Friendship: Wit's End (3/3), by Greyias
Title: Wit's End
Author:
greyias
Prompt: Slavery, captivity or hostages
Word Count: ~19,500
Rating: skirting the edge of PG-13
Summary: "Trust me, Colonel, when I do finally snap - in the far flung future after one of those idiots known as my staff sets the city's self-destruct for the googolnth time - I assure you, it's not going to be a pretty sight."
Part 1 | Part 2
"Maybe you're just out of practice."
Rodney chunked the tablet at John, not caring about the surprise or shock on the other man's face. John barely caught the flying computer before it beamed him in the forehead. Whatever. In one thousand and ten seconds, the tablet would return to Rodney's hands, no worse for wear.
"Jesus, Rodney!"
"Damn you!" he snarled, diving for his pack.
"I didn't mean it like that-"
Items flew over his shoulder as he tore through the contents, searching for what he needed. His hand closed around the gum Teyla always wanted on overnight trips but always forgot pack herself and he set that aside. He flung an MRE behind him as he rummaged for the screwdriver.
The MRE collided with something solid. "Watch it!"
Oh, there it was. He set that aside too, needing just one more thing.
"Look, I'm sorry."
When the hand landed on his shoulder, a furious tremor rolled through Rodney. "Don't touch me!"
The hand disappeared, and Rodney snarled savagely. Where the hell was that life signs detector? He knew he packed it, he always packed it. It didn't matter that he couldn't remember anything before this 'afternoon'; he knew that device always came offworld.
"What's wrong with you?"
There. There! It was just hidden underneath the camcorder. Why the hell did he bring a camcorder and not rubber gloves? Stupid, stupid, stupid. He pulled out the small Ancient device, eyeing it critically.
Yes, it would do.
And then he proceeded to dismantle the ten thousand year old device with reckless abandon and screwdriver in hand. He ignored the protests and demands for explanation, wishing he could work faster. Maybe he could if his hands would stop shaking.
It would be okay, though, because time really didn't matter. It would just repeat itself. Every seventeen minutes on the dot.
He stripped off the final protective covering on the life signs detector, pulling out several of the crystal slats that made up the machine's circuitry.
Pain didn't matter. Injuries couldn't hurt if they never happened in the first place.
Next was his radio. He forced his hands to still as he carefully detached the wires from the transistors. They came off easily and he took the ends and twisted them together until the entire thing was about the length he'd need.
People didn't matter. They just died.
Finally, he turned to the machine, using the screwdriver to hack off the panels he would need to get at the scorched crystal.
And most of all, death didn't matter - because it wasn't permanent.
"What the hell, Rodney?" John breathed.
And maybe he had been muttering the whole time, but that didn't matter either. Nothing he or anyone else did meant a damn thing, because in seventeen minutes it wouldn't have happened. That probably meant he shouldn't even be doing this, but what the hell? He had nothing to lose by trying.
Two hands gripped the front of his vest, giving him a hard shake. "Snap out of it!"
"Leave me alone!" He tried to wrench himself free. "I don't have time for you!"
"I thought you just said that time 'doesn't matter'," John growled back.
"Let me go!"
"Not until you stop raving like a lunatic and tell me what the hell is going on in that head of yours."
Of course he was a lunatic. Of course he was crazy. He couldn't not be at this point. "Do you know how many times I have told you?"
"Told me what?"
"About time loops, about P4X-639, about murdering psychopaths, about ambushes, and about that goddamn machine!"
"I don't understand."
"You never do." Rodney managed to pull himself free, grabbing the crystals, the wires, the screwdriver and the panels. "And I'm finally past the point of caring about that!"
"Rodney-"
"Figure it out yourself, Mr. Could-Have-Been-Mensa!" He disappeared under the console, taking his arsenal with him. "You and this Danvers person can just go to hell!"
"Danvers?"
"Yes, Danvers." Rodney sneered as he trapped the sparking wire, moving it aside so he could grab the bad crystal. "Whoever he is, apparently he's important enough to be your dying request!"
A hand landed on his ankle, and Rodney lashed out, hearing John yelp as he found his mark. Good. He needed to just go away, because Rodney had very important work to do.
"I am not going away!"
Rodney also really needed to stop muttering. It certainly wasn't helping things.
"I can wait out here just as long as you can."
"I doubt that!" He shifted awkwardly, movement restricted by the lack of space under the console, and grabbed the supplies he had gathered from the bag. "I give you about ten minutes and you'll be making that same damn comment about me being out of practice."
He picked at the wires from one end until he had several threads, and proceeded to carefully wrap them around the metal shaft of the screwdriver.
"Just calm down-"
"I ask you, what do I need practice on?" He grabbed a piece of gum, not bothering to stop his rant as he savagely smacked it around in his mouth. "Was that even funny the first time you said it?"
"Rodney-"
He spat out the gum, now a sticky wad and tore it in half. He took one piece and sandwiched it between the two crystals from the life signs detector; the other he stuck on the tip of one finger. "Don't you Rodney me. I've heard my name so much since this damn time loop started it's lost all meaning."
"Time loop?" John swore. "Wait... P4X-639?"
"You're slower than Lupin!" Rodney cursed, having to manually fray the tiny copper threads on the free end of the wire. When that was complete, he carefully pressed them on top of the crystal sandwich and used the remaining gum wad to adhere it to the surface.
"Lupin?" John squawked. "What in the hell-?"
And taking care to not electrocute himself, because it would be really inconvenient to have to wait for the tingling to stop to try again, Rodney jammed the tethered screwdriver in the place of the burnt crystal.
John had finally taken the hint and fallen silent, which suited Rodney just fine. He watched as the console glowed blue when it made a connection with the patch job and admired his handiwork. Hopefully, it would be able to stabilize the power long enough for him to make the necessary programming tweaks with the tablet.
He wriggled back out from under the console, triumphant. All he needed now was-
Lupin.
Rodney stared dumbly as Lupin shoved the barrel of John's pilfered nine millimeter into the colonel's temple. Another of his goons had a shotgun buried between John's shoulder, and further beyond that Teyla and Ronon were in similar peril. And that wasn't right, because he hadn't heard the gunfire that should have led up to the team's capture.
