FIC: Heaven Is A Place On Earth 1/6 (AU)
Title: Heaven Is A Place On Earth (1/6, completed)
Author: moodymuse19
Rating: PG-13
Summary: After John Sheppard settles in his new apartment, the last thing he expected - or wanted - was a roommate. When Rodney appears claiming the place is his, he assumes there's been a misunderstanding... until Rodney disappears just as mysteriously as he had appeared.
Author’s notes: AU based on the movie ‘Just Like Heaven’. I totally stole borrowed the summary off the back of the DVD. Ahem.
I don’t live in San Francisco, so any mistakes are completely… um, on purpose. Call it poetic license.
+++
This is how Rodney’s office could be described: elegant, functional, practical. Apparently, it was modern, too - a magazine had asked to photograph it once. They had even brought a half naked person in tow that had looked like she had been extracted out of a Barbie box rather than out of reality.
It could not be said, though, that the office resembled its owner. Cadman might have argued the point that Rodney didn't feel comfortable in his own office because the man himself wasn't elegant, modern or functional. Rodney usually ignored her and sent her off to work.
The fact was that when Rodney's dot com business had moved to the building, Rodney had taken a look, found the biggest office of all, and had taken it as his. Unkempt as it had been, he had snapped his fingers at a random minion to have it furnished and... well, said minion had taken liberties. The minion had hired a decorator and all.
It probably was a good thing Rodney didn't remember what minion he had snapped his fingers at.
Rodney clicked his laptop mouse and stood up, going to the printer set in a separate desk and dancing a bit on the spot as the papers rolled away lazily from the printer. Rodney collected them with the eagerness of a kid unwrapping presents, inserting them in a folder as soon as they were free of the printer’s rolls.
He left his office, dropped the two top sheets over the desk outside his office and placed on his face the most scorn he could muster - stupid new people who lost important legal documents. Seriously, how difficult was it to mail an envelope? The past days Rodney had been vaguely entertaining the idea of making Cadman his assistant, and the latest incident only proved how right he was. Cadman was annoying and nosy but she worked rather well, at least.
He dropped half the folder over Cadman’s empty desk and started making his way to the lab upstairs when his phone rang, making his pocket vibrate annoyingly.
"What?" he said, not really caring who was on the other side of the line.
"Hi, Mer," came Jeannie's voice, overly maudlin and entirely planned.
Rodney winced for a second and then schooled his voice to sound busy. “Oh, hi. Listen, I'm -”
Before he could even finish there was a tiny voice on the phone, as loud as only a child could be. "HI UNCLE RODNEY YOU ARE COMING RIGHT?"
Well, if that wasn't blackmail, then Rodney needed to buy a dictionary.
Jeannie got back on the phone. "Well, are you?"
Rodney doubled back and entered Cadman’s empty office, closing the door behind him. "That was low."
“That's how I have to play with you,” she said, the smile evident in her voice. “Madison actually does want to see you. It's a weekend, Mer. One lousy weekend.”
“Alright, alright, I must be insane to be accepting this.”
“Great! Now, if you're going to catch the 6:00 flight and be here for dinner, you need to get out now and go pack because god knows you didn't pack,” she said, with probably she same tone of voice she used when Madison made a mess.
Rodney did not appreciate the comparison his mind threw at him.
“Hey, I might've packed,” he said, even though no one in the world would believe him, less of all his sister.
“You hate packing. You leave it till the last minute. 6:00 flight, Mer. Leave now.”
“Okay, our mother died a decade ago,” he said, even as he made his way back and dumped the rest of the folder to the idiot outside his office. “Nobody called you in to replace her.”
“Normally I'd hung up on you for that but if I do, you'll never get here. Meredith -”
The first name. Normally he could get around when she just called him ‘Mer’ but the full first name gave him shivers. “Fine, fine. Jesus, the poor fate of my niece being near you all the time.”
The grin was back in her voice. “She seems to enjoy it.”
“She's four,” he said, multitasking as he powered down his laptop, disconnected the printer and locked the drawers in his desk, “she doesn’t enjoy reading or numbers, which shows how little -”
“Mer!” she warned.
“Leaving, fine,” he said as he went to his coat hanger.
“Good. I'll call you in thirty minutes, and I better hear a car engine in the background.”
Rodney rolled his eyes and waited till she said goodbye to hang up - he had done it once before she’d been over, and he had no desire to repeat that incident.
San Francisco was wet that night. Rodney couldn’t really tell if it was because of the fog rolling in from the bay or because it had rained at some point in the day. He tended to miss trivial things like that while working. The fog theory seemed to be the winning one, though as more rolled from the bay, making the tourists flock towards the bay and snap their cameras. Rodney suddenly sorely wished he’d have taken a cab or a cable car or something.
Jeannie called when he was halfway home - he hadn’t looked at his watch but he’d have bet anything she had called thirty minutes to the dot. He stuck his phone out the window for a few seconds, the sound of passing cars loud enough to convince anyone he really was on his way home.
Seeing a traffic jam in his usual way home, he turned right and took an alternative route, the one that passed by the college observatory.
Rodney watched it slowly approach him as he drove down the street - the planetarium dome on one side, the telescope dome on the other side. He’d been there only a few times since he’d moved to San Francisco; as a visitor his favorite was on the other side of the bay. This one was nice enough, good enough for Radek to work there, Rodney mused.
Rodney sometimes went to the planetarium in the odd hours, when there was no one in it but a few fanatics or lonely souls, and he could pretend he was flying, maybe exploring outer space or something like it.
Rodney grinned at the observatory as he drove by it. By the time he tore his eyes away from it, the truck was already too close for him to avoid.
***
A plane soared above John's head, and he was not flying it.
John hated that.
The realtor showed him yet another place and John, utterly bored, looked out the window - and into the ass of another man.
