Fic: Puzzling Evidence (Part III), NC-17, Lorne/Zelenka by inkscribe
Title: Puzzling Evidence (Part III)
Author: inkscribe
Pairings: Lorne/Zelenka
Kink: mild D/s, bondage, spanking
Warnings: Angst, bad angst. Scary John. Terrified Radek. You have been warned.
Rating: NC-17
Words: ~4,000 (this part)
Spoilers: S3.15 - “Tao of Rodney” - Only a wee bit. An important plot point for the story as a whole but probably not enough to ruin the episode for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet.
Locations: atlantiskink community, my LJ
Feedback: yes, please!
Summary: What we see is not always what it seems.
Chapter Summary: Apprehension.
New to this WIP? Check out the Puzzling Evidence chapter index! Please remember to read the header block of each chapter for related spoiler alerts, warnings, and notes.
Author's Notes: Still non-beta’d, so any errors are most definitely mine. Sadly, due to plot circumstances beyond my control, this part is 100% Czech-free (the language, that is. Radek is here, but he’s hurting. Waaaaaa.).
Disclaimer: Anything you recognise is not mine; please don’t sue, we’ll both regret it in the morning.
Marc paced the large cell, each step a punctuation mark between the feelings churning within him. Anger. Fear. Humiliation. Worry. Pain. Horror. The last was the hardest: the horror was not for him, but for Radek. What were they doing to him, and why? Marc knew their relationship carried risks if nothing other than the American military angle that was his burden. For that alone he could understand being tossed in the brig, but Radek? The last thing Marc remembered before being subdued by Colonel Sheppard was McKay moving over Radek as if Radek were to be punished by some heretofore unknown science code.
Marc was confused and angry. He had come to in the cell, a military-issue blanket wrapped around him and his BDUs folded on the bench. The meaning of the apparent nicety did not escape him: his clothes had been searched for anything dangerous or that might allow him to escape. He would be allowed the dignity of appearing before his captors fully dressed, but not the opportunity to do anything of his own volition. Marc had snorted in disgust when he realised that even his bootlaces had been removed.
He continued to pace. No one stood guard, and Marc couldn’t decide if that was because Sheppard was planning to do him some serious damage and didn’t want any witnesses or if he wanted to give Marc the benefit of the doubt and didn’t want any witnesses while whatever this was got straightened out.
Old soldier’s tricks for keeping the mind occupied during long, pointless stretches of unmarked time were useless. In the past, Marc had used these tricks successfully. In the past, Marc realised, he wasn’t sick with worry about the fate of his lover.
Marc wasn’t surprised when, after more than a thousand uncounted crossings of his cell, he turned to pace back and came face to face with Sheppard standing directly across from him, just outside the cell’s bars. They were all capable of moving like a proverbial cat; wasn’t that sometimes the point, after all? Sheppard had the look of a cat right now, feral and hungry for the prey sitting in its cage.
Marc stood unblinking. He kept his eyes steady and held Sheppard’s gaze. The room, silent before but for Marc’s pacing, now became oppressive in a new type of silence, heavy with tension and unspoken words. And still Sheppard stared at him, unblinking, his face tight with restrained anger.
The anger was what threw Marc, though. Try as he might, he just couldn’t see why Sheppard would be this angry at discovering a homosexual in his command. Sure, officially it was all ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ but Marc had long suspected that the Colonel wouldn’t be bothered in the least if that set of regs were to disappear quietly one day. Marc might have snorted with laughter at his next thought, the one where he allowed himself to wonder about the ongoing snark between his commander and Doctor McKay. If the two of them weren’t already involved, it had to be the longest foreplay Marc had ever witnessed.
Marc’s guts twisted. McKay. He remembered McKay bending over Radek, crying and muttering and yelling. Maybe McKay was jealous? Maybe this was some bizarre lover’s triangle he had fallen into? Marc felt his heart race slightly, then forced himself to breathe, slow and steady, and regain control. No, it was impossible: they’d been lovers for months now while Marc hadn’t stalked the scientist, it was clear from all their work-related interactions that the man simply did not have time for anything on the side. Nor would Marc believe it, really. It wasn’t like he had demanded Radek forswear and forsake all others, but it had been obvious to them both that they had each other, and each other only.
None of this made any sense.
Marc took a deep breath and spoke in formal tones. “You wanted to see me, Colonel?”
Colonel Sheppard’s only response was to narrow his eyes; his stare at Marc continued unabated, almost as though he were trying to cut Marc apart with his gaze. Marc repressed a shiver at the thought of what was going on behind those eyes.
Marc stood his ground. “What do you want, Colonel? You’ve got my undivided attention.”
“Shut up, Major,” Sheppard spat.
Marc ignored the order. “Why are you holding me here? What have you done with Radek?”
“I said, shut up, Major.” This time, Sheppard drawled, slow and deadly. “You can consider that an order.”
Marc snorted. “An order? You drag me in down here for no reason and now you’re giving me orders?” He crossed his arms and stood tall, defiant. “I’ll ask you again, Colonel,” he said, his words clipped as he tried to restrain his building anger. “What have you done with Radek?”
