Hard Eight by liketheriver (5.15 Remnants)
Title: Hard Eight
Pairing: None (gen)
Characters: Team plus Woolsey
Rating: T.
Word count: ~7,600
Warning: None
Spoilers: Anything upto and including Remnants.
Author Notes: kodiak_bear wanted a fix it fic, so this is what I came up with for her (because I had the same problems with the ep she did.) Thanks to Koschka for the quick beta.
Summary: John's team tries to get him to open up about what happened on the Mainland.
Hard Eight
by liketheriver
Life was a crap shoot. John Sheppard knew that better than anyone because he’d learned it the hard way. Sometimes you were up, had the house in your back pocket and owned the field. Other times you were down, shooting nothing but craps when all your money sat on the pass line. Those were the times you had two choices, cut your losses and walk away, or stay in and go for the big pay of a hard eight. And there had been plenty of times during the day that John had been tempted to walk away but hadn’t. He’d let his money ride and waited for those double fours to show.
That was how John found himself waiting for nightfall. For some reason, he’d gotten it into his head that if he could just make it to dark then everything would be fine, the dice would finally tumble to his advantage, and the nightmare would finally end. He’d come to that conclusion about the same time he’d stormed past the two biologists who had spent most of the day studying pretty little flowers while Sheppard’s psyche had apparently been intent on torturing himself to death. And it was either start making deals with himself or throttle the two where they stood before he curled into a fetal ball in the corner of the Jumper. So he settled for telling them to shut up and promising himself that when it was nighttime this day would officially be over and everything would be fine.
Just fucking fine.
And he had actually managed to make it through most of the rest of the day without having to think directly about the whole ordeal on the Mainland. McKay had been all excited about the whole alien device he’d discovered that had been communicating with Woolsey through some sort of artificial intelligence projection that only the expedition leader could see, and John had managed to burst his bubble with a terse, "Yeah, I know. It talked to me, too."
Rodney had skimmed over exactly how the device had communicated with Sheppard, seemingly assuming it was along the same lines as how it had with Woolsey, which just seemed to piss Rodney off even more than having his surprise ruined. Then McKay became so engrossed in preparing the contraption for transport that he didn’t bring it up again. Fortunately, Rodney couldn’t see the Vanessa version of the AI so he missed her apology.
Apology. Christ, what a joke. Like a simple ‘I’m sorry’ was supposed to make up for what John had been through that day. But the sun was still up and would be for a few more hours, and if he could just make it a little while longer it would all be behind him and he’d never have to think about this whole shitty day again.
Whereas Rodney hadn’t heard the apology, Woolsey, unfortunately had, and just as regrettably, he wasn’t content to let it pass.
"Colonel Sheppard, a word, please, if you will."
Sheppard stopped, closed his eyes and said a silent prayer for this to be about something, anything else than what happened on the Mainland. Turning around, he forced a pleasant expression. "Mr. Woolsey, what I can do for you?"
"I just wanted to see how you were doing. After what Vanessa…" Woolsey paused and shook his head with an abashed smile. "It’s funny that even when I know she wasn’t real, she still seems real to me. That’s rather pathetic isn’t it?"
Sheppard shook his head and admitted quietly, "No, it’s not."
Kolya had smelled of wet wool when he’d been close to John, just like he had that day he tried to invade Atlantis, and his breath had reeked of the bitter coffee-like substance the Genii drank with their morning meals. The man had been as real as he’d ever been the other times Sheppard had run across him.
Woolsey’s smile had vanished to be replaced by a slightly pained expression. "That’s what I wanted to discuss with you, Colonel. I would have swore that the AI that I interacted with was flesh and blood. I can only imagine what it would have been like if she had been… violent?"
John shifted and crossed his arms. "No offense, but I don’t think you can."
"Yes, well, if you would like to talk about what happened…"
Realizing he wasn’t going to get away from the man without throwing him some sort of bone, Sheppard rubbed at his forehead. "Look, they thought I would be a threat to their mission so they decided to create a diversion to keep me away from Atlantis."