Okay, so he had boxers on, and the man’s window was about ten feet from the apartment’s window but still - not exactly the view he’d been hoping for in his new apartment.
“That’s not there all the time,” said the realtor, lowering the blinds quickly. With bugging eyeballs and receding chin, she looked a bit like a bug, her expression etched with permanent fear, as if she was about to be crushed by a rolled up newspaper.
She was called Beatrice. John fought hard not to call her ‘Beetle’ every time he spoke to her.
John turned to the apartment, taking in the furnishing… if it could be called that. There were cushions on the floor which was probably the attempts of a couch; there was a… sandbox in the middle of the living room. Huh.
John shook his head and headed for the door.
The next place she showed him was big enough to have fitted a couple of Black Hawks inside, blades and all. It would’ve been nice if John’s purpose for the apartment would’ve been socializing with other people. He was out the door before he could say ‘no’.
The next one looked like a cross between Versailles and Buckingham palace, with a little bit of the playboy mansion thrown in. There were naked statues everywhere.
“Look, John,” said Beetle… Beatrice, as they left the last apartment. “I just don’t know what you’re looking for.”
“I asked for furnished,” said John, hands in his pockets. He hated doing this, but upon seeing the options, he would have to thank Teyla later for making him come.
The wind blew a flyer to his chest and he shook it off, sending it flying again.
“Those were furnished,” she said. Her voice sounded like she was getting upset but her eyes constantly made her look like she was on the verge of screaming in terror.
“I should’ve mentioned normal at some point,” he said, and a paper flew into his face. John grabbed it from his face and, fed up, read it:
SUBLET, AVAILABLE FOR RENT. Furn., 2+1, HrdwdFlrs, Frplc, W/D, A.C., C.H., GRT VU, Roof Access. (415) 820-…
John read the address, and turned around. There was a six storey building right across the apartment from hell, looking decent and normal, thankfully.
John handed the flyer to Beatrice and crossed the street, stopping for the cable car to pass and then going to the building. He could hear Beatrice talking behind him, but John had tuned her out.
The superintendent showed them the apartment, which was everything the flyer has said and a little bit more. There was a very nice looking couch and two armchairs, a huge TV, fireplace. There was an impressive view of San Francisco.
John wandered around as Beatrice talked to the owner - John could hear the words ‘month to month sublet’ and ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry’ which kind of clued him in why this baby was still unoccupied. There was a huge bedroom, a decent looking bathroom, and a door with stairs behind it.
Beatrice, being about as predictable as John had judged her to be an hour before, began telling him how she wasn’t surprised the place hadn’t been rented yet. It was a month to month sublet, due to some family matter they had been very hush-hush about. Her voice faded as John made the way up the staircase, the sunlight blinding him…
He came on to the roof of the building, expanse, empty. The Transamerica Pyramid and Telegraph hill were behind him, Bay Bridge in the distance, but clearly visible. John stopped where he was, taking the view.
“Jesus,” said Beatrice behind him, almost bumping into him. “Okay, now I get it.”
John walked around, got closed to the edge, looking down to the street as a cable car passed.
Beatrice was still talking. “Granted, they haven’t done much with the space,” John thought she was being generous. The place probably hadn’t been touched since it had been constructed. “But the potential!”
John turned around and said his first words in half an hour. “I’ll take it.”
***
John had to admit it: the place had looked bigger without Ronon in it.
Ronon walked about the apartment, looking it over as John waited sprawled on the seats under the semi-circle bay windows on a corner of the sitting room. He heard Ronon open the roof door, his feet stomping on the staircase as he went up. He could hear Ronon’s whistle from where he was.
“Have to admit, it’s got a view,” he said as he got back. “I think I can see my precinct from here.”
John nodded half heartedly. “Half the price is probably for the view. Not that I mind,” he said.
“And it’s a month to month sublet?” said Ronon.
John shrugged and got up, heading for the kitchen. “Yeah. Something about the owner’s personal situation, I don’t know. So, want to watch a movie? Knock back a few beers, order out, whatever?” he said, approaching the fridge. He turned when Ronon didn’t answer.
Ronon was just staring.
“What?” said John.
“John, you -” he stopped. He looked troubled - it was a strange look on Ronon. He wasn’t the kind to measure his words, especially after so many years working as a cop. If something was on Ronon’s mind he simply said it - John suspected he liked to watch the reactions he provoked in people.
“What?” John asked again.
Ronon leant on the kitchen counter. “I just don’t know how to say it anymore.”
John let out a breath and closed the fridge door. “Not again.”
“I’m sick of seeing you like this,” he said. “It’s been a year since… when are you going to start looking for a job or something?”
John opened the fridge again. “You’ve been spending too much time with Teyla,” he said.
Ronon looked at John a moment longer as John popped the beer open and didn’t avoid Ronon’s eyes. Ronon took off his SFPD badge and his gun and left them over the kitchen table. “You’re lucky I’m not on duty,” said Ronon as he went to the fridge and grabbed a beer, popping it open. “I still think you need to change all this.”
John nodded. “Yeah, I’m not going to do it tonight, at my first night in this place, so…”
Ronon nodded. “Movie,” he said as they moved to the couch. Ronon grabbed the remote control from John’s hands, ignoring the half-hearted ‘hey!’ from him. They watched the end of Empire Strikes Back and then started flipping through channels
Crap, crap, women’s channel, crap, news, cooking show, crap, - oh, movie.
John’s answer was almost immediate. “No,” he said.
Ronon sighed. “Are you ever going to start watching war movies again? I still watch Third Watch reruns, you know?”
John grinned; Ronon’s addiction to that show was one of the oddest things ever. “I know, it’s just… my mind starts overanalyzing what I did wrong, how -”
“You did nothing wrong,” said Ronon, voice stern yet somehow tired. “You tried to save Mitch. There was nothing wrong in that.”