Sheppard exploded. “Don’t you dare ask me about Doctor Zelenka. We know everything - everything - you sick bastard. My only problem now is to decide whether to ship you home for a courts martial or to drop you through the Gate at the nearest Wraith-heavy destination.”
“What are you talking about? Know everything about what?” Marc shouted in return. What was so wrong that Sheppard would threaten to kill him? Surely the colonel couldn’t mean -
“We caught you in the act, Major,” Sheppard said, contempt heavy in his emphasis of Lorne’s rank. “Beating a civilian. A civilian whose very safety is part of our mandate here in the Pegasus galaxy. Their safety is the reason we’re here in the first place. Never mind that even if we weren’t here in the official capacity of protecting the scientists, they’ve worked to save our collective asses so often that you should be kissing the ground they walk on in thanks for the fact that you can still draw breath instead of becoming the catch-of-the-day for the Wraith!”
“What are you talking about?” Marc shouted again. “Beating a civilian? You’re crazy. Radek and I are lovers! I wasn’t - I wasn’t beating him. It wasn’t like that!”
“We saw the beating, Major,” Sheppard snapped. “We know about the torture, the suicide attempts.” Sheppard clenched his fists over and over again, and Marc winced internally as he remembered those fists connecting with his body when he was dragged from Radek’s bound body.
“If you think for a minute that either I or Doctor McKay are going to let you get away with killing a member of this expedition, you are sadly mistaken,” Sheppard hissed.
“Killing? What?” Marc asked, confused again. He ran back through Sheppard’s last few statements and realised he had missed something, something critical. What? What had he missed? Oh, god - Torture? Suicide attempts? Marc realised now what Sheppard was talking about, the injuries Radek had always kept so carefully hidden, the injuries that Marc had seen quite by accident, just that one time, long before they became lovers. The injuries that Radek had still, after all their time together - all the large and small intimacies between them - the injuries that Radek had still been unable to bring himself to explain to Marc, the ones that sometimes caused him to curl up in a ball against Marc’s chest and cry his eyes out until he exhausted himself utterly. The injuries that were gone now that McKay had - McKay had healed Radek. He healed his body. McKay knew about the scars!
Marc felt as though his heart would be crushed by the weight of sorrow settling into his chest. Tears burned his eyes as he imagined Radek now, alone and frightened, people, or at least McKay, trying to pull the story from him through force, by demanding Radek answer questions he wasn’t prepared to hear. Radek hadn’t been able to tell Marc yet, but Marc was sure it was only a matter of time and trust. And even if Radek never told him, Marc could accept that.
McKay surely couldn’t. He surely wouldn’t accept anything less than the full story, and Marc knew that Radek wasn’t prepared to tell anyone, not tell them anything, not anytime soon.
Marc lunged at the cell’s bars, screaming directly into Sheppard’s face, pressing himself through the bars, as his terror for his lover threatened to overwhelm him. “My god! What are you doing to Radek? What have you done to him? You don’t understand! Please don’t do this to him!”
“I ordered you toshut up, Major,” Sheppard hissed, his voice as cold as ice, his eyes colder still. Sheppard stared, unflinching as Marc slid to the floor, sobbing.
oOo
McKay was certain he had never been more frightened for someone in his life. He had experienced plenty of fear for his own life, and with reason. But Rodney’s friends were few and hard-won, and the thought that he could have missed something so serious, something so terrible that Radek would try to take his own life made Rodney’s heart squeeze mercilessly from stress and guilt.
Rodney knew he was feeling shocky, knew his blood sugar was crashing. His hands shook with small tremors he could no longer stifle. He forced himself to eat a PowerBar, forced every last bit down his throat, though it felt like chalk in his dry mouth.
He desperately wished to stop the loop of strobe-like images that ran over and over again in his mind’s eye: John and his attempts to reach Radek on the radio, then directly at Radek’s door. Their override of Radek’s doorlock into his quarters. The frightening tableau before them: Radek bound tightly to the bed while Major Lorne hit his restrained body over and over again as Radek moaned.
Rodney remembered helping John to pull Lorne off Radek, remembered helping John restrain and subdue the man, even remembered holding Lorne while John delivered several hard blows to the man’s body, blows that may or may not have been part of standard military protocol for securing a target. Oh god.
John had taken care of Lorne and McKay had taken care of Radek.
McKay called Beckett for emergency assistance, then worked frantically to remove the bonds before the doctor arrived. McKay remembered Beckett’s gasp at the room’s disarray, the overt signs of the struggle put up by Major Lorne before John had succeeded in removing the man from Radek’s quarters. McKay remembered Beckett’s second gasp when he approached Radek and saw the bruises beginning to bloom on the man’s backside, saw the severed bonds trailing from the Czech’s graceful hands.
Beckett and his team moved swiftly to transfer Radek, and McKay remembered running alongside, his heart beating faster than normal, faster than necessary for the speed they travelled, as he took in Beckett’s triage to his team: phrases such as non-responsive, pulse erratic, shallow breath. McKay remembered the strange coldness in the man’s hand as he grasped Radek’s fingers, gently squeezing them to assure his friend that he was not along among the voodoo witch doctors, squeezing the fingers over and over again, trying to elicit a response, any response.