Or maybe he had, but he'd tuned it out. It was becoming alarmingly easy to will himself to not hear things. You heard it once, you heard it a hundred and fifty times. If he were being completely honest with himself, the only thing he was certain of was what he had been doing a few moments ago and the ever present countdown ticking in the back of his mind.
"I think you understand my terms, Dr. McGoo. Do you think you'll agree to help me fix my machine?" Lupin cocked the trigger of the gun.
Make that two things he was certain of.
Because without a doubt Rodney knew that if he didn't agree, then the silent movie of a chest stilling under his hands and hazel eyes clouding over in a permanent expression of shock would find itself playing out in vivid color and surround sound-
-because of that, Rodney could only nod mutely.
"I can't hear you."
"Yes," he found his voice, "I'll help you fix your machine."
"Good." He lowered the pistol and ambled over to Rodney's side. "No tricks."
"Just leave them alone."
"I'm making the demands here."
"Yes, of course."
John's face tightened in fury at the resigned tone, but Rodney ignored him. As long as he didn't do anything obtuse like jump in front of a shotgun again, he just didn't care.
"Now, show me what I need to do."
Rodney started to reach for the tablet, but at the angry glower stopped himself and merely indicated it. "You'll need to use that to turn it on."
Lupin picked up the tablet and eyed the screen curiously. "And now?"
Rodney began to talk him through the sequence to access the subroutines that regulated the power output, eyes glued to the tablet's display. In the back of his mind, the clock was still ticking, edging closer to the reset point as Lupin navigated through the interface program at a gratingly slow pace.
"And then-what are you doing?"
"I think I can figure it out from here," Lupin said haughtily. "Now if I just-"
Instead of reaching for the command line to disperse the excess energy build-up like Rodney had instructed, Lupin's finger hovered over the command line that would cause the machine to draw up even more power. With the already unstable system, if Lupin pressed that...
"No!" Rodney lunged for the tablet, trying to shove Lupin's hand away as he reached for the proper command.
The other man snarled, trying to yank the tablet back. "You lied to me!"
"You idiot, you're about to-"
Their hands tangled for control in a bizarre thumb war as they both tried to slap each other's fingers away from the display. It was an epic battle of wit versus dimwit - thumb versus forefinger - winner-take-all.
"Just shoot them! Shoot all of them!" Lupin shouted over his shoulder.
"No!"
Gunfire erupted from behind him, but Rodney was too busy trying to prevent a catastrophic overload by stupidity to see what was going on. His heart leapt to his throat as chaos engulfed the platform. He couldn't make out one sound from the other, and there was no way to tell what was happening to his team.
With one deft, painful twist to his wrist, Rodney managed to jam his index finger on one part of the screen. Unfortunately at the same moment Lupin's thumb smashed on the opposite end, which instructed the system to perform both functions at once.
Energy crackled in the air as white arcs of electricity leapt from one part of the console to the next. It was going to overload, Rodney realized, instantly releasing his hold on the tablet. Lupin cried out in horror as the key to "his rise to power" began to spark and hiss.
"You've ruined it!"
That was also the moment that Rodney realized that Lupin had discarded John's nine millimeter a few feet from the console. Lupin followed his gaze, coming to the same conclusion. They both made a dive for the gun as a bright, burning energy engulfed the console and lit up the sky with an overpowering white light.
Same old song, two-hundred and thirty-second verse, just the same as the very first. That same damn light, the same platform, and the same silence that haunted him from the end of one loop to beginning of the next. The worst part was that it was true, it was honest to god true that nothing Rodney did mattered. He was truly stuck forever. He could do everything right and he would wind up just where he started, and all of the effort in the world meant absolutely nothing.
"McKay."
The object in his hands weighed too much to be the tablet, and he couldn't comfortably hold that in a two-fisted grip like he could a gun. He must have blinked, mind shut out the first five minutes. John wasn't staring back at him anymore, but Lupin with wide fearful eyes fixated on the gun barrel pressing into his forehead. The countdown in the back of his mind contradicted the fast forward. According to it he had sixteen minutes left. And Rodney didn't remember this variation on the theme. So maybe it was his imagination, which to his great horror as a scientist had become more and more vivid these past seventeen minutes.
Or was it one now, since technically he had sixteen to go?
That was a conundrum for sure. Maybe he'd bring it up to John at the start of the next loop. He always enjoyed a good math riddle - that is he did when he wasn't too busy leaping into oncoming traffic and gunfire meant for other people.
"Rodney."
He could still hear the echo of three successive blasts, which really wasn't right because those generally happened around minute fifteen or sixteen. And he was only at a hundred and nineteen seconds. So he quite possibly was imagining those too.
The gun in his hand felt heavy enough to actually be real, and the panicked breathing of the person responsible for it all was quite convincing. Maybe Rodney's internal clock was off, and that was what was wrong with the situation.
Or perhaps it was the fact that the smooth metal of the trigger felt pretty reassuring, or that he could finally give Lupin a taste of his own medicine. That sounded nice. He promised he'd get even, didn't he?
"You did it. It's over."
It was never over. Never finished. That was the problem with infinity, you never got to the end - you could only grasp at something just out of reach. If he pulled the trigger it wouldn't mean a thing, because in only eight hundred and forty seconds it would start again. In a world with no consequences Rodney could go eye for an eye, and never have to deal with the guilt.
"Give me the gun, Rodney. Please."
And if John could just shut up for a few minutes, that would be spectacular. Because with eight hundred and twenty nine seconds left he wasn't dead yet, but probably eyeing that proverbial mine field as if it might be a fun stroll through the park.
"I'm not suicidal, McKay." There was that familiar hand, trying to drag him back to the surface as he drowned in the abyss. "Just give me the damn gun."
It would be nice if the words were real, the hand not imagined, and the voice to be speaking the truth. But it couldn't, because there were still eight hundred and thirteen seconds left on the clock.
"I swear I'm not lying to you."
And he was still muttering everything, wasn't he?
"Rodney," John said his name again, tone as patient as the seventeen minute day was long, "do you trust me?"