John waved his beer at the TV. “Just - find something else.”
*
John stretched his neck. He looked at his watch - 2:03 am.
John was bored now that Ronon had left. The man wasn’t the chattiest person there ever existed, but he had a way to entertain John, bring him a bit out of his stupor. He felt a bit more drained now that Ronon was gone.
He should crash but he wasn’t sleepy. He was bored of the TV. He didn’t feel like logging to the internet. He poked around the apartment again, but the owner had evidently moved off any evidence of his existence - a few receipts left behind, a book or two.
John went back to the fridge, grabbed a Bud and popped it open on his way to the couch again. He drank and settled back on the couch, mindlessly watching the TV.
A voice rang behind him. “What are you doing here?”
John liked to believe he did not scream - however much his ears rang for it afterwards. He did squeeze his beer to the point of spilling half of it over the floor. “What the-!”
“Who are you and what are you doing here?”
John turned to find a man standing in the middle of the sitting room, halfway between the couch and the dining room. He was a symphony in black - black pants, black t-shirt, a black coat on him. He looked to be about John’s height and age, with thinning hair, a tiny bit pudgy around the middle but good looking in an odd sort of way.
“Wh-what?” said John.
The guy looked at him very directly, as if studying him. “For a crook you're not very eloquent.”
“Wh - I'm not a crook,” said John standing up, starting to be mildly pissed off that someone had sneaked up on him so perfectly.
The guy looked him up and down. “Okay, can articulate simple sentences, fine. Not a total loss. WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” he yelled.
John winced at the volume of the voice. “I'm confused not deaf, so STOP SCREAMING!”
“Good set of lungs,” nodded the guy.
John repressed a grin. “Thank you. Who the hell are you?”
“Oh, only the person who lives here. I’m calling the police,” he said, and started turning towards the kitchen.
“The per - okay, buddy, wait,” he said. The guy stopped. “You were scammed.”
“Excuse me?”
John leant on the back of the couch. Finally, he understood what was going on. “Rent scam. There's probably a dozen other people out there with the key to this place, I'd -”
The guy rolled his eyes. “You're an idiot, aren't you? An idiot crook.”
John sighed. So much for understanding. “I'm not a crook. And who uses the word crook, anyway?”
The guy actually looked affronted. “I do. Listen, I live here. These are my things.”
Whatever John had been about to say died in his mouth. “Your things?”
“I moved them in here,” he said. “And they were heavy,” he added. “That couch was a pain, I’m not moving that thing again.”
“I think you’re crazy,” said John.
The guy sighed and nodded once. “I’m calling the police.”
John followed the guy as he entered the kitchen and turned the corner towards the phone. “Wh - Hey, hey, no need to call... the police.”
The guy had gone.
John instinctively checked everywhere the guy might’ve hidden, to no avail. The kitchen door was closed and hadn’t opened, the fridge hadn’t opened. Inside the counters, behind furniture, inside the island’s cabinets… the guy was just gone, like… like a ghost or a hallucination or something.
“Ronon's never going to believe this,” said John to no one in particular.
*
John would’ve been entirely happy with the heavens and the earth and everything in between if that had been the last he’d seen of the strange apartment-renting-person.
John would’ve attributed what happened that night to the new apartment, to the alcohol, to being tired - anything at all would’ve been good.
Sadly, it was not the last time.
One day, John had just finished showering - he had exited the tub, had wrapped a towel around himself and was wiping the mirror clean of the condensation when a strong voice behind him called, “Get out!”
John glimpsed the guy in the mirror and turned to him, only to find an empty bathroom.
It happened again the next day, early in the morning. The sun was peeking through the blinds, right onto John’s face, making him squint and toss and turn in bed in an attempt to recover some of the night’s darkness.
He sighed when he saw it was inevitable, and opened his eyes.
A face was staring back at him. John jumped.
“Is your head always this ridiculous,” said the apartment-renting-person, leaning down on to stare right at John’s hair, “or is it some special ability you acquire early in the morning?”
John gave a wild kick in the guy’s general direction and put another pillow over his head.
“This is turning annoying,” the guy’s voice sounded muffled through the pillow but maddeningly clear.
John had to agree with him on that.
***
For the ninth anniversary of Teyla being alive, she invited John and Ronon for a drink at a coffee house near her apartment.
Teyla had gotten that habit ever since she’d been injured on duty while she had still been a cop. She had ended up pretty bad: shot to the stomach, one on her shoulder, broken leg. She’d been at the hospital for almost two months. John and Ronon had all but lived at the hospital during the time, not really knowing if Teyla was going to make it.
John had asked for personal time at the base, and he’d been lucky his CO at the time had had the makings of human being in his heart. When he’d learnt what had happened he’d given John the time he needed.
Ronon had never left the hospital, and for a week straight that had been absolutely true. John himself has asked for personal time for him at his precinct. John wasn’t very sure if that had even been legal but Ronon was evidently well-liked at the precinct because no one had even said a peep there.
The following year, with Teyla healed and that month and a half in the hospital a dark memory behind them, she checked John and Ronon’s schedules and called them to a café near the place where she’d been shot. It had become tradition since then, and now that John had moved to San Francisco, meeting was a lot easier.
The meetings became monthly once Teyla saw how John was doing - a year after being discharged from the military, no job, still thinking about Mitch.
This time Teyla had chosen a little café, the kind of place you found out only if you lived in the city. It was up on a hill, on a corner, and had a view of the bay and the city that had left John in momentary awe.
John waited till Ronon and Teyla were done telling the important stuff before he even mentioned his stuff.
“There’s someone in my apartment,” he said once Ronon was done telling the latest oddity he’d had to dealt with and had moved into the trivial area of ‘so, seen that movie last night?’