Radek hadn’t responded to anything after he screamed on the bed. McKay wanted to scream himself every time he thought of it: he now understood why the poets sometimes referred to blood that ran cold - Radek’s scream had frozen Rodney’s blood right down to the marrow of his bones.
Rodney wondered what was so wrong with his friend that he would scream like that? What was so wrong in Radek’s life that he wouldn’t trust Rodney enough to ask for help?
More memories flicked past his mind’s eye. The work done to stabilise Radek, the ongoing attempts to bring him out of his catatonia. The rape examination.
God. Rape. Such a small word. Just four letters, four tiny letters. Two consonants, two vowels. Even now Rodney could not imagine such a small word could contain all the pain he had witnessed himself earlier in the evening. He could not imagine that such a small word could contain the wrongness he had felt when he healed Radek’s scars earlier in the week. Rape was such a small word; just four letters. Two consonants, two vowels.
He was surprised when Beckett asked him to stay for the rape exam. Rodney was absolutely certain that his presence was not standard procedure but then Radek being catatonic couldn’t be standard procedure either, could it? Rodney had stood near Radek’s chest, keeping his gaze resolutely on his friend’s face, looking into his blank, unseeing eyes, holding his hand and squeezing it firmly, sometimes stroking the fingers in his grasp with his thumb. He wouldn’t, he couldn’t watch Beckett do his work. But neither could he block Beckett’s voice, the calm voice that explained every step of the examination to Radek before it happened, a voice that made no assumptions that non-responsive meant non-hearing or non-comprehension.
“God, Radek,” Rodney whispered. “What did he do to you? Why didn’t you tell me? Oh god. Please, hang in there. We’ve got him where he can’t hurt you anymore. You can come back out. You can trust us - you’re safe. Please. Come back to us, Radek. Please. Oh please.”
Rodney knew he was whimpering. He knew he was babbling. He would talk all night and all day and all over again if only it would bring Radek around again, bring him awake and alert and arguing over every last detail of every project on their roster.
Rodney was very, very afraid of what the future would bring for Radek if he pulled through, and absolutely terrified of a future without him at all if he didn’t.
Hours passed. When he could, Beckett sat with Rodney, speaking quietly about anything except what had happened to Radek. They talked about now, about the procedures Beckett ordered. They talked about the weather. They talked about the projects McKay was expecting Radek to finish impossibly soon and so Radek had best wake up again quickly because all this sleeping was going to throw their schedule off.
Beckett had ordered an IV to keep Radek’s electrolytes balanced, but otherwise advised Rodney that all they could realistically do was wait and hope the Czech could come out of it.
Rodney swore to himself that he’d never make fun of the idea of stress being traumatic ever again.
In the early grey of dawn, just before pink streaked the horizon, Radek stirred of his own volition. Rodney heard him, the small movement seemed large and loud after the unnatural stillness of the night.
“Marc?” Radek whispered, his voice fragile like old parchment.
“Shhhhh,” Rodney soothed, sitting straight and tightening his grip on Radek’s hand. “It’s all right.”
Radek frowned. He blinked, shook his head as though he were trying to clear it. Rodney’s heart was tight with happiness that Radek might pull through, but tight also with fear that this moment might only be a brief respite before worse yet to come.
Radek frowned again. “Marc?” he called. “Marc? Are you there?”
“It’s me,” Rodney said. “It’s OK. I’m here.”
“Marc?” Radek repeated. His frown deepened, confused. Rodney suddenly realised that Radek didn’t recognise his voice.
“No,” Rodney clarified. “It’s me, Rodney.”
Nothing could have prepared Rodney for Radek’s reaction. Radek’s eyes flew open and his face changed from that of confused stupor to terror. “Rodney!” Radek screamed and clenched his fingers tightly around Rodney’s hand.
“Beckett!” Rodney screamed in return, staring in horror at Radek’s face, a face so pulled and twisted by tension that had Rodney arrived just then he would not have been certain as to who was on the bed.
Beckett charged into the room. Rodney felt his hand hurting from Radek’s grip as the prone man continued to squeeze, relentless, as he cried and cried. In other circumstances, Rodney would have admired the calm, efficient professionalism Beckett showed in crisis. Now, though, Rodney simply held on to Radek’s hand and hoped that whatever Beckett might be able to do would be enough.
Radek was babbling, crying “Marc, Marc” over and over again. He would not answer Beckett’s questions, Rodney thought that Radek did not seem to recognise that he was being spoken to. Like Rodney before him, Beckett used soothing tones to try to calm the distraught man down.
Rodney felt his hand abruptly released. His relief was only momentary, though, as Radek then shot bolt upright, wrapped his arms tightly around his own torso, and began rocking and moaning, completely oblivious to the two men next to him. Beckett barked orders for a sedative, administered it, and stood with Rodney while the medication took rapid effect, his face reflecting as much worry as Rodney knew was on his own.
Beckett turned to Rodney. “I need to call a consult with Doctor Heightmeyer,” he said. “I don’t have a great deal of experience with post-traumatic shock disorder, but I’ve no doubt that’s what we’re dealing with. Have you spoken to Doctor Weir?”
Rodney blinked stupidly for a moment. “Doctor Weir? No, no I haven’t.”
