the world, - and leaving Rodney, alone with his stupidity.
But John only looked at Rodney thoughtfully and raised his thumb to Rodney’s lips, tracing them slowly, oh so slowly. “Shh,” John said, “Let me.” He slid his hands up to cup Rodney’s face - Rodney shivered, barely breathing - and kissed him, fully, deeply.
Needing to get closer, closer, Rodney pulled away just long enough to get them both standing, before wrapping his arms around John and letting himself return the kiss, as slowly and sweetly as his desperation would allow. Their bodies pressed up close to each other, close enough that Rodney could feel John getting hard. When they finally broke the kiss, they still stood, arms on each other’s shoulders and foreheads touching, breathing hard.
“Bed?” suggested Rodney at last, sounding tentative and breathless even to himself.
“God, yes,” John murmured, and then lifted his head to whisper into Rodney’s ear, “I want you to fuck me.”
Rodney jerked back in shock - exactly like an electric shock, the current traveling through him, frying all his systems with the idea. His dick was ready to grant John’s request, right there on the table, splinters be damned, but Rodney found himself saying, “Yes, of course, I would love to, if you’re sure - are you sure you’re sure? - but, um, damn, I don’t have any stuff, I don’t think -”
“Hey,” John interrupted, touching Rodney’s lower lip with his thumb again. Rodney went still, eyes locked on John’s face, whose lips were quirked up in a small smile. “Hey,” John repeated, his voice low and amused, “I have lube, and unless you’ve been studying more than science with that blond postdoc of yours -” Rodney mutely shook his head “-then I believe we were both cleared in our last physical.”
John Sheppard had been surprising him since Rodney told an unknown pilot to think about his place in the universe and watched galaxies spiral out above him. “In that case,” Rodney managed to say, “I think this is one of your better plans.”
In John’s room, they pulled each other’s shirts and pants off, fingers running down bodies in teasing anticipation. John was skinnier than the last time Rodney had seen him naked, covered in mud and pouting on M7X-314, but he still had that casual beauty that made Rodney’s mouth go dry. All long legs and deep eyes, which made Rodney feel like an awkward romance novel heroine, rhapsodising about the hero while stumbling around after his easy grace. Suddenly it all seemed too weird - him and John? having sex? outside one of his carefully orchestrated midnight fantasies? Rodney must be hallucinating again.
But then John pulled Rodney onto the too-narrow single bed, almost making both of them tumble out immediately afterwards, and Rodney had to laugh. He found himself kissing John again, all awkwardness forgotten, just him and John again, doing what came next. John let him, looking up at Rodney with laughter in his eyes. When Rodney pulled away, fumbling for the lube, he rolled over, spreading his legs in clear invitation.
Rodney, lube in hand, looked back and caught his breath - all this, John waiting for him. He slicked his fingers quickly as he could and slid one into John, carefully, slowly, because, despite his dick, stiff and single-minded with need, he wanted to do this right. Except John moaned and John said “more, god, Rodney, more” and he could feel tiny muscles jump, could feel John straining upwards already, and he slid the next finger in faster. John moaned again, deeper this time, “Rodney, c’mon, I want to feel you,” and Rodney was broken and pushed inside - so incredibly tight and hot - and he found his rhythm, short, fast strokes, with John shuddering beneath him. He heard John, going “oh, oh, oh“ and was vaguely aware that he was saying John’s name over and over again. He felt it everywhere when John came, so fast it was shocking, pushing him over to orgasm a few seconds later, howling into John’s shoulder.
The next morning, he woke up with a crick in his neck, the sensation that his right arm had been used as a pillow and a ridiculous grin on his face.
“Hey,” John said, already up and wearing a T-shirt and swim trunks. He leaned down and kissed Rodney, and then said, “We’re going swimming today.”
“Wait,” Rodney protested, “no, no, and did I say no. Water-related activities and I do not get along.”
“C’mon, Rodney, it’ll be fun.” John whined and god, now Rodney was having flashbacks to last night and he was never going to be able to be out in public with John Sheppard ever again, much less swimming.