Teyla looked at him, confused by the statement. “Excuse me?”
“There’s someone in my apartment,” said John as he drank his coffee - he wasn’t brave enough to drink alcohol in front of Teyla. “He appeared the other night after Ronon left. And when I was showering, and today when I woke up.”
“Is he dangerous?” asked Teyla at the same time Ronon said, “Call 911.”
John shook his head. “No, you don’t understand. I - it’s impossible for him to get in. Or to be in there all day without me knowing. He just… appears.”
Ronon shrugged. “You said the apartment had roof access…”
John finished his coffee, the heat burning his tongue slightly. “The door to the roof has bolts and locks,” he said, “and I always lock it during the night.”
Teyla had forgotten her cappuccino in lieu of John’s story. “So how is he getting in?” she asked.
“Maybe he has a key,” said Ronon.
John shook his head. “I may be seeing... things,” he said rather reluctantly.
“You mean you’re hallucinating,” said Ronon, hiding a grin behind his mug.
John scratched his head. “Not in so many words, but…”
“Maybe you’re not hallucinating,” said Teyla gently.
“I like that theory,” said John as he signaled the waiter for another coffee.
“It may be a spirit, John.” John and Ronon looked at each other with a vaguely skeptic eye but knew better than to say anything. “Someone who died in that apartment, or in the building. It could just be someone who attached itself to you.”
John frowned. “I’m a spirit magnet?”
Ronon’s laugh got choked on his coffee. Teyla patted him on the back with more force than it was necessary.
“I am saying, you should look into every option.”
John sighed. Teyla’s solutions always had a way to end up with him doing heavy thinking.
***
Every once in a while, John cleaned.
It usually happened when he arrived at his apartment from a day that had actually gone quite decent. He would arrive home, or whatever passed for it at the moment, he’d take a look around and cringe at the state of the place.
He’d bring out the trashcans, rags, he’d place cookies in tight sealed jars and clean out the fridge of everything that had expired during the previous president’s office. Sometimes he’d even mop. Not that he ever confessed the fact to anyone.
John was living comfortably off the money he’d saved during his years at the military, which had done little else but keep piling up on his bank account. Sadly, he wasn’t as well off as to have a maid hired weekly, so he cleaned.
When he started cleaning after getting home from meeting with Teyla and Ronon, it was in no way connected with the odd man that had appeared at his apartment the previous days claiming to be the actual tenant. It was just something that happened.
John was exactly in the middle of trying to get a coffee ring out of a mahogany table when a familiar voice sounded behind him.
“Finally!”
John turned to find the guy standing, yet again, with his arms crossed, right behind the sofa, looking down at John as if he was his mother during the middle of a scolding.
“Do you have any idea how much that cost?”
John threw the rag he had in his hand over a shoulder, not caring where it fell (the guy did follow it his eyes, though). “We were off on a bad start,” said John with his best voice of ‘you’re slightly stupid so I need to enunciate clearly’.
The guy frowned. “Okay….”
“My name’s John Sheppard. I like Ferris Wheels, college football and anything that goes more than 200 miles an hour. And you are…”
He stretched a hand to the guy in the universal sign of ‘it’s your turn now’.
The guy looked at John with his brow furrowed, as if John had asked a very difficult question he was not quite up to.
His eyes darted right. “I’m Rodney,” he said, eyes back on John. “Rodney.”
John frowned and looked in the direction Rodney had looked. There was a mug, forgotten there by John three or four days ago. There was some sort of printing on the side, of the image of a child’s handwriting that said ‘FOR MY UNCLE M. RODNEY’.
“I meant your real name!” said John.
Rodney had the sense to look a bit sheepish. “Hey, I live here, then that’s my mug. It’s safe to say that’s my name.”
John leant on the wall behind him. “You don’t live here. I do. And you need to get out.”
Rodney rolled his eyes. “Okay, look. Whatever mind games you are playing with me,” said Rodney, slowly walking forward as John lowered his eyes, “they will not work. I’ll have you know you’re talking with one of the most prodigious minds in the world, you’re talking with a genius and -”
“Rodney?” John was still looking down at something.
“What?”
“A) I’m not playing mind games and B)” he looked up at Rodney’s face. “You might want to look at your hip.”
“What’s with my -”
Rodney’s words died in his mouth as he looked down. His left hip looked like a physical impossibility. It looked like it was fused with the corner of the couch, as if they were both in the exact same place. Like Rodney was walking right through the couch.
John’s training had definitely not prepared him for this.
Rodney jumped out of the spot, looking at the couch as if it had burned him. “What did you do to me?”
John stepped away from the couch, too. Just in case. “Me? You’re the one walking through stuff!”
John stretched a hand to poke Rodney in the shoulder. His hand went right through him.
Rodney took a step back, eyes about as wide as the human eye could go. “Are you trying to feel me up?”
John tried not to chuckle. He didn’t succeed. “What are you, a bimbo from the 50’s?”
“You touched me,” said Rodney, crossing his arms in front of him in one of the most obvious defensive positions.
“I tried. And it was on your shoulder.” John took a step forward.
Rodney took a step back. “You tried to feel me up.”
“Yes, shoulders are my definite turn on. Rodney -” another step forward, another step backward, “I think you’re dead.”
Rodney looked as affronted as if John had just called him an idiot. “I’m not dead!”
“You can walk through stuff,” said John as Rodney obliviously walked through a chair.
“That doesn’t mean I’m dead,” he said, watching himself before he walked through the kitchen island. “Have you found a body? A large pool of blood? A severed head?”
Gross. John tried not to picture it his mind. “It doesn’t mean you have to be dead here.”
“I am not dead!” he said, crossing his arms as he finally stopped walking backwards. His chin went up. “And I am not leaving.”