“Then I think it’s high time you got on it, son,” Beckett snapped.
Rodney was stunned. In the hours since John and he had decided to check up on Radek, he had not given one thought to alerting Elizabeth to the situation. He nodded. “I’ll return shortly. Let Heightmeyer know that both Colonel Sheppard and I will be available to her.”
Rodney found himself surprised again when Beckett asked, “Where is Colonel Sheppard, anyway? I would have expected him to check up on you and Radek some hours ago.”
Rodney shook his head to clear it. He had not been thinking very well since this all began. John hadn’t checked in, and that was unusual, out of character. It couldn’t be good. Rodney surprised himself by learning that he could, indeed, become more worried than he already was.
“Carson?” Rodney said. “I’m going to see Elizabeth soon, but I think I’d better check up on John first. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
Beckett glanced at him and nodded. “Aye,” he said, then returned to checking Radek’s vitals.
oOo
John was pushing hard within himself to keep calm, to keep from becoming physically ill. In the last 27-plus hours, he had crossed lines even he thought were uncrossable, even after the Genii during the storm, even after his role in interrogating and slaying a Wraith in the very cell he had detained Major Lorne.
He had always been protective of his men, of the civilians, of the city. He left no man behind. That he would feel passionate anger over one of his men abusing a civilian expedition member was no surprise. That he would go off the rails and off the book, off standard protocol for dealing with such a matter did surprise him. It was one thing to ignore orders, ignore regs to save a life, to save lives, like he did in Afghanistan. It was quite another thing to take a subordinate into custody after beating the hell out of him, interrogate him privately without benefit of witnesses or anyone there to speak on his behalf, and threaten to have the man left in mortal jeopardy on John’s whim.
“No,” John whispered at the haggard reflection in his washroom mirror. “That’s not the man I am. I did it, yes, but I won’t be that man.”
Hours of screaming at Major Lorne. Hours of staring at Major Lorne. Hours of coming and going at irregular times. Standard interrogation techniques to leave the subject confused and off-balance from lack of rest and the ability to anticipate patterns. John had only a handful of minutes of rest himself, and coming back to his own quarters this time around, John decided it was high time to have a good long look in the mirror. He needed to see if there was anything left there that he could ever face again.
John wasn’t surprised to realise that he didn’t like what he saw. Hated what he saw.
He wiped a damp cloth over his face and walked into his bedroom just in time to hear McKay calling at the door. He thought the door open and watched as McKay stumbled in.
“John?”
“Yeah,” John’s voice was flat, toneless.
“I just left the infirmary. Beckett and I,” he gestured behind him. “We were wondering where you were.”
“Right now, obviously, I’m here,” John said. He knew what Rodney was asking but knew he didn’t have the energy to explain directly at that moment; knew that he would have to work up to it.
“Ah,” Rodney said, a weak smile on his face. “And the rest of the night?”
John didn’t blink. “Interrogating the prisoner.”
“Oh,” Rodney said, then looked confused. “Prisoner? Isn’t he supposed to be a suspect?”
John was surprised to hear his voice come out as a growl. “After what we saw and what I did, you’d like me to call him a suspect?”
McKay flinched at the deadly anger that ran as an undercurrent to John’s words. “Nooooo,” Rodney said thoughtfully. “I suppose you’re right.”
John felt himself losing patience. He was angry with himself over this, but he was tired and disgusted and didn’t think he could handle Rodney’s need for precision at that very moment, the very same hour that John had realised he had crossed the uncrossable. John felt sick bile rise in his throat as the results of his night’s travail ran through his head yet again.
Rodney interrupted his personal, private horror show. “We need to brief Doctor Weir,” he said.
Of course. John sighed and nodded. He had known it was inevitable from the moment they’d entered Radek’s quarters to find not a scientist asleep too soundly after a busy week, but a man tied and beaten by one of John’s own subordinates.
“Let’s go then,” John said, opening the door with his mind.
oOo
Radek floated in a haze of memory, mostly soft, fuzzy impressions and muted sounds. Sometimes sharp glimpses of a face, a book, a building. Home. He saw his mother, her eyes sparkling with the humour she had to keep carefully hidden whenever they ventured into public. He saw the stacks of books that filled every possible space in their home.
He saw his brother, sobbing after their home burnt to the ground. He saw flashes of school, heard flashes of sounds. Heard the school song, his own voice ringing out as they began their studies for the day. Heard the sounds of the neighbours through the walls of their tenement. He heard the drunken singing of men in the streets, late at night, heard the harsh authority of the police responding. He heard his own voice begging, saw the flash of anger in the man before him, heard the terrible words as the man hurt him and hurt him and hurt him.
Radek’s body writhed in pain as the last memory coursed through him, then he stilled.
He floated through a different haze, different softness. New sensations tumbled through his nerves: memories of stroking, caressing, hugging. Kisses, light and playful. Kisses, hard and demanding. Warm love rushed through his body, melting the icy fear of his youth into the warm security of ... something. Radek couldn’t really remember. The haze kept him floating, rising and falling, softly tumbling through the flowing memories of warmth, and love, and joy. His body slowly unwound, the tension drained away, leaving him limp and relaxed.