"What sort of diversion?" Woolsey pried further.
"An adversarial force that… pursued me through the woods," John evaded.
"This adversarial force your mind created, did they catch you?"
John frowned at the question, at the implications of what Woolsey was getting at. "What?"
"Did they capture you?"
Sheppard’s chest tightened and it took him a second to remember his hands weren’t still bound behind his back because it felt like he’d walked into another trap. Because Woolsey knew, he fucking knew that what they saw and experienced were their own creations. And that brought up the question John had been avoiding since he realized Kolya wasn’t real. What the hell did it say about him that he had imagined what he had?
"Yeah," John admitted slowly. "They did."
Woolsey seemed to be forcing himself to maintain eye contact with Sheppard. "I see."
"You know, it really has been a long day and I just kind of want to hit the hay." Not waiting for an okay, John started down the hall.
"Colonel Sheppard…" Woolsey called behind him.
John stopped but didn’t turn around, wincing when Woolsey continued and tried to be even more sympathetic.
"…John. If you want to talk about it, and I think it would be therapeutic if you did, you know where to find me."
Therapeutic was awfully damn close to therapy and therapy meant a visit to the shrink and that was the absolute last thing John wanted. But when Woolsey appeared to let the topic drop with his offer, Sheppard took that as his cue to leave, not even acknowledging that he had heard Woolsey, and headed straight to his quarters.
* * * *
It ended up nightfall didn’t make it any better; in fact, it made it worse if that was even possible. After two hours of laying on his bed staring up at the ceiling because every time he closed his eyes he saw Kolya’s gloating face staring at him, John finally got up. Dressing again, Sheppard headed out into the city, not really sure where he was going. The halls were pretty much empty of people except for the occasional scientist wandering back from the lab or a patrol of marines on night watch. John had resisted the urge to double the guards that night. He knew the Genii weren’t coming, he knew they hadn’t been real, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that if he fucked up and let them in the city again, he wouldn’t be able to get them out this time.
He tried to justify it as nearly losing the city to Michael a few weeks earlier. Things like that put him on edge and the number of times he’d been faced with choosing his life or the city’s was getting absolutely ridiculous. Hell, McKay had even made a point of rubbing his face in the fact. He’d also insisted on saying goodbye… again. Funny, John had absolutely refused to let McKay sacrifice himself to save Jeannie and yet he had done something similar for every member of his team at least once before. He absolutely refused to give up and say goodbye to Rodney when he’d been infected with the parasite and yet had been willing to shake hands and say goodbye when he was going to crash a Jumper into Michael’s craft to take it out. He absolutely refused to accept the fact that McKay could die, because that thought made things shut down and the walls go up in his brain. He’d felt the same way when Michael had Teyla and the Wraith took Ronon. He’d failed with Holland, he’d failed with Ford, he’d failed with Elizabeth, and the thought of one more failure was more than he could stand. That was one of the main reasons he’d refused to give Kolya the IDC when he’d demanded it on the Mainland, because he knew Rodney was in the city… and Teyla and Ronon and everyone else who was working late in the labs or sleeping soundly in their beds at that very moment. The loss of his hand was nothing in comparison to the loss of all those people and he’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Only he hadn’t done it at all.
He’d created the whole damn thing in his mind and beat the crap out of himself physically in a way he’d never been able to do for all those failures in the past. Even without the bruises visible any more, he’d still felt every single one, had still tasted blood in his mouth, had still felt the blade as it…
It hadn’t been real. It hadn’t been real. It hadn’t been real. The hand he had pressed to the wall to steady himself was proof positive of that.
"You know, the fact that you didn’t get to collect all the samples you wanted of a goddamn begonia is at the very bottom of my list of things I give a shit about."
It was then that he realized where he was standing. Out of habit, his legs had carried him to Rodney’s lab. Peeking around the corner and into the door, John could see McKay with the two astrobiologists who had been on the Mainland today.