***
On to Part 2
Author: moodymuse19
Rating: PG-13
Summary: After John Sheppard settles in his new apartment, the last thing he expected - or wanted - was a roommate. When Rodney appears claiming the place is his, he assumes there's been a misunderstanding... until Rodney disappears just as mysteriously as he had appeared.
Author’s notes: AU based on the movie ‘Just Like Heaven’. I totally stole borrowed the summary off the back of the DVD. Ahem.
I don’t live in San Francisco, so any mistakes are completely… um, on purpose. Call it poetic license.
+++
This is how Rodney’s office could be described: elegant, functional, practical. Apparently, it was modern, too - a magazine had asked to photograph it once. They had even brought a half naked person in tow that had looked like she had been extracted out of a Barbie box rather than out of reality.
It could not be said, though, that the office resembled its owner. Cadman might have argued the point that Rodney didn't feel comfortable in his own office because the man himself wasn't elegant, modern or functional. Rodney usually ignored her and sent her off to work.
The fact was that when Rodney's dot com business had moved to the building, Rodney had taken a look, found the biggest office of all, and had taken it as his. Unkempt as it had been, he had snapped his fingers at a random minion to have it furnished and... well, said minion had taken liberties. The minion had hired a decorator and all.
It probably was a good thing Rodney didn't remember what minion he had snapped his fingers at.
Rodney clicked his laptop mouse and stood up, going to the printer set in a separate desk and dancing a bit on the spot as the papers rolled away lazily from the printer. Rodney collected them with the eagerness of a kid unwrapping presents, inserting them in a folder as soon as they were free of the printer’s rolls.
He left his office, dropped the two top sheets over the desk outside his office and placed on his face the most scorn he could muster - stupid new people who lost important legal documents. Seriously, how difficult was it to mail an envelope? The past days Rodney had been vaguely entertaining the idea of making Cadman his assistant, and the latest incident only proved how right he was. Cadman was annoying and nosy but she worked rather well, at least.
He dropped half the folder over Cadman’s empty desk and started making his way to the lab upstairs when his phone rang, making his pocket vibrate annoyingly.
"What?" he said, not really caring who was on the other side of the line.
"Hi, Mer," came Jeannie's voice, overly maudlin and entirely planned.
Rodney winced for a second and then schooled his voice to sound busy. “Oh, hi. Listen, I'm -”
Before he could even finish there was a tiny voice on the phone, as loud as only a child could be. "HI UNCLE RODNEY YOU ARE COMING RIGHT?"
Well, if that wasn't blackmail, then Rodney needed to buy a dictionary.
Jeannie got back on the phone. "Well, are you?"
Rodney doubled back and entered Cadman’s empty office, closing the door behind him. "That was low."
“That's how I have to play with you,” she said, the smile evident in her voice. “Madison actually does want to see you. It's a weekend, Mer. One lousy weekend.”
“Alright, alright, I must be insane to be accepting this.”
“Great! Now, if you're going to catch the 6:00 flight and be here for dinner, you need to get out now and go pack because god knows you didn't pack,” she said, with probably she same tone of voice she used when Madison made a mess.
Rodney did not appreciate the comparison his mind threw at him.
“Hey, I might've packed,” he said, even though no one in the world would believe him, less of all his sister.
“You hate packing. You leave it till the last minute. 6:00 flight, Mer. Leave now.”
“Okay, our mother died a decade ago,” he said, even as he made his way back and dumped the rest of the folder to the idiot outside his office. “Nobody called you in to replace her.”
“Normally I'd hung up on you for that but if I do, you'll never get here. Meredith -”
The first name. Normally he could get around when she just called him ‘Mer’ but the full first name gave him shivers. “Fine, fine. Jesus, the poor fate of my niece being near you all the time.”
The grin was back in her voice. “She seems to enjoy it.”
“She's four,” he said, multitasking as he powered down his laptop, disconnected the printer and locked the drawers in his desk, “she doesn’t enjoy reading or numbers, which shows how little -”
“Mer!” she warned.
“Leaving, fine,” he said as he went to his coat hanger.
“Good. I'll call you in thirty minutes, and I better hear a car engine in the background.”
Rodney rolled his eyes and waited till she said goodbye to hang up - he had done it once before she’d been over, and he had no desire to repeat that incident.
San Francisco was wet that night. Rodney couldn’t really tell if it was because of the fog rolling in from the bay or because it had rained at some point in the day. He tended to miss trivial things like that while working. The fog theory seemed to be the winning one, though as more rolled from the bay, making the tourists flock towards the bay and snap their cameras. Rodney suddenly sorely wished he’d have taken a cab or a cable car or something.
Jeannie called when he was halfway home - he hadn’t looked at his watch but he’d have bet anything she had called thirty minutes to the dot. He stuck his phone out the window for a few seconds, the sound of passing cars loud enough to convince anyone he really was on his way home.
Seeing a traffic jam in his usual way home, he turned right and took an alternative route, the one that passed by the college observatory.
Rodney watched it slowly approach him as he drove down the street - the planetarium dome on one side, the telescope dome on the other side. He’d been there only a few times since he’d moved to San Francisco; as a visitor his favorite was on the other side of the bay. This one was nice enough, good enough for Radek to work there, Rodney mused.
Rodney sometimes went to the planetarium in the odd hours, when there was no one in it but a few fanatics or lonely souls, and he could pretend he was flying, maybe exploring outer space or something like it.
Rodney grinned at the observatory as he drove by it. By the time he tore his eyes away from it, the truck was already too close for him to avoid.
***
A plane soared above John's head, and he was not flying it.
John hated that.
The realtor showed him yet another place and John, utterly bored, looked out the window - and into the ass of another man.