“I don’t have any swimming trunks!” Rodney said, inspired. “Therefore I absolutely cannot go swimming.” He folded his arms. John only grinned and threw something at him, and he automatically caught it, belatedly realising that it was a piece of blue fabric. “I got you some,” John explained, still smiling.
Rodney gave up, figuring the fact that his ridiculous grin hadn’t faded was already giving him away. “Fine. But I’m going to blame you if I get stung by a jellyfish and die horribly.”
“Like that’s new,” John replied, but his voice was a little wistful and Rodney looked away, not willing to mention Atlantis, even in this new intimacy.
At the beach, they ended up mostly playing in the water, splashing each other like little kids. On the way back, they kissed every few steps, turning a five-minute journey into a hour-long one. Rodney delighted in every touch, in every new piece of John he discovered, and decided he could get to like swimming if every time was like this.
People who passed them only gave them amused and tolerant smiles and Rodney thought that this was something he could get used to as well - a freedom they could have never had on Atlantis. He expected that revelation to hurt, as nearly every thought about Atlantis had since they had come out, broken and betrayed, of the ’gate into the SGC. But somewhere in the past couple of months, the weight of grief and bitterness that surrounded his last memories of the city had lightened. Rodney’s heart lifted, and he leaned into John, brushing a few strands of hair away, and kissed the corner of his left eye.
Later that night, with the sky a deep velvety blue and the stars shining in the windows, they fucked again, slower and sweeter and fell asleep as if there was nothing and no-one else in the whole world.
The pattern of their days didn’t change much, except that Rodney was now hyperaware of John’s every movement, the way their fingers brushed, reaching for the last piece of pizza. The way John sometimes seem to hover just of out of Rodney’s sight, a comfortable presence in the in and outs of daily life. They touched more often now too, and any innocent moment could easily turn sexual - once, in Rodney’s lab, early in the morning, with the sunlight streaming down and Rodney on his knees on the hard floor and John groaning above him, hand fisted in Rodney’s hair.
Rodney found that he had no desire to talk about it, to trap John with words, to force some kind of conclusion out of this new experiment. He was content to let their relationship fall into this new rhythm and let the days go by, easy in his body for once, tangling it with John’s.
Still, something in him became more and more hopeful, as the summer passed, and John stayed, and talked of looking into teaching a few self-defense classes at the university rec centre, or going on to do his doctorate in the math department there (he had a Master’s in Applied Mathematics from MIT, which had surprised Rodney four years ago, hacking into John’s files). Rodney couldn’t keep from grinning as he said, “You do know that those so-called students would much rather twist their bodies into inexplicable positions and then go get high than actually do any kind of real exercise, don’t you?” and “If you can manage to deal with the morons who pass for Berkeley’s math department, you deserve a degree on those grounds alone.”
Mid-July, Rodney got an email from the friendliest of Elizabeth’s doctors and when John returned home that evening, Rodney bounced up to him, grinning, “She’s awake, Dr. Abbot said, Elizabeth’s awake and talking, even!”
John grinned back at him, Rodney’s own delight mirrored in his eyes. “We should go see her,” he drawled.
“Exactly what I was thinking,” Rodney replied, and enthusiastically kissed him.
They drove to Fort Carson in John‘s car, because John disliked flying on aircraft he wasn’t personally piloting. Rodney got to drive the Corvette much more than he expected, because John was still sleeping a lot, flying down the highway with Bach and Johnny Cash and Celine Dion keeping time to the way John breathed, in and out, slouched down on the passenger seat.
Elizabeth greeted them with bright eyes and a wide smile, and a part of Rodney that had been tense with fear and anticipation relaxed. They talked physical therapy and recovery time - John, with a look at Rodney, invited Elizabeth to come visit them in Berkeley once she got out of the hospital. Elizabeth raised an eyebrow, and looked at them with a knowing smile, but merely said, “I’ll love to.” Rodney flushed red with embarrassment anyway and promised untold revenge on John’s poker face and aw-shucks-‘taint-me pose.
Elizabeth hugged both of them when they had to leave. She whispered in his ear, “Thanks for everything, Rodney,” and he remembered how he had went down Elizabeth’s list of contacts when she was unconscious, half beseeching and half demanding all their help and influence for all those who had made it out of Atlantis before the city sank once more. “You took care of all of us,” she continued, and he went red for the second time in a hour.