And that was a stupid question. Stupid because there was only one answer, stupid because it didn't need to be asked, stupid because they both knew that. And it scared Rodney to death that somehow something so stupid, so unintelligent and utterly ridiculous had such a hold on him.
He couldn't stop himself from nodding, because the action was as ingrained into him as breathing, and that was wrong. Logic dictated that he think everything through. Logic dictated that he analyze all of his options before taking any action. But he wasn't sure if logic had any place in a world where there was only a thousand and twenty seconds, where dead men rose from the grave with a laugh and a grin, and where everything that happened didn't happen.
So logically, there was only one thing to do.
He loosened his hold on the pistol and let the phantom hand pull it from his grasp.
And it was probably still his imagination when he heard John growl to the still kneeling Lupin, "You come near him or any one of us again - I promise you that I'll finish what he started."
It was kind of nice in theory. But in seven hundred and fifty three seconds it probably wouldn't matter anyway.
"Come on, Rodney, let's go home."
And John wouldn't lie to him, but Rodney had a hard time believing the words anyway.
* * * * *
The salty tang of the ocean breeze and solitude of the balcony was a welcome change from the oppressive sterility of the infirmary and Carson's smothering. Rodney wasn't quite sure when he'd acquired a Scottish gentleman as his mother, and while some days the concern was a welcome change from the amused grins that accompanied his usual string of complaints, today wasn't one of those.
Part of him knew that his silence was unnerving but Rodney couldn't trust himself to speak, not until he stopped tensing up every sixteen minutes and fifty nine seconds. Nineteen turns of the looping clock by his count, and he was still waiting for a bright flash of light to indicate for him to start his song and dance again.
It was just wrong on so many levels that technically the nightmare could be over, everyone could be safe, and that Rodney wasn't able to move on. Not for lack of want or trying - because he really wanted to be able to lay down and sleep like Carson had told him without hearing the endless rattle of gunfire. He wanted to be able to close his eyes and meditate like Teyla offered and not see his hands covered in blood. He wanted to be able to escape by any method possible. Hell, he had even asked Ronon to teach him how to wield a sword.
It would figure that the one time that Rodney wanted to have the thoughts beaten out him Ronon would offer him a pilfered pudding cup instead. Not that Rodney passed up the pudding, he wasn't that far gone, but it was the principle of the matter. Pudding only lasted so many spoonfuls before he was left with an empty plastic cup and a mind wandering down an uncomfortably distressing road.
Unable to speak for fear of what might come out, unable to eat because he had already gorged himself, and unable to stop himself from remembering, Rodney sought solitude. If he couldn't find peace, he could at least suffer with as few people watching as possible.
And he wasn't sure what it said when Ronon and Teyla helped cover his exit without him needing to ask. Carson had to release him since technically Rodney was perfectly healthy, because technically only seventeen minutes passed in which the most physical action he had seen was a thumb war and a scramble for a pistol.
John had disappeared as soon his own physical was complete, for whatever reason Rodney didn't know, and a large part of him really didn't care. That made him almost sick to his stomach, but he had seen enough of the man - inside and out - to last at least a few hours. He had no need for that steadying presence on Atlantis to remind him second after second of exactly how far he had fallen.
Speak of the devil and he's sure to appear.
The door leading out to the balcony swished open quietly before another body settled in next to him. Rodney didn't look up from the dark water rolling in front of them, too busy listening for the crash of each wave against the dock below.
"So," John said quietly, "I just did the math."
"Of course you did."
"Counting from when we missed our check-in, to the time it took for the gate to realign itself with the rest of the system and let us re-establish contact-"
"I'm perfectly capable of remembering that much, Sheppard."
"-forty three hours and twenty-one minutes," John blew out a breath, "making it about a hundred and fifty three loops of seventeen minutes."
"Your math astounds me, because obviously I'm too far gone to do those calculations on my own."
"Rodney," John shifted, leaning more of his weight onto the railing, "I think that's about a hundred and thirty six more than I could handle before having a psychotic episode."
"Nice to know what we're calling it."
"That's not what I'm saying and you know it."
"Then why did you pick seventeen loops to be your magical breaking point?"
"Because after about five nonstop hours-"
"Four point eight!"
"-of someone taking you guys hostage over and over, I'm pretty sure I'd have pulled that trigger."
"Maybe that was what I should've done in the first place."
"No!" Out of the corner of his eye, Rodney could see John spearing him with a fierce look. "That's not you!"
"Two days-it went on for almost two straight days. If it had been you, we wouldn't have even made it to twelve hours!"
"If it had been me, there's a good chance that we'd still be on that planet."
"I don't need you to patronize me-"
"Damn it Rodney, I might be a member of Mensa in an alternate universe, but I'm not you. I wouldn't have been able to fix that machine no matter how long we spent on that twisted merry-go-round."
"I find that very hard to believe."
"Exactly who do you think I am?"
Rodney continued to stare at the waves, not sure how to answer that, and pretty sure he didn't want to try since in seventeen minutes any words wouldn't magically be forgotten. He tightened his grip on the balcony, because part of him thought that might be a bad thing.
However the question had been a challenge and Rodney didn't let those go unanswered.
"I don't think you're someone who would have lost it in less than two days."
"A lot can happen in two days, Rodney."
He breathed in sharply, because that was too true. A person could experience all of their worst fears in a forty-three hour period, and it would follow them wherever they tried to hide after the fact.
"Don't take this the wrong way - but after two-straight days of being 'out of practice', I'm just a little sick of you."
"I wouldn't say you're the greatest company right now, either."
"Hence my desire to be alone. Something more clever people were able to pick up on."
"I gave you a few hours," John said lightly.
"Which doesn't add up, just like your math."
"I had a few things to take care of." John glared at the waves. "And don't think I didn't catch you trying to change the subject."
"Things?"
John chewed his lips. "Had to iron out a few details with Elizabeth."
Rodney stiffened.
"Like how the whole team should take a few days before Heightmeyer starts beating down our doors."
"The whole team?"
"Well, we were taken hostage a hundred plus times. It's kind of stressful."
"You don't remember any of that!"
John shrugged. "So?"