Okay, so he had boxers on, and the man’s window was about ten feet from the apartment’s window but still - not exactly the view he’d been hoping for in his new apartment.
“That’s not there all the time,” said the realtor, lowering the blinds quickly. With bugging eyeballs and receding chin, she looked a bit like a bug, her expression etched with permanent fear, as if she was about to be crushed by a rolled up newspaper.
She was called Beatrice. John fought hard not to call her ‘Beetle’ every time he spoke to her.
John turned to the apartment, taking in the furnishing… if it could be called that. There were cushions on the floor which was probably the attempts of a couch; there was a… sandbox in the middle of the living room. Huh.
John shook his head and headed for the door.
The next place she showed him was big enough to have fitted a couple of Black Hawks inside, blades and all. It would’ve been nice if John’s purpose for the apartment would’ve been socializing with other people. He was out the door before he could say ‘no’.
The next one looked like a cross between Versailles and Buckingham palace, with a little bit of the playboy mansion thrown in. There were naked statues everywhere.
“Look, John,” said Beetle… Beatrice, as they left the last apartment. “I just don’t know what you’re looking for.”
“I asked for furnished,” said John, hands in his pockets. He hated doing this, but upon seeing the options, he would have to thank Teyla later for making him come.
The wind blew a flyer to his chest and he shook it off, sending it flying again.
“Those were furnished,” she said. Her voice sounded like she was getting upset but her eyes constantly made her look like she was on the verge of screaming in terror.
“I should’ve mentioned normal at some point,” he said, and a paper flew into his face. John grabbed it from his face and, fed up, read it:
SUBLET, AVAILABLE FOR RENT. Furn., 2+1, HrdwdFlrs, Frplc, W/D, A.C., C.H., GRT VU, Roof Access. (415) 820-…
John read the address, and turned around. There was a six storey building right across the apartment from hell, looking decent and normal, thankfully.
John handed the flyer to Beatrice and crossed the street, stopping for the cable car to pass and then going to the building. He could hear Beatrice talking behind him, but John had tuned her out.
The superintendent showed them the apartment, which was everything the flyer has said and a little bit more. There was a very nice looking couch and two armchairs, a huge TV, fireplace. There was an impressive view of San Francisco.
John wandered around as Beatrice talked to the owner - John could hear the words ‘month to month sublet’ and ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry’ which kind of clued him in why this baby was still unoccupied. There was a huge bedroom, a decent looking bathroom, and a door with stairs behind it.
Beatrice, being about as predictable as John had judged her to be an hour before, began telling him how she wasn’t surprised the place hadn’t been rented yet. It was a month to month sublet, due to some family matter they had been very hush-hush about. Her voice faded as John made the way up the staircase, the sunlight blinding him…
He came on to the roof of the building, expanse, empty. The Transamerica Pyramid and Telegraph hill were behind him, Bay Bridge in the distance, but clearly visible. John stopped where he was, taking the view.
“Jesus,” said Beatrice behind him, almost bumping into him. “Okay, now I get it.”
John walked around, got closed to the edge, looking down to the street as a cable car passed.
Beatrice was still talking. “Granted, they haven’t done much with the space,” John thought she was being generous. The place probably hadn’t been touched since it had been constructed. “But the potential!”
John turned around and said his first words in half an hour. “I’ll take it.”
***
John had to admit it: the place had looked bigger without Ronon in it.
Ronon walked about the apartment, looking it over as John waited sprawled on the seats under the semi-circle bay windows on a corner of the sitting room. He heard Ronon open the roof door, his feet stomping on the staircase as he went up. He could hear Ronon’s whistle from where he was.
“Have to admit, it’s got a view,” he said as he got back. “I think I can see my precinct from here.”
John nodded half heartedly. “Half the price is probably for the view. Not that I mind,” he said.
“And it’s a month to month sublet?” said Ronon.
John shrugged and got up, heading for the kitchen. “Yeah. Something about the owner’s personal situation, I don’t know. So, want to watch a movie? Knock back a few beers, order out, whatever?” he said, approaching the fridge. He turned when Ronon didn’t answer.
Ronon was just staring.
“What?” said John.
“John, you -” he stopped. He looked troubled - it was a strange look on Ronon. He wasn’t the kind to measure his words, especially after so many years working as a cop. If something was on Ronon’s mind he simply said it - John suspected he liked to watch the reactions he provoked in people.
“What?” John asked again.
Ronon leant on the kitchen counter. “I just don’t know how to say it anymore.”
John let out a breath and closed the fridge door. “Not again.”
“I’m sick of seeing you like this,” he said. “It’s been a year since… when are you going to start looking for a job or something?”
John opened the fridge again. “You’ve been spending too much time with Teyla,” he said.
Ronon looked at John a moment longer as John popped the beer open and didn’t avoid Ronon’s eyes. Ronon took off his SFPD badge and his gun and left them over the kitchen table. “You’re lucky I’m not on duty,” said Ronon as he went to the fridge and grabbed a beer, popping it open. “I still think you need to change all this.”
John nodded. “Yeah, I’m not going to do it tonight, at my first night in this place, so…”
Ronon nodded. “Movie,” he said as they moved to the couch. Ronon grabbed the remote control from John’s hands, ignoring the half-hearted ‘hey!’ from him. They watched the end of Empire Strikes Back and then started flipping through channels
Crap, crap, women’s channel, crap, news, cooking show, crap, - oh, movie.
John’s answer was almost immediate. “No,” he said.
Ronon sighed. “Are you ever going to start watching war movies again? I still watch Third Watch reruns, you know?”
John grinned; Ronon’s addiction to that show was one of the oddest things ever. “I know, it’s just… my mind starts overanalyzing what I did wrong, how -”
“You did nothing wrong,” said Ronon, voice stern yet somehow tired. “You tried to save Mitch. There was nothing wrong in that.”