“Marc,” he mumbled, and a small smile crept across his face. He drifted off into true sleep for the first time in hours.
End Part III
Author: inkscribe
Pairings: Lorne/Zelenka
Kink: mild D/s, bondage, spanking
Warnings: Angst, bad angst. Scary John. Terrified Radek. You have been warned.
Rating: NC-17
Words: ~4,000 (this part)
Spoilers: S3.15 - “Tao of Rodney” - Only a wee bit. An important plot point for the story as a whole but probably not enough to ruin the episode for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet.
Locations: atlantiskink community, my LJ
Feedback: yes, please!
Summary: What we see is not always what it seems.
Chapter Summary: Apprehension.
New to this WIP? Check out the Puzzling Evidence chapter index! Please remember to read the header block of each chapter for related spoiler alerts, warnings, and notes.
Author's Notes: Still non-beta’d, so any errors are most definitely mine. Sadly, due to plot circumstances beyond my control, this part is 100% Czech-free (the language, that is. Radek is here, but he’s hurting. Waaaaaa.).
Disclaimer: Anything you recognise is not mine; please don’t sue, we’ll both regret it in the morning.
Marc paced the large cell, each step a punctuation mark between the feelings churning within him. Anger. Fear. Humiliation. Worry. Pain. Horror. The last was the hardest: the horror was not for him, but for Radek. What were they doing to him, and why? Marc knew their relationship carried risks if nothing other than the American military angle that was his burden. For that alone he could understand being tossed in the brig, but Radek? The last thing Marc remembered before being subdued by Colonel Sheppard was McKay moving over Radek as if Radek were to be punished by some heretofore unknown science code.
Marc was confused and angry. He had come to in the cell, a military-issue blanket wrapped around him and his BDUs folded on the bench. The meaning of the apparent nicety did not escape him: his clothes had been searched for anything dangerous or that might allow him to escape. He would be allowed the dignity of appearing before his captors fully dressed, but not the opportunity to do anything of his own volition. Marc had snorted in disgust when he realised that even his bootlaces had been removed.
He continued to pace. No one stood guard, and Marc couldn’t decide if that was because Sheppard was planning to do him some serious damage and didn’t want any witnesses or if he wanted to give Marc the benefit of the doubt and didn’t want any witnesses while whatever this was got straightened out.
Old soldier’s tricks for keeping the mind occupied during long, pointless stretches of unmarked time were useless. In the past, Marc had used these tricks successfully. In the past, Marc realised, he wasn’t sick with worry about the fate of his lover.
Marc wasn’t surprised when, after more than a thousand uncounted crossings of his cell, he turned to pace back and came face to face with Sheppard standing directly across from him, just outside the cell’s bars. They were all capable of moving like a proverbial cat; wasn’t that sometimes the point, after all? Sheppard had the look of a cat right now, feral and hungry for the prey sitting in its cage.
Marc stood unblinking. He kept his eyes steady and held Sheppard’s gaze. The room, silent before but for Marc’s pacing, now became oppressive in a new type of silence, heavy with tension and unspoken words. And still Sheppard stared at him, unblinking, his face tight with restrained anger.
The anger was what threw Marc, though. Try as he might, he just couldn’t see why Sheppard would be this angry at discovering a homosexual in his command. Sure, officially it was all ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ but Marc had long suspected that the Colonel wouldn’t be bothered in the least if that set of regs were to disappear quietly one day. Marc might have snorted with laughter at his next thought, the one where he allowed himself to wonder about the ongoing snark between his commander and Doctor McKay. If the two of them weren’t already involved, it had to be the longest foreplay Marc had ever witnessed.
Marc’s guts twisted. McKay. He remembered McKay bending over Radek, crying and muttering and yelling. Maybe McKay was jealous? Maybe this was some bizarre lover’s triangle he had fallen into? Marc felt his heart race slightly, then forced himself to breathe, slow and steady, and regain control. No, it was impossible: they’d been lovers for months now while Marc hadn’t stalked the scientist, it was clear from all their work-related interactions that the man simply did not have time for anything on the side. Nor would Marc believe it, really. It wasn’t like he had demanded Radek forswear and forsake all others, but it had been obvious to them both that they had each other, and each other only.
None of this made any sense.
Marc took a deep breath and spoke in formal tones. “You wanted to see me, Colonel?”
Colonel Sheppard’s only response was to narrow his eyes; his stare at Marc continued unabated, almost as though he were trying to cut Marc apart with his gaze. Marc repressed a shiver at the thought of what was going on behind those eyes.
Marc stood his ground. “What do you want, Colonel? You’ve got my undivided attention.”
“Shut up, Major,” Sheppard spat.
Marc ignored the order. “Why are you holding me here? What have you done with Radek?”
“I said, shut up, Major.” This time, Sheppard drawled, slow and deadly. “You can consider that an order.”
Marc snorted. “An order? You drag me in down here for no reason and now you’re giving me orders?” He crossed his arms and stood tall, defiant. “I’ll ask you again, Colonel,” he said, his words clipped as he tried to restrain his building anger. “What have you done with Radek?”
Sheppard exploded. “Don’t you dare ask me about Doctor Zelenka. We know everything - everything - you sick bastard. My only problem now is to decide whether to ship you home for a courts martial or to drop you through the Gate at the nearest Wraith-heavy destination.”