"So-so you three are perfectly sane!"
"Just like you."
"I think I'll leave the psychoanalysis to the professionals."
"I can go get her right now if that's what you want."
"God, no!"
"That's what I thought."
Irritation flashed through him and he twisted, still clinging tightly to the balcony, to face his friend. "Just where do you get off?"
"Dirty question, Rodney," John grinned.
"Asshole," he spat. "You have no right to waltz in here, when I need to be alone, and tell me what I think or feel!"
"I'm not doing that, Rodney."
"The hell you are!"
"Exactly what have I forced you to think or feel against your will?"
And it all came crashing back then, the stench of electrified flesh, hands sticky with blood, of control being taken from him with a simple question of trust. "I don't think I want to answer that right now."
"Fair enough." John's elbow shifted, lightly bumping against Rodney's locked arm.
He wanted to pull away, but that would have required letting go long enough to find another point of solitude. So he put up with the friendly-not-quite-contact with extreme reluctance.
But he didn't have to be happy about it. "And you owe me an explanation."
"Oh?"
"Yes," Rodney ground out, "it's now nighttime on Atlantis, and we're not fighting for our lives."
"I'm listening."
"I want to know who Danvers is," and Rodney didn't feel guilty at the startled inhalation of breath, because turnabout was fair play, "and why he's so important."
"My dying request, right?"
Rodney stilled. "I didn't-"
"You said a lot of things, probably without realizing it."
He closed his eyes, a million different feelings washing over him, disgust, anger, and not a small amount of fear over what had been overheard and how it would be interpreted. "I didn't mean-"
"No," John breathed, "it's okay."
"But you don't like to think about him-"
"Just like you don't want to think about what that bastard put you through," John growled.
"You don't remember-"
"I know enough," John's voice was low, "to have to come out here to keep myself from dialing up that planet and finishing the job."
"So, you're not just out here to keep me from taking a swan dive?"
"It's not all about you, Rodney."
"So then who's Danvers?"
John pursed his lips, eyeing the waves below for a long stretch.
"You don't have to-"
"Technically there were two Danvers," he said quietly, careful to not break his staring contest with the ocean, "back when I was in Afghanistan."
"Two?"
"Brothers; one a Ranger, the other a Marine." John paused. "The squadron of marines were caught in an ambush - not many made it out."
Rodney didn't say anything, just waited.
"The surviving brother took it pretty hard," John's lazy perch on the balcony had shifted until he was mirroring Rodney's tight grasp on the railing, "if you know what I mean."
Rodney's chest felt a little too tight and he barely managed a soft, "I've got an idea."
"I had the misfortune of being in the same hangar when he snapped." The nerve in John's jaw twitched as he clenched his teeth together, as lost in the past as Rodney had been before the colonel's timely arrival.
"Do I want to know what happened?"
The smile was forced, tight. "He had a gun on my co-pilot."
Rodney had been around the military long enough to know that they didn't take that sort of threat lightly - and it didn't take much of an imagination to fill in the gaps. He eyed the waves lapping angrily at the dock below. "Everything you needed to know."
"What?"
"That's what you told me - bringing up Danvers would tell you everything you needed to know."
John's shoulders hunched up, his grip on the railing not going lax at the conclusion of the tight-lipped confession.
"You used me," Rodney's voice had gone quiet, "to send yourself a message that I was going to lose it?"
"Rodney-"
"About someone you had to shoot to protect a teammate? Are you trying to tell me that-"
"No!" The vehemence behind the statement startled both of them. "Never."
Rodney squirmed, uncomfortable, "Then..."
John sighed heavily, sinking his weight against the railing. "I don't remember the original conversation, you know that."
Rodney took that moment to shift ever so slightly to the right, away from the tension radiating off the man next to him. The weight of the confession hung in the air heavily. Rodney was pretty sure he was going to regret what he was about to say next, but perhaps John equally deserved an explanation for why he would willingly drag up these memories in the first place.
"You told me you wouldn't get over it."
John flicked a curious look in his direction. "Get over what?"
"Oh, you know..." Despite the hammering in his chest, Rodney tried to act nonchalant as he waved a hand at the water, "Lupin's whole 'let's break McKay' thing."
The nerve in John's jaw twitched again.
"Although it would probably be 'let's break Mandalay' or some other bizarre way of mangling my last name." Rodney laughed harshly. "He really sucked with names."
John didn't chuckle. He didn't agree or really do much of anything other than remain absolutely silent.
"I said you'd get over it, you know, seeing as you wouldn't remember." And because John still wasn't saying anything, Rodney kept going. "Maybe you wanted to tell yourself about the ambush or you were sick of being left out of the loop or you just wanted to prove me wrong or something-"
"That very first bit," John said tightly, "that would do it I think."
"The ambush?"
"Sure Rodney." He rolled his eyes, as if McKay had just suggested that he could divide by zero. "The ambush. You know how much I hate being snuck up on."
"You do! You hate it just about as much as-as..."
John raised an eyebrow.
"You didn't mean the ambush."
"No," John agreed, and turned back to the sea, "I didn't."
Rodney nodded mutely, fighting to swallow the lump that had worked its way back into this throat. His attention wandered back to the ocean as well, but the waves were still unable to soothe the tension chasing him. He shifted restlessly, reluctantly loosening his death grip on the railing so he could find a more comfortable position for the long term.
"You can go, you know." He glanced over to where John was still staring off into the distance. "I'm going to be a while."
"I can wait."
"Seriously, it's not like I'm going to get any sleep. I could be out here all night; you're just wasting your time."
"I'm good."
He huffed out an annoyed breath at the stubbornness. "Don't you have somewhere else you'd like to be right now?"
"Nope." As if it were a natural effort, John settled into the space Rodney had tried to create, close enough so that their elbows lightly bumped against each other. "I don't think I do."
"Fine," he let his gaze drift upwards, tracing out the various constellations found on all of the Gates in the galaxy, "but it's your loss."
"No, Rodney, it most definitely is not."
And for the first time in more than a hundred and seventy-two increments of seventeen, a genuine, pure smile escaped Rodney. It came unbidden just like the quiet presence at his side. Unbidden, but not unwelcome.