John waved his beer at the TV. “Just - find something else.”
*
John stretched his neck. He looked at his watch - 2:03 am.
John was bored now that Ronon had left. The man wasn’t the chattiest person there ever existed, but he had a way to entertain John, bring him a bit out of his stupor. He felt a bit more drained now that Ronon was gone.
He should crash but he wasn’t sleepy. He was bored of the TV. He didn’t feel like logging to the internet. He poked around the apartment again, but the owner had evidently moved off any evidence of his existence - a few receipts left behind, a book or two.
John went back to the fridge, grabbed a Bud and popped it open on his way to the couch again. He drank and settled back on the couch, mindlessly watching the TV.
A voice rang behind him. “What are you doing here?”
John liked to believe he did not scream - however much his ears rang for it afterwards. He did squeeze his beer to the point of spilling half of it over the floor. “What the-!”
“Who are you and what are you doing here?”
John turned to find a man standing in the middle of the sitting room, halfway between the couch and the dining room. He was a symphony in black - black pants, black t-shirt, a black coat on him. He looked to be about John’s height and age, with thinning hair, a tiny bit pudgy around the middle but good looking in an odd sort of way.
“Wh-what?” said John.
The guy looked at him very directly, as if studying him. “For a crook you're not very eloquent.”
“Wh - I'm not a crook,” said John standing up, starting to be mildly pissed off that someone had sneaked up on him so perfectly.
The guy looked him up and down. “Okay, can articulate simple sentences, fine. Not a total loss. WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” he yelled.
John winced at the volume of the voice. “I'm confused not deaf, so STOP SCREAMING!”
“Good set of lungs,” nodded the guy.
John repressed a grin. “Thank you. Who the hell are you?”
“Oh, only the person who lives here. I’m calling the police,” he said, and started turning towards the kitchen.
“The per - okay, buddy, wait,” he said. The guy stopped. “You were scammed.”
“Excuse me?”
John leant on the back of the couch. Finally, he understood what was going on. “Rent scam. There's probably a dozen other people out there with the key to this place, I'd -”
The guy rolled his eyes. “You're an idiot, aren't you? An idiot crook.”
John sighed. So much for understanding. “I'm not a crook. And who uses the word crook, anyway?”
The guy actually looked affronted. “I do. Listen, I live here. These are my things.”
Whatever John had been about to say died in his mouth. “Your things?”
“I moved them in here,” he said. “And they were heavy,” he added. “That couch was a pain, I’m not moving that thing again.”
“I think you’re crazy,” said John.
The guy sighed and nodded once. “I’m calling the police.”
John followed the guy as he entered the kitchen and turned the corner towards the phone. “Wh - Hey, hey, no need to call... the police.”
The guy had gone.
John instinctively checked everywhere the guy might’ve hidden, to no avail. The kitchen door was closed and hadn’t opened, the fridge hadn’t opened. Inside the counters, behind furniture, inside the island’s cabinets… the guy was just gone, like… like a ghost or a hallucination or something.
“Ronon's never going to believe this,” said John to no one in particular.
*
John would’ve been entirely happy with the heavens and the earth and everything in between if that had been the last he’d seen of the strange apartment-renting-person.
John would’ve attributed what happened that night to the new apartment, to the alcohol, to being tired - anything at all would’ve been good.
Sadly, it was not the last time.
One day, John had just finished showering - he had exited the tub, had wrapped a towel around himself and was wiping the mirror clean of the condensation when a strong voice behind him called, “Get out!”
John glimpsed the guy in the mirror and turned to him, only to find an empty bathroom.
It happened again the next day, early in the morning. The sun was peeking through the blinds, right onto John’s face, making him squint and toss and turn in bed in an attempt to recover some of the night’s darkness.
He sighed when he saw it was inevitable, and opened his eyes.
A face was staring back at him. John jumped.
“Is your head always this ridiculous,” said the apartment-renting-person, leaning down on to stare right at John’s hair, “or is it some special ability you acquire early in the morning?”
John gave a wild kick in the guy’s general direction and put another pillow over his head.
“This is turning annoying,” the guy’s voice sounded muffled through the pillow but maddeningly clear.
John had to agree with him on that.
***
For the ninth anniversary of Teyla being alive, she invited John and Ronon for a drink at a coffee house near her apartment.
Teyla had gotten that habit ever since she’d been injured on duty while she had still been a cop. She had ended up pretty bad: shot to the stomach, one on her shoulder, broken leg. She’d been at the hospital for almost two months. John and Ronon had all but lived at the hospital during the time, not really knowing if Teyla was going to make it.
John had asked for personal time at the base, and he’d been lucky his CO at the time had had the makings of human being in his heart. When he’d learnt what had happened he’d given John the time he needed.
Ronon had never left the hospital, and for a week straight that had been absolutely true. John himself has asked for personal time for him at his precinct. John wasn’t very sure if that had even been legal but Ronon was evidently well-liked at the precinct because no one had even said a peep there.
The following year, with Teyla healed and that month and a half in the hospital a dark memory behind them, she checked John and Ronon’s schedules and called them to a café near the place where she’d been shot. It had become tradition since then, and now that John had moved to San Francisco, meeting was a lot easier.
The meetings became monthly once Teyla saw how John was doing - a year after being discharged from the military, no job, still thinking about Mitch.
This time Teyla had chosen a little café, the kind of place you found out only if you lived in the city. It was up on a hill, on a corner, and had a view of the bay and the city that had left John in momentary awe.
John waited till Ronon and Teyla were done telling the important stuff before he even mentioned his stuff.
“There’s someone in my apartment,” he said once Ronon was done telling the latest oddity he’d had to dealt with and had moved into the trivial area of ‘so, seen that movie last night?’