“What are you talking about? Know everything about what?” Marc shouted in return. What was so wrong that Sheppard would threaten to kill him? Surely the colonel couldn’t mean -
“We caught you in the act, Major,” Sheppard said, contempt heavy in his emphasis of Lorne’s rank. “Beating a civilian. A civilian whose very safety is part of our mandate here in the Pegasus galaxy. Their safety is the reason we’re here in the first place. Never mind that even if we weren’t here in the official capacity of protecting the scientists, they’ve worked to save our collective asses so often that you should be kissing the ground they walk on in thanks for the fact that you can still draw breath instead of becoming the catch-of-the-day for the Wraith!”
“What are you talking about?” Marc shouted again. “Beating a civilian? You’re crazy. Radek and I are lovers! I wasn’t - I wasn’t beating him. It wasn’t like that!”
“We saw the beating, Major,” Sheppard snapped. “We know about the torture, the suicide attempts.” Sheppard clenched his fists over and over again, and Marc winced internally as he remembered those fists connecting with his body when he was dragged from Radek’s bound body.
“If you think for a minute that either I or Doctor McKay are going to let you get away with killing a member of this expedition, you are sadly mistaken,” Sheppard hissed.
“Killing? What?” Marc asked, confused again. He ran back through Sheppard’s last few statements and realised he had missed something, something critical. What? What had he missed? Oh, god - Torture? Suicide attempts? Marc realised now what Sheppard was talking about, the injuries Radek had always kept so carefully hidden, the injuries that Marc had seen quite by accident, just that one time, long before they became lovers. The injuries that Radek had still, after all their time together - all the large and small intimacies between them - the injuries that Radek had still been unable to bring himself to explain to Marc, the ones that sometimes caused him to curl up in a ball against Marc’s chest and cry his eyes out until he exhausted himself utterly. The injuries that were gone now that McKay had - McKay had healed Radek. He healed his body. McKay knew about the scars!
Marc felt as though his heart would be crushed by the weight of sorrow settling into his chest. Tears burned his eyes as he imagined Radek now, alone and frightened, people, or at least McKay, trying to pull the story from him through force, by demanding Radek answer questions he wasn’t prepared to hear. Radek hadn’t been able to tell Marc yet, but Marc was sure it was only a matter of time and trust. And even if Radek never told him, Marc could accept that.
McKay surely couldn’t. He surely wouldn’t accept anything less than the full story, and Marc knew that Radek wasn’t prepared to tell anyone, not tell them anything, not anytime soon.
Marc lunged at the cell’s bars, screaming directly into Sheppard’s face, pressing himself through the bars, as his terror for his lover threatened to overwhelm him. “My god! What are you doing to Radek? What have you done to him? You don’t understand! Please don’t do this to him!”
“I ordered you toshut up, Major,” Sheppard hissed, his voice as cold as ice, his eyes colder still. Sheppard stared, unflinching as Marc slid to the floor, sobbing.
oOo
McKay was certain he had never been more frightened for someone in his life. He had experienced plenty of fear for his own life, and with reason. But Rodney’s friends were few and hard-won, and the thought that he could have missed something so serious, something so terrible that Radek would try to take his own life made Rodney’s heart squeeze mercilessly from stress and guilt.
Rodney knew he was feeling shocky, knew his blood sugar was crashing. His hands shook with small tremors he could no longer stifle. He forced himself to eat a PowerBar, forced every last bit down his throat, though it felt like chalk in his dry mouth.
He desperately wished to stop the loop of strobe-like images that ran over and over again in his mind’s eye: John and his attempts to reach Radek on the radio, then directly at Radek’s door. Their override of Radek’s doorlock into his quarters. The frightening tableau before them: Radek bound tightly to the bed while Major Lorne hit his restrained body over and over again as Radek moaned.
Rodney remembered helping John to pull Lorne off Radek, remembered helping John restrain and subdue the man, even remembered holding Lorne while John delivered several hard blows to the man’s body, blows that may or may not have been part of standard military protocol for securing a target. Oh god.
John had taken care of Lorne and McKay had taken care of Radek.
McKay called Beckett for emergency assistance, then worked frantically to remove the bonds before the doctor arrived. McKay remembered Beckett’s gasp at the room’s disarray, the overt signs of the struggle put up by Major Lorne before John had succeeded in removing the man from Radek’s quarters. McKay remembered Beckett’s second gasp when he approached Radek and saw the bruises beginning to bloom on the man’s backside, saw the severed bonds trailing from the Czech’s graceful hands.
Beckett and his team moved swiftly to transfer Radek, and McKay remembered running alongside, his heart beating faster than normal, faster than necessary for the speed they travelled, as he took in Beckett’s triage to his team: phrases such as non-responsive, pulse erratic, shallow breath. McKay remembered the strange coldness in the man’s hand as he grasped Radek’s fingers, gently squeezing them to assure his friend that he was not along among the voodoo witch doctors, squeezing the fingers over and over again, trying to elicit a response, any response.