Author:
greyias
Prompt: Slavery, captivity or hostages
Word Count: ~19,500
Rating: skirting the edge of PG-13
Summary: "Trust me, Colonel, when I do finally snap - in the far flung future after one of those idiots known as my staff sets the city's self-destruct for the googolnth time - I assure you, it's not going to be a pretty sight."
Part 1 | Part 2
"Maybe you're just out of practice."
Rodney chunked the tablet at John, not caring about the surprise or shock on the other man's face. John barely caught the flying computer before it beamed him in the forehead. Whatever. In one thousand and ten seconds, the tablet would return to Rodney's hands, no worse for wear.
"Jesus, Rodney!"
"Damn you!" he snarled, diving for his pack.
"I didn't mean it like that-"
Items flew over his shoulder as he tore through the contents, searching for what he needed. His hand closed around the gum Teyla always wanted on overnight trips but always forgot pack herself and he set that aside. He flung an MRE behind him as he rummaged for the screwdriver.
The MRE collided with something solid. "Watch it!"
Oh, there it was. He set that aside too, needing just one more thing.
"Look, I'm sorry."
When the hand landed on his shoulder, a furious tremor rolled through Rodney. "Don't touch me!"
The hand disappeared, and Rodney snarled savagely. Where the hell was that life signs detector? He knew he packed it, he always packed it. It didn't matter that he couldn't remember anything before this 'afternoon'; he knew that device always came offworld.
"What's wrong with you?"
There. There! It was just hidden underneath the camcorder. Why the hell did he bring a camcorder and not rubber gloves? Stupid, stupid, stupid. He pulled out the small Ancient device, eyeing it critically.
Yes, it would do.
And then he proceeded to dismantle the ten thousand year old device with reckless abandon and screwdriver in hand. He ignored the protests and demands for explanation, wishing he could work faster. Maybe he could if his hands would stop shaking.
It would be okay, though, because time really didn't matter. It would just repeat itself. Every seventeen minutes on the dot.
He stripped off the final protective covering on the life signs detector, pulling out several of the crystal slats that made up the machine's circuitry.
Pain didn't matter. Injuries couldn't hurt if they never happened in the first place.
Next was his radio. He forced his hands to still as he carefully detached the wires from the transistors. They came off easily and he took the ends and twisted them together until the entire thing was about the length he'd need.
People didn't matter. They just died.
Finally, he turned to the machine, using the screwdriver to hack off the panels he would need to get at the scorched crystal.
And most of all, death didn't matter - because it wasn't permanent.
"What the hell, Rodney?" John breathed.
And maybe he had been muttering the whole time, but that didn't matter either. Nothing he or anyone else did meant a damn thing, because in seventeen minutes it wouldn't have happened. That probably meant he shouldn't even be doing this, but what the hell? He had nothing to lose by trying.
Two hands gripped the front of his vest, giving him a hard shake. "Snap out of it!"
"Leave me alone!" He tried to wrench himself free. "I don't have time for you!"
"I thought you just said that time 'doesn't matter'," John growled back.
"Let me go!"
"Not until you stop raving like a lunatic and tell me what the hell is going on in that head of yours."
Of course he was a lunatic. Of course he was crazy. He couldn't not be at this point. "Do you know how many times I have told you?"
"Told me what?"
"About time loops, about P4X-639, about murdering psychopaths, about ambushes, and about that goddamn machine!"
"I don't understand."
"You never do." Rodney managed to pull himself free, grabbing the crystals, the wires, the screwdriver and the panels. "And I'm finally past the point of caring about that!"
"Rodney-"
"Figure it out yourself, Mr. Could-Have-Been-Mensa!" He disappeared under the console, taking his arsenal with him. "You and this Danvers person can just go to hell!"
"Danvers?"
"Yes, Danvers." Rodney sneered as he trapped the sparking wire, moving it aside so he could grab the bad crystal. "Whoever he is, apparently he's important enough to be your dying request!"
A hand landed on his ankle, and Rodney lashed out, hearing John yelp as he found his mark. Good. He needed to just go away, because Rodney had very important work to do.
"I am not going away!"
Rodney also really needed to stop muttering. It certainly wasn't helping things.
"I can wait out here just as long as you can."
"I doubt that!" He shifted awkwardly, movement restricted by the lack of space under the console, and grabbed the supplies he had gathered from the bag. "I give you about ten minutes and you'll be making that same damn comment about me being out of practice."
He picked at the wires from one end until he had several threads, and proceeded to carefully wrap them around the metal shaft of the screwdriver.
"Just calm down-"
"I ask you, what do I need practice on?" He grabbed a piece of gum, not bothering to stop his rant as he savagely smacked it around in his mouth. "Was that even funny the first time you said it?"
"Rodney-"
He spat out the gum, now a sticky wad and tore it in half. He took one piece and sandwiched it between the two crystals from the life signs detector; the other he stuck on the tip of one finger. "Don't you Rodney me. I've heard my name so much since this damn time loop started it's lost all meaning."
"Time loop?" John swore. "Wait... P4X-639?"
"You're slower than Lupin!" Rodney cursed, having to manually fray the tiny copper threads on the free end of the wire. When that was complete, he carefully pressed them on top of the crystal sandwich and used the remaining gum wad to adhere it to the surface.
"Lupin?" John squawked. "What in the hell-?"
And taking care to not electrocute himself, because it would be really inconvenient to have to wait for the tingling to stop to try again, Rodney jammed the tethered screwdriver in the place of the burnt crystal.
John had finally taken the hint and fallen silent, which suited Rodney just fine. He watched as the console glowed blue when it made a connection with the patch job and admired his handiwork. Hopefully, it would be able to stabilize the power long enough for him to make the necessary programming tweaks with the tablet.
He wriggled back out from under the console, triumphant. All he needed now was-
Lupin.
Rodney stared dumbly as Lupin shoved the barrel of John's pilfered nine millimeter into the colonel's temple. Another of his goons had a shotgun buried between John's shoulder, and further beyond that Teyla and Ronon were in similar peril. And that wasn't right, because he hadn't heard the gunfire that should have led up to the team's capture.