Teyla looked at him, confused by the statement. “Excuse me?”
“There’s someone in my apartment,” said John as he drank his coffee - he wasn’t brave enough to drink alcohol in front of Teyla. “He appeared the other night after Ronon left. And when I was showering, and today when I woke up.”
“Is he dangerous?” asked Teyla at the same time Ronon said, “Call 911.”
John shook his head. “No, you don’t understand. I - it’s impossible for him to get in. Or to be in there all day without me knowing. He just… appears.”
Ronon shrugged. “You said the apartment had roof access…”
John finished his coffee, the heat burning his tongue slightly. “The door to the roof has bolts and locks,” he said, “and I always lock it during the night.”
Teyla had forgotten her cappuccino in lieu of John’s story. “So how is he getting in?” she asked.
“Maybe he has a key,” said Ronon.
John shook his head. “I may be seeing... things,” he said rather reluctantly.
“You mean you’re hallucinating,” said Ronon, hiding a grin behind his mug.
John scratched his head. “Not in so many words, but…”
“Maybe you’re not hallucinating,” said Teyla gently.
“I like that theory,” said John as he signaled the waiter for another coffee.
“It may be a spirit, John.” John and Ronon looked at each other with a vaguely skeptic eye but knew better than to say anything. “Someone who died in that apartment, or in the building. It could just be someone who attached itself to you.”
John frowned. “I’m a spirit magnet?”
Ronon’s laugh got choked on his coffee. Teyla patted him on the back with more force than it was necessary.
“I am saying, you should look into every option.”
John sighed. Teyla’s solutions always had a way to end up with him doing heavy thinking.
***
Every once in a while, John cleaned.
It usually happened when he arrived at his apartment from a day that had actually gone quite decent. He would arrive home, or whatever passed for it at the moment, he’d take a look around and cringe at the state of the place.
He’d bring out the trashcans, rags, he’d place cookies in tight sealed jars and clean out the fridge of everything that had expired during the previous president’s office. Sometimes he’d even mop. Not that he ever confessed the fact to anyone.
John was living comfortably off the money he’d saved during his years at the military, which had done little else but keep piling up on his bank account. Sadly, he wasn’t as well off as to have a maid hired weekly, so he cleaned.
When he started cleaning after getting home from meeting with Teyla and Ronon, it was in no way connected with the odd man that had appeared at his apartment the previous days claiming to be the actual tenant. It was just something that happened.
John was exactly in the middle of trying to get a coffee ring out of a mahogany table when a familiar voice sounded behind him.
“Finally!”
John turned to find the guy standing, yet again, with his arms crossed, right behind the sofa, looking down at John as if he was his mother during the middle of a scolding.
“Do you have any idea how much that cost?”
John threw the rag he had in his hand over a shoulder, not caring where it fell (the guy did follow it his eyes, though). “We were off on a bad start,” said John with his best voice of ‘you’re slightly stupid so I need to enunciate clearly’.
The guy frowned. “Okay….”
“My name’s John Sheppard. I like Ferris Wheels, college football and anything that goes more than 200 miles an hour. And you are…”
He stretched a hand to the guy in the universal sign of ‘it’s your turn now’.
The guy looked at John with his brow furrowed, as if John had asked a very difficult question he was not quite up to.
His eyes darted right. “I’m Rodney,” he said, eyes back on John. “Rodney.”
John frowned and looked in the direction Rodney had looked. There was a mug, forgotten there by John three or four days ago. There was some sort of printing on the side, of the image of a child’s handwriting that said ‘FOR MY UNCLE M. RODNEY’.
“I meant your real name!” said John.
Rodney had the sense to look a bit sheepish. “Hey, I live here, then that’s my mug. It’s safe to say that’s my name.”
John leant on the wall behind him. “You don’t live here. I do. And you need to get out.”
Rodney rolled his eyes. “Okay, look. Whatever mind games you are playing with me,” said Rodney, slowly walking forward as John lowered his eyes, “they will not work. I’ll have you know you’re talking with one of the most prodigious minds in the world, you’re talking with a genius and -”
“Rodney?” John was still looking down at something.
“What?”
“A) I’m not playing mind games and B)” he looked up at Rodney’s face. “You might want to look at your hip.”
“What’s with my -”
Rodney’s words died in his mouth as he looked down. His left hip looked like a physical impossibility. It looked like it was fused with the corner of the couch, as if they were both in the exact same place. Like Rodney was walking right through the couch.
John’s training had definitely not prepared him for this.
Rodney jumped out of the spot, looking at the couch as if it had burned him. “What did you do to me?”
John stepped away from the couch, too. Just in case. “Me? You’re the one walking through stuff!”
John stretched a hand to poke Rodney in the shoulder. His hand went right through him.
Rodney took a step back, eyes about as wide as the human eye could go. “Are you trying to feel me up?”
John tried not to chuckle. He didn’t succeed. “What are you, a bimbo from the 50’s?”
“You touched me,” said Rodney, crossing his arms in front of him in one of the most obvious defensive positions.
“I tried. And it was on your shoulder.” John took a step forward.
Rodney took a step back. “You tried to feel me up.”
“Yes, shoulders are my definite turn on. Rodney -” another step forward, another step backward, “I think you’re dead.”
Rodney looked as affronted as if John had just called him an idiot. “I’m not dead!”
“You can walk through stuff,” said John as Rodney obliviously walked through a chair.
“That doesn’t mean I’m dead,” he said, watching himself before he walked through the kitchen island. “Have you found a body? A large pool of blood? A severed head?”
Gross. John tried not to picture it his mind. “It doesn’t mean you have to be dead here.”
“I am not dead!” he said, crossing his arms as he finally stopped walking backwards. His chin went up. “And I am not leaving.”
***
On to Part 2