"At least let us know when we’ll able to go back," Dr. Parrish demanded as Dr. Kiang stood with her arms crossed in defiant support behind him.
McKay sighed in exaggerated exhaustion of the discussion and rolled his eyes skyward. "When you find a pilot willing to take you back, you’re more than welcome to go."
Kiang nodded to Parrish. "I’ll speak with Colonel Sheppard and see…"
"Oh, absolutely not," Rodney told them with an adamant shake of his head. "You two are not allowed within fifty meters of Sheppard. In fact, if I had a way to ban you from being in the city with him I would."
"But he was the one who just left us…"
McKay turned around from his laptop then and jabbed a finger in Parrish’s chest. "If you have any sense of self-preservation, you will stop talking. Now."
Parrish listened, however, Kiang tried again. "But…"
"How long was he missing?" Rodney demanded. Parrish started to answer and McKay raised a finger in warning. "Self-preservation isn’t your strong suit is it?" When Parrish closed his mouth, McKay turned back to Kiang with an impatiently questioning expression.
She blinked and stammered, "I… I’m not sure." Her eyes flicked between Rodney and Parrish and back again. "Two, maybe three hours."
"Three hours and it never dawned on you to go look for him?"
"We had no idea he was being influenced by an alien entity…"
Once again, Rodney cut her off. "It didn’t have to be an alien entity. He could have fallen down a goddamn hole, a tree could have collapsed on him, he could have been eaten by one of those stupid pythons the size of my leg and you would have just sat there and let him be slowly digested while you argued the genus of a fucking perennial."
"Well, technically, it’s a…" Parrish cut in.
McKay glared daggers. "Parrish, I swear to God, if you say another word I will start digging in this drawer. I may come out with a dictionary; I may come out with my sidearm. Either way, you will definitely learn the meaning of self-preservation."
Kiang tried to justify why they had stayed with the Jumper. "Protocol in this sort of situation states that science staff are to remain…"
"Fuck protocol," Rodney snapped. "And fuck both of you for putting procedure before a team member’s life."
"Colonel Sheppard isn’t on our teams," Kiang pointed out angrily at McKay’s outburst.
"No, he’s on mine, which is all the more reason for me to send your asses back to Earth if you ever do anything to put his life at risk again."
John wasn’t sure if he wanted to go in there and set Rodney straight about how the scientist had followed the rules as Sheppard had established them and wanting to stand behind McKay to glower dangerously at the two biologists to emphasis his point. Because one of the main reasons he’d been so pissed at Parrish and Kiang when he found them by the Jumper was that if John had simply seen those two, he would have known something wasn’t right with Kolya.
Kiang raised her chin defiantly. "We don’t have to stand here and be treated like this."
"You’re right," Rodney agreed as he turned back to his laptop. "In fact, I’d prefer it if you got the hell out of my sight."
When John saw Kiang turn on her heels to leave, hastily followed by Parrish, he quickly backed away and headed down the corridor in the opposite direction so that neither the biologists nor McKay knew he’d seen the browbeating. And when he finally decided the coast would be clear and he went back to see if Rodney wanted to maybe play some video games for a while, the lab was already empty.
* * * *
"You look like crap," Rodney noted as Sheppard gulped a glass of juice to wash down the banana he’d just eaten.
John took in the tray full of food McKay was carrying and ignored the comment. "You’re up early."
"The Apollo is supposed to report in this morning. I wanted to be there to make sure nothing out of the ordinary had happened."
Sheppard frowned at the comment. "I thought you decided the device was safe to transport."
"Well, in theory it should be." Rodney sat and took a bite from his muffin. "But given the way it reacted to you and you were just one member of the military and the Apollo is full of them, not to mention Ellis being a total prick, it seemed prudent to be a little cautious."
McKay wasn’t the only one feeling wary this morning. "What do you know about how it reacted to me?"
Rodney shook his head dismissively. "Oh, Woolsey stopped by my lab yesterday and asked me to see if I could get you to open up and share your feelings with me and he told me what you said about being attacked as a way to distract you."