“Be careful,” he managed to say, blinking his eyes as he stepped back. “Just - be careful, okay?”
Elizabeth nodded, her face drawn once again in her more usual severity. “You too.”
*
Afterwards, Rodney only remembered bits and pieces of that day -the first blue lights that came in from the jury-rigged long-range sensors -
- “We have confirmed 11 Replicator ships, repeat, confirmed 11 Replicator vessels” -
- “Lts. Bryant’s and May’s teams are still off world, m’am, and Teyla and Ronon ’gated out to the new Athosian settlement” -
- sudden terror after months of peace, rebuilding on this new planet, but the mind remembered, the fingers remembered, adrenaline coursed through his system -
- “Earth isn’t responding to our hails!” -
- the first blast, but the shield took it, depleted levels to 86%, but it took it -
- “Colonel, head to chair, the drones - ” “Got it, McKay” -
- the second blast, down to 74%, damn it -
- and then Atlantis shook, he almost fell, and fire spit out into the sky -
- Elizabeth’s voice, beating his by a nanosecond, yelling, “John, what’s going on?” -
- “I don’t know - it feels - I think we have more than drones!”
- more fire shot out - it was like an earthquake -
- “Colonel, you took out two, no, three enemy ships - keep doing what you’re doing!”
- more blasts - shield was down to 33% -
- Zelenka, awed, “Emergency weaponry systems are on-line - I did not we had these!” -
- John was screaming, “it feels” as three, four, five Replicator ships disappeared from the screen -
- the last blast came through as the shield went down -
- the emergency system fired, and the ’gate room was burning, damaged again, and he couldn’t see Elizabeth again -
- but the Replicators were gone gone gone -
- the shield was back up -
- and then John yelled, voice cracking, “the city is going to seal itself off, we have to get out of here!”
*
Yet, after that visit, when the last of Rodney’s major worries, the ones that kept him up at night sometimes, tracing the constellations on John’s pale back, should have let go of him, Rodney found instead that they were focused on John. Maybe it was just that Elizabeth’s signs of returning health highlighted the fact that John seemed to have lost weight, if anything, and that he slept more now than three months ago rather than less. He missed more mornings in the lab now, because Rodney couldn’t bear to wake him up when he slept through the loud radio alarm where once he would have woken instantly if you had but muttered something in his ear. Most of the time, John didn’t even seem irritated with him for failing to wake him up, which scared Rodney more than the constant sleeping.
When he did have the energy, John craved the kind of fast, furious fucking they had done that first night, urging Rodney on to almost brutal strokes, leaving bruises on both of them. More often, though, he seemed to be caught halfway between the dreaming and waking worlds, only vaguely aware of Rodney’s touches, of his kisses on John’s bruises, letting Rodney soothe him into sleep.
One or twice a week, Rodney would wake to find John, not curled up beside him in Rodney’s queen-sized bed, but in his room down the hall, huddled in a fetal position, looking pale and small, lying on top of the made-up bed. And once, terrifyingly, Rodney had found John scrunched up next to the bathtub, and when Rodney touched his shoulder, he didn’t even seem to recognise him.
A few days after that incident, Rodney, waiting for John to get back to the house and tense with worrying and the stress of not saying anything, strode down to the path to the bay - and found John, walking where the water met the sand. He was damp with the mist that followed the late summer storm that they had earlier today, looking like an acrobat walking a wire in a circus, intense and afraid of missing a single step. Rodney thought, as fear and fury shot through him, That’s it. We‘re going to talk, and we‘re going to do it today.
He stomped back to the house and paced around the kitchen floor until John came through the door, looking almost deliberately relaxed now. “Hey, Rodney,” he said.
“Something's wrong,” Rodney said flatly. “Something’s wrong with you and I want to know what it is, right now.” He folded his arms and glared at John.
John went a little pale, but his voice was steady as he said, “Nothing’s wrong, McKay. You’re just being paranoid.”
“Like hell I am,” Rodney snapped. But then John stumbled backwards, and as Rodney watched in horror, slid down the side of the counter, his eyes rolling up into their sockets.