Radek hadn’t responded to anything after he screamed on the bed. McKay wanted to scream himself every time he thought of it: he now understood why the poets sometimes referred to blood that ran cold - Radek’s scream had frozen Rodney’s blood right down to the marrow of his bones.
Rodney wondered what was so wrong with his friend that he would scream like that? What was so wrong in Radek’s life that he wouldn’t trust Rodney enough to ask for help?
More memories flicked past his mind’s eye. The work done to stabilise Radek, the ongoing attempts to bring him out of his catatonia. The rape examination.
God. Rape. Such a small word. Just four letters, four tiny letters. Two consonants, two vowels. Even now Rodney could not imagine such a small word could contain all the pain he had witnessed himself earlier in the evening. He could not imagine that such a small word could contain the wrongness he had felt when he healed Radek’s scars earlier in the week. Rape was such a small word; just four letters. Two consonants, two vowels.
He was surprised when Beckett asked him to stay for the rape exam. Rodney was absolutely certain that his presence was not standard procedure but then Radek being catatonic couldn’t be standard procedure either, could it? Rodney had stood near Radek’s chest, keeping his gaze resolutely on his friend’s face, looking into his blank, unseeing eyes, holding his hand and squeezing it firmly, sometimes stroking the fingers in his grasp with his thumb. He wouldn’t, he couldn’t watch Beckett do his work. But neither could he block Beckett’s voice, the calm voice that explained every step of the examination to Radek before it happened, a voice that made no assumptions that non-responsive meant non-hearing or non-comprehension.
“God, Radek,” Rodney whispered. “What did he do to you? Why didn’t you tell me? Oh god. Please, hang in there. We’ve got him where he can’t hurt you anymore. You can come back out. You can trust us - you’re safe. Please. Come back to us, Radek. Please. Oh please.”
Rodney knew he was whimpering. He knew he was babbling. He would talk all night and all day and all over again if only it would bring Radek around again, bring him awake and alert and arguing over every last detail of every project on their roster.
Rodney was very, very afraid of what the future would bring for Radek if he pulled through, and absolutely terrified of a future without him at all if he didn’t.
Hours passed. When he could, Beckett sat with Rodney, speaking quietly about anything except what had happened to Radek. They talked about now, about the procedures Beckett ordered. They talked about the weather. They talked about the projects McKay was expecting Radek to finish impossibly soon and so Radek had best wake up again quickly because all this sleeping was going to throw their schedule off.
Beckett had ordered an IV to keep Radek’s electrolytes balanced, but otherwise advised Rodney that all they could realistically do was wait and hope the Czech could come out of it.
Rodney swore to himself that he’d never make fun of the idea of stress being traumatic ever again.
In the early grey of dawn, just before pink streaked the horizon, Radek stirred of his own volition. Rodney heard him, the small movement seemed large and loud after the unnatural stillness of the night.
“Marc?” Radek whispered, his voice fragile like old parchment.
“Shhhhh,” Rodney soothed, sitting straight and tightening his grip on Radek’s hand. “It’s all right.”
Radek frowned. He blinked, shook his head as though he were trying to clear it. Rodney’s heart was tight with happiness that Radek might pull through, but tight also with fear that this moment might only be a brief respite before worse yet to come.
Radek frowned again. “Marc?” he called. “Marc? Are you there?”
“It’s me,” Rodney said. “It’s OK. I’m here.”
“Marc?” Radek repeated. His frown deepened, confused. Rodney suddenly realised that Radek didn’t recognise his voice.
“No,” Rodney clarified. “It’s me, Rodney.”
Nothing could have prepared Rodney for Radek’s reaction. Radek’s eyes flew open and his face changed from that of confused stupor to terror. “Rodney!” Radek screamed and clenched his fingers tightly around Rodney’s hand.
“Beckett!” Rodney screamed in return, staring in horror at Radek’s face, a face so pulled and twisted by tension that had Rodney arrived just then he would not have been certain as to who was on the bed.
Beckett charged into the room. Rodney felt his hand hurting from Radek’s grip as the prone man continued to squeeze, relentless, as he cried and cried. In other circumstances, Rodney would have admired the calm, efficient professionalism Beckett showed in crisis. Now, though, Rodney simply held on to Radek’s hand and hoped that whatever Beckett might be able to do would be enough.
Radek was babbling, crying “Marc, Marc” over and over again. He would not answer Beckett’s questions, Rodney thought that Radek did not seem to recognise that he was being spoken to. Like Rodney before him, Beckett used soothing tones to try to calm the distraught man down.
Rodney felt his hand abruptly released. His relief was only momentary, though, as Radek then shot bolt upright, wrapped his arms tightly around his own torso, and began rocking and moaning, completely oblivious to the two men next to him. Beckett barked orders for a sedative, administered it, and stood with Rodney while the medication took rapid effect, his face reflecting as much worry as Rodney knew was on his own.
Beckett turned to Rodney. “I need to call a consult with Doctor Heightmeyer,” he said. “I don’t have a great deal of experience with post-traumatic shock disorder, but I’ve no doubt that’s what we’re dealing with. Have you spoken to Doctor Weir?”
Rodney blinked stupidly for a moment. “Doctor Weir? No, no I haven’t.”
“Then I think it’s high time you got on it, son,” Beckett snapped.