Rodney’s casual indifference to the request had John’s frown deepening. "I don’t need to talk about what happened."
With a shrug, McKay took a sip of his coffee. "Whether you need to talk about it or not doesn’t really matter because the point is you won’t talk about it regardless."
"I don’t need to talk about it," John repeated.
"Then it shouldn’t be a big deal for you to tell me what you saw over there." Rodney looked over the edge of his cup expectantly.
"I’m going for a run," Sheppard announced, already standing.
"Yeah, that’s what I told Woolsey would be your reaction," McKay mumbled just loud enough for John to hear.
John glared wordlessly at Rodney before turning to leave and nearly running over Teyla. "John, how are you feeling this morning?"
One look and he knew Woolsey had hit her up, too. "Ask McKay. He’s completely up to date with all any of you needs to know."
John started off his run within the crowded sections of the city. Normally he headed for the outer piers that were clear of most of the city’s residence, but there was a part of him that needed to see that everything was as it should be on a typical morning in Atlantis. People were everywhere… on their way to breakfast, heading to the labs, coming out of the morning security detail briefing… just the way it should be. But then he saw Amelia and Chuck heading to the gateroom to take their shift and he had a flash of them as they’d appeared in his dream the previous night. Chuck had three Genii bullets in his chest, a victim of the first wave to enter the city thanks to the IDC Kolya had gotten from John, and Amelia had one in her back, lying on her stomach in a pool of her own blood, eyes staring off lifelessly into the distance.
Sheppard stumbled at the memory, shook his head to clear it, and kept running. But then he saw Stackhouse’s team getting ready for their mission that day and flashed back to his dream where they been personally executed by Kolya before his eyes when John had refused to give up his codes to the citywide lockout McKay had put in place upon the Genii arrival. And seeing as Kolya had thrown Rodney off the nearest balcony when he refused to talk and Sheppard had still remained silent, the Genii commander had quickly moved onto other ways to persuade John.
At that point, John stopped, placed his hands on his knees to get his bearings about him and gulped air even though he hadn’t even broken a sweat yet. It had been a dream, just a dream. He’d already talked to both Rodney and Teyla that very morning and they were fine, same for the marines and the gate techs and all the other inhabitants of Atlantis. And that’s when the hallways in the city hub suddenly seemed too cramped, too crowded with faces that weren’t dead but kept looking like they were, so John headed out into the outskirts of the city and ran until he thought his chest was going to explode.
Ronon caught up with him on the East Pier when John had finally stopped to wipe the sweat from his eyes and catch his breath.
"Hey," was all the Satedan said as he stood waiting for Sheppard to take up his running once again.
"I don’t want to talk about it," John informed him, cutting Ronon off at the pass before he could start in on him.
"Who said anything about talking?"
"Apparently Woolsey," John noted as he eyed his teammate suspiciously as his breathing finally started to even out.
Ronon’s lipped curled minutely at the allegation of why he was really there. "Eh, what does he know? Do you know who he was seeing in his head?"
"Yeah, a really attractive woman." Lucky bastard. How the hell had Woolsey ended up with the hot chick and he’d had to deal with Kolya?
"Her name was Vanessa," Ronon informed John a little needlessly.
"So?"
"So, you know who else was named Vanessa? Woolsey’s dog."
Sheppard’s face screwed up in confusion. "You mean the Yorkie he lost in his divorce?"
Ronon’s smirk grew. "That’s what he told Teyla. She invited him to eat with us and now she’s his new best friend."
"Are you shitting me?" Sheppard accused. "His goddamn dog?"
"Nope." With a shake of his head, Ronon stared out across the waves. "The way I figure it, any man who’s turning his pet into a sexual fantasy shouldn’t be worried about what’s going on in someone else’s head."
John considered what Ronon had said for a second before busting out laughing and Ronon quickly joined in. Sheppard continued to laugh until he could feel tears pinpricking at his eyes and then forced himself to straighten and curb his chuckling because even he knew this could go south at any moment. You open the floodgates to one emotion and others are fast on their heels and he’d been working so damn hard to control them these last couple of days, there was no way he was going to give in now.