Rodney didn’t remember moving; one second he was standing over John, the next, he was kneeling beside him, trying to hold John’s head up and fumble for his cell phone at the same time. He was about to call 911 when John moaned, and said, “Atlantis est inacies plenes , flos florens, duo sunt de caelo tangi, scuta sex et tres et unum, quinque sunt de caelo tangi, scuta tres et quinque et unum, secundus concentus requirit -” and then stiffened and screamed, “Talia!”
Ancient, thought Rodney in frightened amazement. But why? how? He was distracted as John’s voice changed, sounding like a little kid, saying “I want to go home, I want to go home,” again and again.
“Shh, shh,” Rodney said ineffectually, “it’s all right now, you’re home, you’re home.” Not knowing what else to do, he gathered John in his arms and held him until he stopped shaking. “Do you think you could make it to the couch?” he asked, as John seemed to be dropping off into sleep.
“’kay,” John replied softly, still sounding like a five-year-old, and let Rodney lead him to the couch. Rodney covered him with a fleece blanket and allowed himself the indulgence of brushing John’s hair away from his face before retreating to the kitchen, where he could both keep a fearful eye on John and make a phone call. That stream of Ancient sounded familiar, like he might have read it in the database, and he knew there was one person who could tell him for sure.
Rodney dialled Elizabeth’s new number and when she answered, immediately repeated the words and pleaded for a translation, an explanation, anything.
Something in his voice must have gotten through, because Elizabeth didn’t ask any questions, but said thoughtfully, “Loosely translated, it sounds like 'Atlantis is fully on-line, weapons firing, two hits, shields at 63%, five hits, shields at 35%, need backup systems -'” She paused. “What did you say the name was again?”
“Talia,” Rodney said tightly.
“Yes, that fits.” Elizabeth's voice took on a firmer tone. “This sounds like part of Yarin’s log of the first Wraith attack on Atlantis. It’s actually quite a tragic story - I believe Talia was his lover - she died when a Wraith blast got through the shield.”
“Oh,” said Rodney, feeling like he was going to throw up. It’s the damn chair, John’s ATA gene, it’s got to be.
“Now,” Elizabeth said, “will you tell me what this is about?”
“It’s John,” Rodney said, trying to breathe normally, “He had - I don’t know - a fit, I guess, and started saying all that, and god, Elizabeth, you know that Sheppard never really learned Ancient, he never read that log.” His voice broke.
Rodney could hear Elizabeth take a sharp intake of breath. “Shit.” She said and he laughed, despite it all, at this most unElizabeth imprecation. “Do you think -”
“That this has something to do with the chair and the ATA gene, yes.”
“Then I think you should get in touch with Dr. Keller,” Elizabeth said. “She inherited all of Carson’s notes and files with his job, so she’s the expert on the ATA gene now,” Outside the SGC went unspoken. Elizabeth continued, “I have her contact information; she’s at Johns Hopkins now. I could call her right now and set up an appointment for John.”
That was another thing Rodney hated about Earth: the people he needed were always a country away instead of just two hallways and a transporter ride. “Yes, please.” He couldn’t stop staring at John, sleeping peacefully on the couch when just moments before he had been shaking in Rodney’s arms.
“All right,” Elizabeth said. “Keep me posted.”
“I will,” Rodney promised.
“And, Rodney?” She added. “Take care of yourself too.”
Rodney let John sleep for a good few hours. Not wanting to stray too far from him, Rodney brought his laptop into the living room and tried to work. But he couldn't concentrate on the research that had seemed so exciting the day before. When he found himself pacing, moving in circles between the living room and the kitchen, glancing anxiously at John every few seconds, he decided to put his coiled-up energy into making omelettes for himself and John. Big, fluffy ones, full of sausage and ham, green peppers and mushrooms. After Elizabeth called back with a date, Rodney walked back into the living room and gently shook John awake.
“Wha’?” he said, squinting upwards, “Rodney?”
“Yeah,” Rodney said and was surprised to hear how calm his voice was. “C’mon, there’s food.”
