Fic: Diploma 12/25
Title Diploma
Part 12/25
Author Internetname
Rating NC-17 (eventually)
Pairing John/Rodney
Summary Sentinel X/O: Rodney McKay and John Sheppard have figured out how to live the lives they want, and things should probably stay that way.
Warnings Slash
Word Count for Story So Far 19,005
Disclaimer Er...if they were mine they'd still be on TV.
Part One is Here
"What - what are you talking about? I didn't do anything to you!"
"I'm coming fully online, Rodney, and, Rodney, I'm about to crawl out of my skin! I can't breathe without knowing what everyone on Atlantis had for lunch, my clothes itch, and I'm hearing conversations from across the hall."
"You're a Sentinel! That's supposed to be normal for you!"
"Normal? I haven't had this junk to deal with since I was a kid!"
McKay stared at him.
"So help me, McKay, if you've done something to screw with my head..."
"I owe Teyla an apology," McKay said quietly.
"Teyla?"
McKay tilted his head slightly. "Come with me, Colonel."
Fuming, Sheppard followed the scientist without a word. McKay got on the radio and asked Teyla and Ronon to join them in the Infirmary.
"Rodney, Colonel," Beckett greeted them. McKay nodded and went directly to the ancient scanner, and then laid himself out on the bed.
"Rodney?" Beckett asked.
"The colonel seems to think I'm malfunctioning." McKay pointed to his forehead.
"Ach," Beckett tutted as Ronon and Teyla entered the Infirmary. He went to the scanner's control panel and directed the device to the crystal in McKay's cerebrum.
While the others gathered behind the doctor, Beckett pointed to the clear display of a small, solid white light deep in McKay's brain. "The inhibitor crystal is performing perfectly, Colonel. You can see here, here, and here." He pointed to three small black areas. "There's no communication between his empathy centers and his endocrine system. It's impossible for him to be releasing bonding hormones or for his Guide instincts to be regulating his serotonin levels."
"Then why does he smell like sunlight?"
Beckett's mouth dropped open, and the whole Infirmary grew silent. John supposed he'd just put a dent in his cool, but he didn't really care. Right now he needed information, and, damnit, McKay did smell like sunlight.
"Well, ordinarily, I'd say your description of Rodney's person was a sign of compatibility." Beckett looked pointedly at the scan results, then at McKay, who was now sitting on the bed in a lotus position, hands on his knees. "But considering the circumstances, I'd say another answer is more likely."
Sheppard waited for the man to get on with it. Teyla, he saw, was staring at the Ancient viewscreen with a firmly serene expression. Ronon had also retreated behind an expressionless face. John was fairly certain his own anger was clear to everyone in the room.
"I know you don't like to discuss this, so I'll keep it brief, Colonel. You are a Sentinel of extraordinary power, which you don't use. Dr. McKay is a Guide of extraordinary power, which he's had surgically deactivated. For reasons of your own, you have purposefully neglected an enormous portion of your own psyche since you were a child. It may be that the Sentinel inside you has simply had enough."
For a brief moment, half a breath, Sheppard allowed himself the luxury of considering just walking away. By any interpretation of Sentinel etiquette, Beckett was completely out of line. He could walk out now, and no one would stop him. He could just leave.
You could walk all the way back to Earth and hide under your bed, John, Sheppard told himself. Go on disability and grow a nice beer gut. Spend your life scratching your ass.
"So you're saying I'm the one interfering with my bond with Teyla, not McKay," he growled, wishing his voice didn't do that when he got pissed off.
Beckett took a step back. "Colonel, please." The deference was obviously masking a deep desire to spill his guts.
"What is it you want to say?"
The doctor regarded him blankly, then turned to address the other doctors and nurses tending to business in the Infirmary.
"May we have the room for a moment?"
Sheppard couldn't help feeling amusement as everyone but Beckett and his team scurried out in obvious relief. But he wasn't smiling as the doctor turned back around.
"Colonel Sheppard, you're not bonded to Teyla, and no one who knows anything about Sentinels and Guides would think for two seconds that you were. Our lovely friend centers you, allows you to function, takes care of you when you need it, and I've noticed Ronon here helps as well, but that's as far as it goes. Elizabeth and the others believe you have what you need because it's convenient for them." Beckett settled his shoulders, his blue eyes dark with determination.