Or maybe he had, but he'd tuned it out. It was becoming alarmingly easy to will himself to not hear things. You heard it once, you heard it a hundred and fifty times. If he were being completely honest with himself, the only thing he was certain of was what he had been doing a few moments ago and the ever present countdown ticking in the back of his mind.
"I think you understand my terms, Dr. McGoo. Do you think you'll agree to help me fix my machine?" Lupin cocked the trigger of the gun.
Make that two things he was certain of.
Because without a doubt Rodney knew that if he didn't agree, then the silent movie of a chest stilling under his hands and hazel eyes clouding over in a permanent expression of shock would find itself playing out in vivid color and surround sound-
-because of that, Rodney could only nod mutely.
"I can't hear you."
"Yes," he found his voice, "I'll help you fix your machine."
"Good." He lowered the pistol and ambled over to Rodney's side. "No tricks."
"Just leave them alone."
"I'm making the demands here."
"Yes, of course."
John's face tightened in fury at the resigned tone, but Rodney ignored him. As long as he didn't do anything obtuse like jump in front of a shotgun again, he just didn't care.
"Now, show me what I need to do."
Rodney started to reach for the tablet, but at the angry glower stopped himself and merely indicated it. "You'll need to use that to turn it on."
Lupin picked up the tablet and eyed the screen curiously. "And now?"
Rodney began to talk him through the sequence to access the subroutines that regulated the power output, eyes glued to the tablet's display. In the back of his mind, the clock was still ticking, edging closer to the reset point as Lupin navigated through the interface program at a gratingly slow pace.
"And then-what are you doing?"
"I think I can figure it out from here," Lupin said haughtily. "Now if I just-"
Instead of reaching for the command line to disperse the excess energy build-up like Rodney had instructed, Lupin's finger hovered over the command line that would cause the machine to draw up even more power. With the already unstable system, if Lupin pressed that...
"No!" Rodney lunged for the tablet, trying to shove Lupin's hand away as he reached for the proper command.
The other man snarled, trying to yank the tablet back. "You lied to me!"
"You idiot, you're about to-"
Their hands tangled for control in a bizarre thumb war as they both tried to slap each other's fingers away from the display. It was an epic battle of wit versus dimwit - thumb versus forefinger - winner-take-all.
"Just shoot them! Shoot all of them!" Lupin shouted over his shoulder.
"No!"
Gunfire erupted from behind him, but Rodney was too busy trying to prevent a catastrophic overload by stupidity to see what was going on. His heart leapt to his throat as chaos engulfed the platform. He couldn't make out one sound from the other, and there was no way to tell what was happening to his team.
With one deft, painful twist to his wrist, Rodney managed to jam his index finger on one part of the screen. Unfortunately at the same moment Lupin's thumb smashed on the opposite end, which instructed the system to perform both functions at once.
Energy crackled in the air as white arcs of electricity leapt from one part of the console to the next. It was going to overload, Rodney realized, instantly releasing his hold on the tablet. Lupin cried out in horror as the key to "his rise to power" began to spark and hiss.
"You've ruined it!"
That was also the moment that Rodney realized that Lupin had discarded John's nine millimeter a few feet from the console. Lupin followed his gaze, coming to the same conclusion. They both made a dive for the gun as a bright, burning energy engulfed the console and lit up the sky with an overpowering white light.
Same old song, two-hundred and thirty-second verse, just the same as the very first. That same damn light, the same platform, and the same silence that haunted him from the end of one loop to beginning of the next. The worst part was that it was true, it was honest to god true that nothing Rodney did mattered. He was truly stuck forever. He could do everything right and he would wind up just where he started, and all of the effort in the world meant absolutely nothing.
"McKay."
The object in his hands weighed too much to be the tablet, and he couldn't comfortably hold that in a two-fisted grip like he could a gun. He must have blinked, mind shut out the first five minutes. John wasn't staring back at him anymore, but Lupin with wide fearful eyes fixated on the gun barrel pressing into his forehead. The countdown in the back of his mind contradicted the fast forward. According to it he had sixteen minutes left. And Rodney didn't remember this variation on the theme. So maybe it was his imagination, which to his great horror as a scientist had become more and more vivid these past seventeen minutes.
Or was it one now, since technically he had sixteen to go?
That was a conundrum for sure. Maybe he'd bring it up to John at the start of the next loop. He always enjoyed a good math riddle - that is he did when he wasn't too busy leaping into oncoming traffic and gunfire meant for other people.
"Rodney."
He could still hear the echo of three successive blasts, which really wasn't right because those generally happened around minute fifteen or sixteen. And he was only at a hundred and nineteen seconds. So he quite possibly was imagining those too.
The gun in his hand felt heavy enough to actually be real, and the panicked breathing of the person responsible for it all was quite convincing. Maybe Rodney's internal clock was off, and that was what was wrong with the situation.
Or perhaps it was the fact that the smooth metal of the trigger felt pretty reassuring, or that he could finally give Lupin a taste of his own medicine. That sounded nice. He promised he'd get even, didn't he?
"You did it. It's over."
It was never over. Never finished. That was the problem with infinity, you never got to the end - you could only grasp at something just out of reach. If he pulled the trigger it wouldn't mean a thing, because in only eight hundred and forty seconds it would start again. In a world with no consequences Rodney could go eye for an eye, and never have to deal with the guilt.
"Give me the gun, Rodney. Please."
And if John could just shut up for a few minutes, that would be spectacular. Because with eight hundred and twenty nine seconds left he wasn't dead yet, but probably eyeing that proverbial mine field as if it might be a fun stroll through the park.
"I'm not suicidal, McKay." There was that familiar hand, trying to drag him back to the surface as he drowned in the abyss. "Just give me the damn gun."
It would be nice if the words were real, the hand not imagined, and the voice to be speaking the truth. But it couldn't, because there were still eight hundred and thirteen seconds left on the clock.
"I swear I'm not lying to you."
And he was still muttering everything, wasn't he?
"Rodney," John said his name again, tone as patient as the seventeen minute day was long, "do you trust me?"