John followed him into the kitchen and obediently sat down at the table. “Eat,” Rodney said, pointing to the omelette on the plate in front of John, “and after you’re done, we can discuss how incredibly stupid it was of you to keep this from me.” John looked like he wanted to say something, but wisely kept his mouth shut and ate the damn omelette instead.
Rodney, trembling with anger and fear, wanted to scream at him, “Don’t you ever scare me like that again!” - shades of his mother this time - but instead said, quite evenly, “Elizabeth made you an appointment with Dr. Keller. We’re flying out to Johns Hopkins tomorrow.” John merely nodded.
When he had finished eating, he reached out for Rodney’s hand, and Rodney let him take it, let him rub his thumb across his palm. “It was just nightmares at first. Nothing that unusual. Then I thought was having combat flashbacks,” he said. “But then some of them started to get confusing, like I was remembering fighting someone else's battles.” He bit his lip, looked away for a moment, and then back at Rodney. “Woke up in strange places a couple of times.” All of Rodney’s words, accusations, insults - they all seemed strangled in the face of this quiet confession. “Thought I was going crazy, then.”
“You’re not,” said Rodney. I won’t let you. “You’re not.”
When their flight left early the next morning, both John and Rodney were groggy from lack of sleep. They hadn’t talked much more that night, but John had let Rodney hold him, curled together in bed, staring up at the ceiling and listening to him breathe. On the plane, their hands found each other across the armrest, and Rodney clenched John’s hand in his own, glaring at the man across the aisle who gave them a strange look until he blanched and turned back to hide behind his newspaper. John slept through most of the flight, waking up only when the plane skidded down the runaway in rainy Baltimore, jerking both him and Rodney forward.
Dr. Keller’s office was very modern, though decorated with warm colors. Rodney watched the rain stream down the long windows as she greeted both of them. It couldn’t match the mingled sense of hope and terror that Rodney had associated with the medilab on Atlantis, and, for a moment, he deeply wished for Carson, cold hands and annoying habit of calling everybody lads and lasses and all, despite the fact that his friend had been dead for a year and a half now.
“Dr. Weir’s given me a brief précis of what had happened,” she told John gently. Wisely, she didn’t ask Rodney to leave. Doctor-patient confidentiality had been honoured more in the breach than the presence in Atlantis and he was grateful for the persistence of the custom. Not that even the wild children of M9X-254 could drag him away from John now. “But why don’t you tell me what has been happening, Colonel? From the beginning, please.”
John didn’t correct her form of address, but rubbed at his face, and haltingly told her what he had said to Rodney last night. More questions from Keller drew out a more descriptive account, complete with times and places of what John called “flashbacks”. Rodney learned that they seemed equally divided into memories of his own time in the chair - “It was like I was part of the city, feeling what she felt, hurting when she did” - and somehow memories of the Ancient chair-bearers. Rodney shivered a little at John’s uncharacteristic use of the Ancient term. He threw in his observations of John’s eating and sleeping habits. John glared at him, but Rodney didn’t care at all, as thus primed, Keller asked John about his diet and the fatigue. Finally, she fell quiet, eyeing John thoughtfully.
Rodney broke into the silence. “It has to be something to do with either the gene or the chair. Or both,” he said urgently. “We didn’t have time to figure out how Sheppard managed to turn on that emergency weapons system, and, and all his symptoms date from that fight.” Rodney turned to look at John, expecting him to add something, dry and laconic, but John was silent and closed off.
“I don’t like to reason in front of my hypothesis,” Keller said apologetically, “and I’ll like to run a few tests first, Colonel Sheppard, if you can stay for couple of days.”
John cleared his throat. “That’s fine,” he said. “Go ahead.”
*
Atlantis shook once more, and then begin to descend, sinking into the sea. “What do you mean, seal itself off?” Rodney yelled into his radio, fingers flying over the miraculously undamaged console, trying to figure out what was going on. Behind him, somebody called for a medical team to ‘gate room.
“It’s a last-ditch subroutine, cloaking and conserving the city at low power levels.” John’s voice sounded more distant now. Were the radios dying? “It’s going to make the Stargate unusable.”
“Well, can you block it?” Rodney demanded, failing to find any kind of override himself.
“Negative,” John said, breathing hard. “I can get us just enough power to dial Earth, but you’ve got to do it now, Rodney.”