With a final snicker, Sheppard shook his head in amazement. "His fucking dog."
Ronon echoed his words in confirmation. "His fucking dog."
John took the time to study Ronon, really look at him as he stood fighting the last of his chuckles and gazing at the Atlantean ocean. As odd as it sounded, Ronon Dex had always been easy for Sheppard. He was the easy eight, the three and five or two and six combo. Despite their many differences, they were both cut from the same cloth; both military trained with an understanding of how the hierarchy worked in the field. Ronon had begun to respect Sheppard as his commanding officer the first day they met. Sure, they had grown closer over the years but from their mutual backgrounds they both accepted each other’s flaws, each other’s scars, and they both knew that some wounds never healed. And Ronon had a ton of raw wounds festering just below the surface.
Noticing that John was watching him, Ronon shifted uncomfortably. "You know, I used to think Tyre and the others were weak for becoming Wraith worshippers. I mean, I’d lost just as much as them and been made a runner and I’d never broke." Ronon shrugged self-consciously and turned his attention back to the water. "I don’t think that anymore."
John had seen what the Wraith had done to Ronon the last time they had him. He’d watched his friend and teammate claw his way back from pain and addiction and return to the man John had known these past several years. And he never doubted Ronon could do it because of what he had already survived. How Ronon had managed that was what always confounded Sheppard.
"How’d you do it?" John finally asked him in genuine curiosity.
Ronon crinkled his brow. "Do what?"
"Keep going all those years after you lost everything while the Wraith were tracking you?"
"One foot in front of the other," Ronon told him with a shrug. "As fast and as far as I could go."
After all this time, it never ceased to amaze John that Ronon still ran in his boots and leathers. No running shoes or sweats, he wore the same clothes jogging for sport that he’d worn all those years running from the Wraith. Old habits, they sure were a bitch to break. At this point, John would be happy to settle for some of his bad habits not breaking him where he stood.
Ronon slapped Sheppard roughly on the back then took off running again without looking back. Not that he needed to since John was only a few steps behind him, putting one foot in front of the other for as fast and as far as he could go.
* * * *
Rodney joined John and Ronon as they sat eating dinner that evening, complaining about the shortage of chocolate cake.
"Seriously, why bother making it when less than half the expedition gets a piece before you run out."
"There was lemon meringue pie, too," Ronon pointed out with a grin.
McKay simply glared.
Sheppard fought the quirk of his own lips as he noted, "You know, McKay, if you cut back on the chocolate cake now and again, you might not have had so much trouble with those stairs a few weeks back."
"Olympic athletes would have had trouble with those damn stairs," Rodney griped. "I could barely walk for two days after that. That is how much I am willing do to for this city."
"Yeah," John drawled, "Your leg cramps out trump being thrown off a balcony and a willingness to crash a Jumper into the control room any day."
Using his fork to point at both men, McKay shook his head. "See, those really don’t count because you two do those sorts of things almost every day. After a while it starts to lose its pizzazz."
"But you nearly having a heart attack climbing a few flights of stairs has pizzazz?" Ronon clarified with raised eyebrows.
Rodney spoke around a large bite of meatloaf. "Not something you see every day, that’s for sure." Swallowing down his food, Rodney skewered another bite. "I have no doubt Sheppard’s experience on the Mainland had something to do with self sacrifice. It’s just the way his brain works."
"I told you I’m not talking about that, McKay," John insisted again.
Rodney rolled his eyes. "Do I look like I want you to talk to me about it? Have I ever given you the impression that I like to sit down and have heart to heart discussions about these sorts of things followed by a big group hug while we sing Kumbiyah?"
John sat back and crossed his arms in a funk. "No."
"Oh!" Rodney exclaimed in mock excitement. "Maybe we could make it a group event and watch The Bridges of Madison County afterwards."
"Is that the one where the guys have to build the bridge for their captors?" Ronon starting to get a little excited at the idea himself.