And that was a stupid question. Stupid because there was only one answer, stupid because it didn't need to be asked, stupid because they both knew that. And it scared Rodney to death that somehow something so stupid, so unintelligent and utterly ridiculous had such a hold on him.
He couldn't stop himself from nodding, because the action was as ingrained into him as breathing, and that was wrong. Logic dictated that he think everything through. Logic dictated that he analyze all of his options before taking any action. But he wasn't sure if logic had any place in a world where there was only a thousand and twenty seconds, where dead men rose from the grave with a laugh and a grin, and where everything that happened didn't happen.
So logically, there was only one thing to do.
He loosened his hold on the pistol and let the phantom hand pull it from his grasp.
And it was probably still his imagination when he heard John growl to the still kneeling Lupin, "You come near him or any one of us again - I promise you that I'll finish what he started."
It was kind of nice in theory. But in seven hundred and fifty three seconds it probably wouldn't matter anyway.
"Come on, Rodney, let's go home."
And John wouldn't lie to him, but Rodney had a hard time believing the words anyway.
* * * * *
The salty tang of the ocean breeze and solitude of the balcony was a welcome change from the oppressive sterility of the infirmary and Carson's smothering. Rodney wasn't quite sure when he'd acquired a Scottish gentleman as his mother, and while some days the concern was a welcome change from the amused grins that accompanied his usual string of complaints, today wasn't one of those.
Part of him knew that his silence was unnerving but Rodney couldn't trust himself to speak, not until he stopped tensing up every sixteen minutes and fifty nine seconds. Nineteen turns of the looping clock by his count, and he was still waiting for a bright flash of light to indicate for him to start his song and dance again.
It was just wrong on so many levels that technically the nightmare could be over, everyone could be safe, and that Rodney wasn't able to move on. Not for lack of want or trying - because he really wanted to be able to lay down and sleep like Carson had told him without hearing the endless rattle of gunfire. He wanted to be able to close his eyes and meditate like Teyla offered and not see his hands covered in blood. He wanted to be able to escape by any method possible. Hell, he had even asked Ronon to teach him how to wield a sword.
It would figure that the one time that Rodney wanted to have the thoughts beaten out him Ronon would offer him a pilfered pudding cup instead. Not that Rodney passed up the pudding, he wasn't that far gone, but it was the principle of the matter. Pudding only lasted so many spoonfuls before he was left with an empty plastic cup and a mind wandering down an uncomfortably distressing road.
Unable to speak for fear of what might come out, unable to eat because he had already gorged himself, and unable to stop himself from remembering, Rodney sought solitude. If he couldn't find peace, he could at least suffer with as few people watching as possible.
And he wasn't sure what it said when Ronon and Teyla helped cover his exit without him needing to ask. Carson had to release him since technically Rodney was perfectly healthy, because technically only seventeen minutes passed in which the most physical action he had seen was a thumb war and a scramble for a pistol.
John had disappeared as soon his own physical was complete, for whatever reason Rodney didn't know, and a large part of him really didn't care. That made him almost sick to his stomach, but he had seen enough of the man - inside and out - to last at least a few hours. He had no need for that steadying presence on Atlantis to remind him second after second of exactly how far he had fallen.
Speak of the devil and he's sure to appear.
The door leading out to the balcony swished open quietly before another body settled in next to him. Rodney didn't look up from the dark water rolling in front of them, too busy listening for the crash of each wave against the dock below.
"So," John said quietly, "I just did the math."
"Of course you did."
"Counting from when we missed our check-in, to the time it took for the gate to realign itself with the rest of the system and let us re-establish contact-"
"I'm perfectly capable of remembering that much, Sheppard."
"-forty three hours and twenty-one minutes," John blew out a breath, "making it about a hundred and fifty three loops of seventeen minutes."
"Your math astounds me, because obviously I'm too far gone to do those calculations on my own."
"Rodney," John shifted, leaning more of his weight onto the railing, "I think that's about a hundred and thirty six more than I could handle before having a psychotic episode."
"Nice to know what we're calling it."
"That's not what I'm saying and you know it."
"Then why did you pick seventeen loops to be your magical breaking point?"
"Because after about five nonstop hours-"
"Four point eight!"
"-of someone taking you guys hostage over and over, I'm pretty sure I'd have pulled that trigger."
"Maybe that was what I should've done in the first place."
"No!" Out of the corner of his eye, Rodney could see John spearing him with a fierce look. "That's not you!"
"Two days-it went on for almost two straight days. If it had been you, we wouldn't have even made it to twelve hours!"
"If it had been me, there's a good chance that we'd still be on that planet."
"I don't need you to patronize me-"
"Damn it Rodney, I might be a member of Mensa in an alternate universe, but I'm not you. I wouldn't have been able to fix that machine no matter how long we spent on that twisted merry-go-round."
"I find that very hard to believe."
"Exactly who do you think I am?"
Rodney continued to stare at the waves, not sure how to answer that, and pretty sure he didn't want to try since in seventeen minutes any words wouldn't magically be forgotten. He tightened his grip on the balcony, because part of him thought that might be a bad thing.
However the question had been a challenge and Rodney didn't let those go unanswered.
"I don't think you're someone who would have lost it in less than two days."
"A lot can happen in two days, Rodney."
He breathed in sharply, because that was too true. A person could experience all of their worst fears in a forty-three hour period, and it would follow them wherever they tried to hide after the fact.
"Don't take this the wrong way - but after two-straight days of being 'out of practice', I'm just a little sick of you."
"I wouldn't say you're the greatest company right now, either."
"Hence my desire to be alone. Something more clever people were able to pick up on."
"I gave you a few hours," John said lightly.
"Which doesn't add up, just like your math."
"I had a few things to take care of." John glared at the waves. "And don't think I didn't catch you trying to change the subject."
"Things?"
John chewed his lips. "Had to iron out a few details with Elizabeth."
Rodney stiffened.
"Like how the whole team should take a few days before Heightmeyer starts beating down our doors."
"The whole team?"
"Well, we were taken hostage a hundred plus times. It's kind of stressful."
"You don't remember any of that!"
John shrugged. "So?"
"So-so you three are perfectly sane!"