“Fuck,” Rodney muttered, but begin to dial the address. “We better hope that they acknowledge my IDC, Sheppard, or we’re all screwed.”
“Yeah,” John’s voice came back, high and light.
Rodney switched on the citywide channel. “Okay, people, we’re evacuating to Earth right now. We’ll have 38 minutes, so bring what you can, but we do not leave anyone behind, I repeat, we do not leave anyone behind.”
“Good,” John murmured in his ear as the ’gate flared open. “Me and Zelenka are coming to you now.”
People began to stream to the ’gate room, and Rodney told them, “go, go.” Two marines carried Elizabeth through the Stargate on a stretcher. John and Radek appeared, John leaning heavily on Radek’s shoulder, looking pale and close to collapse. Rodney nodded at them. They watched as everybody else walked through the wormhole, before reluctantly turning to go themselves. Rodney took one last longing look at Atlantis - broken and underwater once more, but it was still beautiful. Still home.
*
Two days later, Rodney and John found themselves back in now familiar office. Dr. Keller looked tired but hopeful, and Rodney started to relax just a bit at that one good sign. “Basically,” she began, looking at John, “it’s as if your body is lacking an essential nutrient while also going through withdrawal.”
John’s forehead creased. “You mean, I’m addicted to Atlantis?”
“That’s not how I would put it, but, well, yes.” She turned to Rodney. “As you thought, this was triggered by Colonel’s experiences in the chair. My guess is with the combination of the Ancients awakening older systems during their stay in the city and the Colonel’s strong ATA gene, he became like an Ancient chair-bearer, who according to Dr. Weir, drew strength from the city, but rarely left it. They also seemed to have extraordinary mental access to the database, which may explain the Colonel's retrieval of their memories.”
John looked grim. “So, the flashbacks?”
“Are the result of certain neurotransmitters in your brain sending out signals that cannot be answered anywhere on Earth.”
“Okay, fine,” Rodney was getting impatient, “But can you, oh, I don’t know, work some voodoo and cure him?”
“I was getting to that,” Dr. Keller said patiently. “I devised a liquid solution that should stop the neurotransmitters from firing quite so often.” She nodded to John. “You may still have some flashbacks, but they should decrease in intensity and frequency. I’m also prescribing a mix of vitamins that should help with the fatigue and weight loss.”
“All right,” John spoke up. “How do we do this?”
“The solution will have to be injected so that your stomach acid doesn’t dissolve it. I can give you an injection now, and a dose for you to self-inject next week as well. There may be some side effects - such as nausea, dizziness and a hypersensitivity to cold temperatures. I’ll also advise you to not to drive until we figure out the dosage.”
Rodney’s hands clenched into fists at this description of a palliative, and not a cure. He noted that John’s face was carefully blank.
“I’ll also want to see you in two weeks, if that’s possible, to check on your condition.”
“We’ll be back,” Rodney promised.
“All right,” John repeated, “Thanks.”
Keller smiled brightly. “It‘s no problem at all, Colonel.”
Back in California, they sat outside on the picnic table and watched the stars come out. Their knees and shoulders were touching, and Rodney was aware of every point of contact, of being at a turning point of some kind without even a compass to guide him. Finally, John stirred and said, “You know, Earth sucks.” Rodney cracked up, almost crying from laughter when John joined in, making them sound like a couple of drugged-out hyenas.
Trailing off, Rodney took a chance and said, “If Teyla was here, she would make you her tuttleroot soup.”
“Oh yeah,” John replied, grinning. “That’s one cure that is definitely worse than the disease.” Rodney looked up and saw his eyes, crinkled with laughter. Impulsively, he drew John down to him in long, deep kiss, tasting his mouth, his John, alive if not whole, and here with him. John’s hands clutched at his shoulders, and when they broke the kiss, he slid one hand up to cup Rodney’s cheek for a moment, looking affectionately at him.
Above them, the stars unfurled in the sky, and Rodney smiled at him, glowing with relief and happiness, asking, “Do you remember the dance Elizabeth organised?"
John leaned into Rodney and laughed again. “I had no idea that Ronon knew how to breakdance.”