"That was The Bridge on the River Kwai," John corrected. "This one has Clint Eastwood as a photographer."
"Dirty Harry?" Ronon asked hopefully.
"Not Dirty Harry," Sheppard stressed. "Not in this one." Turning back to McKay he reiterated, "Besides, there’s not going to be any group therapy session because I don’t need a group therapy session."
"So you’ve said," Rodney dismissed with another bite. "By the way, I fixed the axle on your car. You up for a race tonight?"
"Depends. You up for dropping the bleeding heart shit?"
McKay sighed. "Look, Woolsey is the one pushing this. You don’t want to talk, you tell him that. And then see how fast you end up on a leather couch picking elephants having sex out of ink blots."
Sheppard grabbed his tray and stood. "I think I’ll pass on the cars tonight. I have some annual reviews I need to finish up anyway."
Rodney stopped him before he could storm off. "Well, before you leave, pick up a tray for Teyla. Kanaan got stuck off world helping Lorne’s team negotiate a trade deal and Torren has a cold so she doesn’t want to drag him out."
"Why don’t you take her a tray?" John asked sensing another trap.
"Because she called looking for you," McKay justified with a wave of his arm. "When you didn’t answer she asked me to bring one."
"Then you take it," Sheppard tried again.
"I just got here. You’re obviously finished eating. Besides, it’s not going to kill you to stop by and drop off a meal for her."
"Fine, I’ll go," John grumbled, then he fetched a meal and headed for Teyla’s.
Teyla opened the door and smiled in pleasant surprise. "John, I was expecting Rodney." She spoke quietly and John assumed the baby was asleep.
"Well, he was still eating and said Torren was feeling under the weather and you needed food, so here I am."
She moved aside and let him in. "I had attempted to contact you first by radio but you did not respond. Was there a problem?"
"No, everything’s fine, I was probably in the shower when you called." That was more than likely the truth, too, considering John had stayed in the shower for over an hour just letting the hot water run over his body in an attempt to wash away the memories of what had happened on the Mainland.
Teyla took the tray and set it aside. "Good. I have barely left my quarters today; I feel like I am completely cut off from the rest of the world on days like this."
Sheppard stood there as Teyla smiled at him expectantly, finally inquiring, "So, Torren’s okay?"
"Yes, Jennifer says it is nothing more than a cold. He has been fussy but is finally resting." She motioned her hands to the candles she had lit around the room. "I was taking advantage of the quiet and in the middle of my meditations…"
John quickly jumped on the out she was offering him. "Oh, well, then I should leave and let you get back to it then."
"Actually, I was hoping you might join me."
Sheppard winced at the suggestion. "I’m not really much for meditation. Six months in the time dilation field and I still never fully understood the appeal of it."
Teyla gave a pleading look. "I have spent all day in here with only a cranky infant for a companion. I would be most grateful if you stayed and provided some adult company."
"But you’re meditating," John reminded her. "It’s not like you’ll even know if someone else is here or not."
"I will know, John."
Sheppard sighed when Teyla’s expression turned a little desperate. "Yeah, okay, I guess I could stay for a little while."
"Wonderful," Teyla beamed happily at him and resumed her lotus position, indicating the spot across from her for John to sit.
The truth was, John could refuse Teyla nothing. In fact, he would voluntarily do anything for her. She was what they called a natural in craps; a seven or eleven that meant everybody got paid on the come out roll. From day one, Teyla had been the calm in the storm. She had offered nothing but friendship to the expedition, helped them negotiate their first trade treaty for much needed food and supplies, and had become a trusted senior advisor to every one of the expedition leaders who had served on Atlantis, not to mention one of the best friends to the head of Atlantis military operations.