"Now, this may come as a shock to you, Colonel, but over the past two years I've come to think of you as my friend, and I've gotten to know you well enough to know you'd tell the whole world you're fine with your arms and legs chopped off. But you not only deserve more than you're giving yourself, you need more. And whether you like it or not, you're going to find some way to get it."
"Sorry to make this all about me," McKay voice drifted wryly from his poised perch on the bed. "But from the way the conversation is going, it seems I need to remind everyone I'm not what any Sentinel needs right now."
Sheppard turned to look at the man, surprised to find himself considering the issue. McKay seemed to read his expression and waved his hands.
"If I smell like sunshine and lollipops to you right now, Sheppard, it has nothing to do with bonding because I can't bond. Moreover, and no offense, but I don't want to. I gave up that part of my life to get here to Atlantis, and I haven't regretted it for a moment."
"You disagree with my diagnosis then, Rodney?"
"No, actually. I think you're right that he's in need of a true Guide. It's just not going to be me."
"You might wait until you're asked, McKay," John drawled.
"I'm just making sure we all know where we stand." The scientist got off the bed and walked over to his scan results, looking them over with a satisfied nod. He turned to the doctor. "Carson, Teyla's been doing a good job -- a great job, considering. Sheppard should keep relying on her and Ronon and whoever else he needs while he looks for his Guide."
"Where am I going, exactly? Guides R Us?"
McKay looked slightly scandalized. "That discount meat market? Of course not. I'm not even suggesting you go back to Earth. There are several unbonded Guides on this city. Look me in the eye and tell me you've bothered to give any of them so much as a sniff."
Caught between the subject matter and the sensation of McKay's non-Guide wrongness, Sheppard couldn't help moving his shoulders in discomfort. McKay frowned at him.
"If, as you say, I'm being helpful," Teyla said, "then I would suggest what John needs now is some time to reflect on the matter."
McKay shrugged. "You'd know best. And I'll take that cue to get back to my lab?"
It took a beat for Sheppard to realize the man was asking his permission and to give him a nod. Rodney clapped his hands together and walked out.
"Colonel," Beckett said, drawing his attention back to his solemn face. "I meant no disrespect."
"Just doing your job, Doc." Sheppard patted him on the shoulder, smiled reassuringly at Teyla, and met Ronon's unflinching eyes before following McKay's path out the door.
"Sheppard," he heard Ronon say before he's taken more than a few steps down the corridor. "Wait up."
John turned, looking up at the man curiously.
"If you find your real Guide, you'll be a better Sentinel, right?"
"So they say."
"That will make you a better weapon against the Wraith."
John grinned. Trust Ronon to keep the important things in mind.
***
Rodney settled onto his lab stool with a low frission of pleasure, breathing in the dry, static-filled air of so many computers in one place. Beckett had done well to get all that out in the open, and with his real Guide at his side, Sheppard would stop being so distracting. As much fun as it was running around with Sheppard's team, this is what he had come to Atlantis for: ground-breaking research.
The Ancients had their problems, including their massive egos and generally giving up on life to be glowing squids, but their science was beautiful.
Currently, McKay was splitting his time between developing a protocol to retrieve recently dialed gate addresses from a DHD, reconfiguring power input from their naquadah generators to take some of the strain off their single ZPM whenever they dialed Earth or raised the shield, and reading through the new project proposals Zelenka had deemed worthy to forward to him.
The hours passed quickly.
A noise made him look to the open door of the lab, where Sheppard was leaning with his shoulder against the frame in a somewhat insolent, completely sexy way. Damn the man.
"Something I can do for you, Colonel?" he asked, not masking his impatience. A glance at his computer confirmed it was after midnight, well past time for all good military commanders to be in bed.
"Yes." Sheppard walked - no, that was definitely stalking - towards him, leaned over to put his elbows on the lab table, and gave him a decidedly deep look in his eyes. "You can take that crystal out of your head."
Part Thirteen is Here