"Just like you."
"I think I'll leave the psychoanalysis to the professionals."
"I can go get her right now if that's what you want."
"God, no!"
"That's what I thought."
Irritation flashed through him and he twisted, still clinging tightly to the balcony, to face his friend. "Just where do you get off?"
"Dirty question, Rodney," John grinned.
"Asshole," he spat. "You have no right to waltz in here, when I need to be alone, and tell me what I think or feel!"
"I'm not doing that, Rodney."
"The hell you are!"
"Exactly what have I forced you to think or feel against your will?"
And it all came crashing back then, the stench of electrified flesh, hands sticky with blood, of control being taken from him with a simple question of trust. "I don't think I want to answer that right now."
"Fair enough." John's elbow shifted, lightly bumping against Rodney's locked arm.
He wanted to pull away, but that would have required letting go long enough to find another point of solitude. So he put up with the friendly-not-quite-contact with extreme reluctance.
But he didn't have to be happy about it. "And you owe me an explanation."
"Oh?"
"Yes," Rodney ground out, "it's now nighttime on Atlantis, and we're not fighting for our lives."
"I'm listening."
"I want to know who Danvers is," and Rodney didn't feel guilty at the startled inhalation of breath, because turnabout was fair play, "and why he's so important."
"My dying request, right?"
Rodney stilled. "I didn't-"
"You said a lot of things, probably without realizing it."
He closed his eyes, a million different feelings washing over him, disgust, anger, and not a small amount of fear over what had been overheard and how it would be interpreted. "I didn't mean-"
"No," John breathed, "it's okay."
"But you don't like to think about him-"
"Just like you don't want to think about what that bastard put you through," John growled.
"You don't remember-"
"I know enough," John's voice was low, "to have to come out here to keep myself from dialing up that planet and finishing the job."
"So, you're not just out here to keep me from taking a swan dive?"
"It's not all about you, Rodney."
"So then who's Danvers?"
John pursed his lips, eyeing the waves below for a long stretch.
"You don't have to-"
"Technically there were two Danvers," he said quietly, careful to not break his staring contest with the ocean, "back when I was in Afghanistan."
"Two?"
"Brothers; one a Ranger, the other a Marine." John paused. "The squadron of marines were caught in an ambush - not many made it out."
Rodney didn't say anything, just waited.
"The surviving brother took it pretty hard," John's lazy perch on the balcony had shifted until he was mirroring Rodney's tight grasp on the railing, "if you know what I mean."
Rodney's chest felt a little too tight and he barely managed a soft, "I've got an idea."
"I had the misfortune of being in the same hangar when he snapped." The nerve in John's jaw twitched as he clenched his teeth together, as lost in the past as Rodney had been before the colonel's timely arrival.
"Do I want to know what happened?"
The smile was forced, tight. "He had a gun on my co-pilot."
Rodney had been around the military long enough to know that they didn't take that sort of threat lightly - and it didn't take much of an imagination to fill in the gaps. He eyed the waves lapping angrily at the dock below. "Everything you needed to know."
"What?"
"That's what you told me - bringing up Danvers would tell you everything you needed to know."
John's shoulders hunched up, his grip on the railing not going lax at the conclusion of the tight-lipped confession.
"You used me," Rodney's voice had gone quiet, "to send yourself a message that I was going to lose it?"
"Rodney-"
"About someone you had to shoot to protect a teammate? Are you trying to tell me that-"
"No!" The vehemence behind the statement startled both of them. "Never."
Rodney squirmed, uncomfortable, "Then..."
John sighed heavily, sinking his weight against the railing. "I don't remember the original conversation, you know that."
Rodney took that moment to shift ever so slightly to the right, away from the tension radiating off the man next to him. The weight of the confession hung in the air heavily. Rodney was pretty sure he was going to regret what he was about to say next, but perhaps John equally deserved an explanation for why he would willingly drag up these memories in the first place.
"You told me you wouldn't get over it."
John flicked a curious look in his direction. "Get over what?"
"Oh, you know..." Despite the hammering in his chest, Rodney tried to act nonchalant as he waved a hand at the water, "Lupin's whole 'let's break McKay' thing."
The nerve in John's jaw twitched again.
"Although it would probably be 'let's break Mandalay' or some other bizarre way of mangling my last name." Rodney laughed harshly. "He really sucked with names."
John didn't chuckle. He didn't agree or really do much of anything other than remain absolutely silent.
"I said you'd get over it, you know, seeing as you wouldn't remember." And because John still wasn't saying anything, Rodney kept going. "Maybe you wanted to tell yourself about the ambush or you were sick of being left out of the loop or you just wanted to prove me wrong or something-"
"That very first bit," John said tightly, "that would do it I think."
"The ambush?"
"Sure Rodney." He rolled his eyes, as if McKay had just suggested that he could divide by zero. "The ambush. You know how much I hate being snuck up on."
"You do! You hate it just about as much as-as..."
John raised an eyebrow.
"You didn't mean the ambush."
"No," John agreed, and turned back to the sea, "I didn't."
Rodney nodded mutely, fighting to swallow the lump that had worked its way back into this throat. His attention wandered back to the ocean as well, but the waves were still unable to soothe the tension chasing him. He shifted restlessly, reluctantly loosening his death grip on the railing so he could find a more comfortable position for the long term.
"You can go, you know." He glanced over to where John was still staring off into the distance. "I'm going to be a while."
"I can wait."
"Seriously, it's not like I'm going to get any sleep. I could be out here all night; you're just wasting your time."
"I'm good."
He huffed out an annoyed breath at the stubbornness. "Don't you have somewhere else you'd like to be right now?"
"Nope." As if it were a natural effort, John settled into the space Rodney had tried to create, close enough so that their elbows lightly bumped against each other. "I don't think I do."
"Fine," he let his gaze drift upwards, tracing out the various constellations found on all of the Gates in the galaxy, "but it's your loss."
"No, Rodney, it most definitely is not."
And for the first time in more than a hundred and seventy-two increments of seventeen, a genuine, pure smile escaped Rodney. It came unbidden just like the quiet presence at his side. Unbidden, but not unwelcome.