Teyla closed her eyes and took a deep cleansing breath, relaxing almost instantly into her stance. John thought back on his time in the dilation field and the techniques he had learned there, picturing the building storm clouds just like he had told Rodney to do. Rodney who had nearly died because he touched an Ancient device that meant he would ascend or die, and there had been nothing more than this that Sheppard could do to stop it. Rodney who had been infected by a parasite and was going to die and there had been nothing John could do to stop it. And then there was Teyla who had been taken captive by Michael and there had been times after yet another dead end when John had thought there was nothing he could do to get her back. And when Ronon was betrayed by Tyre and captured by the Wraith and yet again John had thought there was nothing he could do bring his friend home safe. With all those times when Sheppard had believed everything he could do was for nothing, who could blame him for taking any chance he was given to keep them safe? If that meant traveling to a Wraith inhabited planet for a miracle cure for Rodney, ignoring the hole in his abdomen to board Michael’s ship and find Teyla, or infiltrating a Wraith stronghold to bring back Ronon he’d do it. And if it meant letting Kolya cut off his fucking hand to protect them all and everyone else on Atlantis, then he’d do that, too.
"John?" Teyla’s voice had him opening his eyes and she gave him a sympathetic smile. "Meditative breathing does not usually involved growling."
Shit. He’d really blown it now. "Sorry, I was just… having trouble clearing my thoughts."
"Thoughts of what happened to you on the Mainland?" she asked gently.
Sheppard started to stand. "You know, this really wasn’t such a good idea after all…"
Teyla’s hand gripped his wrist and held tight. "We would have come for you." When John simply sat there, not settling back down but not pulling away, she continued. "If we had known what was happening, if the threat had been more than in your mind, we would have come for you. We will always come for you like you always come for us."
John felt his throat constrict at the way Teyla was looking at him so sincerely and he managed to whisper, "I know," without his voice cracking.
She had made a wrong assumption about what he’d experienced on the Mainland. Still, it could have just as easily been correct given his… hang ups about abandonment. But it didn’t change the fact that Teyla had been right; his team always came for him. Always. And maybe what they were doing now was their way of coming for him again whether or not he wanted to admit that he needed rescuing.
He patted awkwardly at her hand still holding tight to his arm. "Believe me, I know."
Teyla exhaled and loosened her grip without letting go completely. "Now, shall we try again?"
John nodded mutely, watching as Teyla closed her eyes again and instructed, "Deep breath in…. then out."
He did as she said, focusing on the in and outs of his breathing, the steadying of his heartbeat, and soon enough the gray clouds parted to reveal nothing but blue skies.
* * * *
McKay was in his lab just as Sheppard knew he would be. After nearly five years, he knew Rodney’s patterns better than McKay did. The two remote control race cars sat off on one of the side lab benches and Rodney was intent on the data scrolling across his laptop screen so that he didn’t hear when John entered the lab that was deserted except for the head science officer.
Leaning against the door, John called a quiet, "Hey."
Rodney looked up in surprise. "Oh, hey. I didn’t expect to see you here tonight."
Strolling casually across the room to where the cars rested, he picked his up and turned it over. "Well, you know, you went to all the trouble to fix it and all."
McKay turned on his stool and stood, taking that stance that John recognized as I’m about to confess that I’ve done something wrong. "Look, Sheppard, about the whole talking thing. If you tell me you’re fine, then I’ll believe it and pass it along to Woolsey and maybe he’ll get off your case about…"
John braced himself, then spoke over Rodney’s discourse. "It was Kolya."
John had actually thought about it long and hard and out of anyone on the expedition, Rodney would be the one who would understand what Kolya meant to Sheppard, because McKay had been there from the very first time John had gone up against Kolya, had gone toe to toe with the Genii commander himself.
When Rodney just stared at him with a baffled expression, Sheppard clarified, "What I imagined on the Mainland; it was Kolya."
"But Kolya’s dead," Rodney reminded him, evidently confused as to why John would ever have believed the hallucination. "You know that ,seeing as you killed him. Carson confirmed that he was dead."
"And a year ago Carson was dead, too," John pointed out.
McKay considered the news and wobbled his head. "True. I guess when you live in a galaxy like Pegasus, a lot of fucked up things can happen."