Rodney was stunned. In the hours since John and he had decided to check up on Radek, he had not given one thought to alerting Elizabeth to the situation. He nodded. “I’ll return shortly. Let Heightmeyer know that both Colonel Sheppard and I will be available to her.”
Rodney found himself surprised again when Beckett asked, “Where is Colonel Sheppard, anyway? I would have expected him to check up on you and Radek some hours ago.”
Rodney shook his head to clear it. He had not been thinking very well since this all began. John hadn’t checked in, and that was unusual, out of character. It couldn’t be good. Rodney surprised himself by learning that he could, indeed, become more worried than he already was.
“Carson?” Rodney said. “I’m going to see Elizabeth soon, but I think I’d better check up on John first. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
Beckett glanced at him and nodded. “Aye,” he said, then returned to checking Radek’s vitals.
oOo
John was pushing hard within himself to keep calm, to keep from becoming physically ill. In the last 27-plus hours, he had crossed lines even he thought were uncrossable, even after the Genii during the storm, even after his role in interrogating and slaying a Wraith in the very cell he had detained Major Lorne.
He had always been protective of his men, of the civilians, of the city. He left no man behind. That he would feel passionate anger over one of his men abusing a civilian expedition member was no surprise. That he would go off the rails and off the book, off standard protocol for dealing with such a matter did surprise him. It was one thing to ignore orders, ignore regs to save a life, to save lives, like he did in Afghanistan. It was quite another thing to take a subordinate into custody after beating the hell out of him, interrogate him privately without benefit of witnesses or anyone there to speak on his behalf, and threaten to have the man left in mortal jeopardy on John’s whim.
“No,” John whispered at the haggard reflection in his washroom mirror. “That’s not the man I am. I did it, yes, but I won’t be that man.”
Hours of screaming at Major Lorne. Hours of staring at Major Lorne. Hours of coming and going at irregular times. Standard interrogation techniques to leave the subject confused and off-balance from lack of rest and the ability to anticipate patterns. John had only a handful of minutes of rest himself, and coming back to his own quarters this time around, John decided it was high time to have a good long look in the mirror. He needed to see if there was anything left there that he could ever face again.
John wasn’t surprised to realise that he didn’t like what he saw. Hated what he saw.
He wiped a damp cloth over his face and walked into his bedroom just in time to hear McKay calling at the door. He thought the door open and watched as McKay stumbled in.
“John?”
“Yeah,” John’s voice was flat, toneless.
“I just left the infirmary. Beckett and I,” he gestured behind him. “We were wondering where you were.”
“Right now, obviously, I’m here,” John said. He knew what Rodney was asking but knew he didn’t have the energy to explain directly at that moment; knew that he would have to work up to it.
“Ah,” Rodney said, a weak smile on his face. “And the rest of the night?”
John didn’t blink. “Interrogating the prisoner.”
“Oh,” Rodney said, then looked confused. “Prisoner? Isn’t he supposed to be a suspect?”
John was surprised to hear his voice come out as a growl. “After what we saw and what I did, you’d like me to call him a suspect?”
McKay flinched at the deadly anger that ran as an undercurrent to John’s words. “Nooooo,” Rodney said thoughtfully. “I suppose you’re right.”
John felt himself losing patience. He was angry with himself over this, but he was tired and disgusted and didn’t think he could handle Rodney’s need for precision at that very moment, the very same hour that John had realised he had crossed the uncrossable. John felt sick bile rise in his throat as the results of his night’s travail ran through his head yet again.
Rodney interrupted his personal, private horror show. “We need to brief Doctor Weir,” he said.
Of course. John sighed and nodded. He had known it was inevitable from the moment they’d entered Radek’s quarters to find not a scientist asleep too soundly after a busy week, but a man tied and beaten by one of John’s own subordinates.
“Let’s go then,” John said, opening the door with his mind.
oOo
Radek floated in a haze of memory, mostly soft, fuzzy impressions and muted sounds. Sometimes sharp glimpses of a face, a book, a building. Home. He saw his mother, her eyes sparkling with the humour she had to keep carefully hidden whenever they ventured into public. He saw the stacks of books that filled every possible space in their home.
He saw his brother, sobbing after their home burnt to the ground. He saw flashes of school, heard flashes of sounds. Heard the school song, his own voice ringing out as they began their studies for the day. Heard the sounds of the neighbours through the walls of their tenement. He heard the drunken singing of men in the streets, late at night, heard the harsh authority of the police responding. He heard his own voice begging, saw the flash of anger in the man before him, heard the terrible words as the man hurt him and hurt him and hurt him.
Radek’s body writhed in pain as the last memory coursed through him, then he stilled.
He floated through a different haze, different softness. New sensations tumbled through his nerves: memories of stroking, caressing, hugging. Kisses, light and playful. Kisses, hard and demanding. Warm love rushed through his body, melting the icy fear of his youth into the warm security of ... something. Radek couldn’t really remember. The haze kept him floating, rising and falling, softly tumbling through the flowing memories of warmth, and love, and joy. His body slowly unwound, the tension drained away, leaving him limp and relaxed.
“Marc,” he mumbled, and a small smile crept across his face. He drifted off into true sleep for the first time in hours.
End Part III