"No kidding," Sheppard agreed with humorless smile.
"So, this Kolya that the AI rooted through your deepest fears and found; what did he want?"
"The usual, take over Atlantis and use me to do it."
John realized he was rubbing along his forearm, right where Kolya had severed his hand away and forced himself to stop. And that’s when he noticed McKay was doing the exact same thing to his arm where Kolya had cut Rodney during the first attempt to take the city. And that’s when something clicked for John, like a broken piece being snapped back into place.
"I suppose when you wouldn’t give him what he wanted he used force to try to get it?"
Sheppard shrugged, ignoring the way his jaw ached at the memory of the beating. "He roughed me up a little."
"A little?" Rodney asked in disbelief.
"Maybe more than a little," John admitted.
Rodney nodded briskly. "He’s good at that. Roughing people up to get what he wants."
"Yeah, he was," Sheppard agreed before opening his mouth to ask a question, closing it to work up his nerve, and finally spitting it out. "When he cut you, back during the super storm, what were you thinking?"
McKay blinked in surprise at the question. "Wh… what was I thinking?" Frowning in thought, Rodney told him, "With the first cut, it was something along the line of, ‘what the hell are you doing?’ With the second it was probably more like, ‘stop!’ And with the third I was thinking, ‘this son of a bitch is going to cut my fucking hand off’."
John’s heart was pounding in his chest at what he was hearing. Rodney knew, he fucking knew how horrific that experience could be. And this was why Rodney McKay was John’s hard eight. There was no reason the two of them should be friends, they had practically nothing in common on the surface, and Rodney was nothing if not a pain in the ass who was easier to dislike than like. Yet, Sheppard had found himself drawn more and more into an orbit around McKay over the years or maybe Rodney was orbiting John. Either way, Sheppard couldn’t imagine not having Rodney around these days and often had trouble remembering that there had been a time when they hadn’t even known one another. That sort of friendship was hard to come by, just like a hard eight was on the craps table. But when those double fours did turn up on the felt, they paid some of the best odd in the house. And they could make up for every damn craps that had rolled before.
Just like Rodney was tonight.
McKay shook his head and sat back on his bench with an abashed snort. "Pretty stupid, huh?"
John shook his own head mutely, as if to say, no not stupid at all, because he’d been thinking the same exact damn things when Kolya held that machete over John’s arm. And knowing he wasn’t alone in all this, even though he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud, really did make a difference.
Rodney didn’t see him, just held his arm up and wiggled his fingers. "I mean, after all, he didn’t cut off my hand. Not really."
John managed a small smile and cleared his throat to force his words out. "No, not really."
Kolya hadn’t cut off John’s hand because Kolya was dead. He was dead and would never threaten Rodney or Atlantis again. John had made sure of that once and for all. Of all the people he had let down and not been able to save, Sheppard had removed at least one threat permanently. Sometimes you had to settle for what you could get and let go of the fuck ups… or at least give it a try.
McKay frowned in worry. "Sheppard, are you okay?"
John straightened and took a deep breath. "Yeah, I’m fine." And for the first time since he’d left the Mainland, he actually believed those words might be close to the truth. Picking up the cars, John offered over McKay’s. "So, are we going to check out the repairs on these bad boys or not?"
Rodney brightened at the prospect. "The real question is, are you ready to eat my dust?"
John checked over his remote more studiously than was really necessary. "Considering how slow you go, Rodney, I wouldn’t be surprised if you actually did gather dust."
"Watch yourself, Sheppard; you’re going to be out a six pack by the time the night is over."
Sheppard considered the wager. "A whole six pack?"
"What’s the matter?" Rodney rocked back on his heels with a smugly taunting grin. "Not a betting man?"
Life was a crap shoot. John Sheppard knew that better than anyone and he’d made the hard choices more than once to stay in and let his money ride and wait for the hard eight to pay. And if he stopped to think about it, that payout came more often than not…
"You’re on, McKay," John told him with a gloating smirk of his own.
… and he was very rich man as a result.
The End