Work Text:
First published in Brotherhood 3 (2007)
What do you see in McKay?, one of my guys asks me once in a while.
Not often, mind you, because even though I’m not one of those stiff COs I always seemed to be blessed with back on Earth, there’s an eternal gap between the ranking military officer and his men that no amount of friendliness is gonna bridge. And asking their CO why he picked someone to be on his team is mighty close to bridge-building.
But every once in a while, the conversation gets casual enough, and the airman--it’s usually an airman because the marines don’t forget their place--brash enough to ask. Why McKay? Why not Zelenka, or one of the dozens of other scientists we brought with us, or even another serviceman? Sure, McKay comes up with answers to seemingly unsolvable problems faster than most people can tie their shoes, but he also whines a lot and isn’t in the best shape and is allergic to half the things we come into contact with and did I mention whining? So what did I see in him that they didn’t?
I didn’t understand the question the first time. What was there to see? The guy was smart, he was resourceful, and maybe I was a closet masochist, but the whining amused me. I saw in him a good addition to my team, and he’s proved me right more times than I can count. Wasn’t that enough?
It wasn’t until the third time that the real meaning of the question dawned on me, dumb grunt that I am. They didn’t want to know why he was on my team, because we Air Farce or Chair Force or whatever the Jarheads call us behind our backs are still a pragmatic lot. Rodney got the job done, so he had a place on the team. Made sense. What they wanted to know was why I liked him.
But I never answer that one and never would, just smile flatly each time and put the big-mouth on extra duty for the next week. Funny, but there haven’t been a lot of questions lately.
It’s not because it’s none of their business, though, which it’s not, or because they got too chummy with their CO, which they did. It’s not because they always ask with that smirk that says they’re not gonna hear anything I say, let alone understand it. It’s not even because I don’t know the answer. I do. It’s because they needed to ask at all.
If I did answer them, though--out of sheer morbid curiosity as to what they’d do with this bit of information, mind you--it’d be by telling them a story.
This story.
They were all dead.
I circled the clearing with my weapon lifted to my shoulder, finger on the trigger, ready to fire at the slightest flicker of life between the trees. But there was none. Nothing but the rustle of branches in the breeze and bird song starting up again, now that all the yelling and shooting was over. My eyes kept flicking back to the trees, looking for a target, but finding none returned again and again to the scene around me.
Three dead bodies. My team.
Teyla was nearest, walking point as usual. She’d been the first one to pick up anything amidst the muted forest noises and had motioned us to a halt. She lay at my feet now, the first one to fall. Eyes closed, head tilted just so, she looked asleep except for the ragged red holes in her chest.
Ford had been at our six, and had run up to me before the echo of the first shot had died, ready to protectively sandwich Rodney between us. He’d gone down next, first a hit to the leg, then a finishing shot to the throat. His eyes were wide open, his arms still cradling his gun. A good man to the end.
And Rodney... They’d gotten Rodney in the face. I didn’t even look his way.
I was watching the trees. But our attackers were gone, long since melted back into the foliage that had hidden them until it was too late. For whatever reason, they’d shown up long enough to assassinate my team and utterly destroy me, but not long enough to finish the job and actually put a bullet in me.
That was their second mistake.
I swept the clearing once more, a dispassionate good-bye to the people I’d have given my life to protect. I can’t tell you for sure what I was thinking because I’m not sure I was. The rational part in me had snapped off like a dead twig, the part that knew revenge was bad and balked at taking human life. The part those three people around me had kept alive and thriving. I didn’t feel anything at all except a savage anger and an awareness that, like a mortal wound, soon this would hurt unbearably. But for now, I was still numb, and that wasn’t such a bad thing.
I crouched low and slunk into the nearest edge of the forest, the leaves parting around me with only a whisper.
I’d be back later to take my team home and give them the farewell they deserved. Leave no man behind, even if they came back in body bags.
But now, I was going hunting.
What do you see in Sheppard?, some of the scientists have asked me in those rare moments when they’ve become confused and thought we were friends. Honestly, go through a few life-and-death crises together, and people start thinking you have a relationship and should be sharing your deepest thoughts and feelings. It doesn’t matter if it’s your genius that saved them in the first place; they seem to believe you owe each other. As if their banal true confessions were something I’d been dying to hear. What is the point of that, anyway, besides changing disinterest to actual loathing?
But I digress.
The question confused me at first. What did I see in the major? Besides hair that would make an orangutan jealous, a nature that was far too easygoing considering how many things out there were trying to kill us, and a somewhat more comprehensible love of flying? Yes, he was a reasonably good team leader, taking on the mantle of leadership with what even I had to admit was impressive skill. He was also the only member of our military who acted like he possessed a working brain, and whom I would have entrusted my life to on a regular basis. But all that was obvious. Why was I supposed to see something more? It’s not like we were dating or something. What kind of question was that?
He’s not a scientist, my vapid colleagues would protest in response. Sure, the goons who know how to point and shoot to keep us alive out here in Pegasus have their place, but that doesn’t mean we have to spend any more time with them than necessary. It’s not like we have anything in common. Why waste energy on someone like John Sheppard when it could be far better spent on research or writing or even a chess game with a “worthy” fellow intellectual.
Clearly, they’ve never seen Sheppard play chess.
When I figured out what they were asking, really asking, and got over my disgust, I started answering. It became a game, in fact, my own personal test as to how outrageous I would have to get before they left me alone. I still don’t know; scientists are a surprisingly gullible lot outside their area of expertise. As for Sheppard, he may have wondered why he was suddenly getting questions about Barry Manilow or exotic orchid growing or having twelve toes. By the time Radek sensitively asked him about his time in prison, I knew John had figured it out, but he never let on, just jumped in and played along, spinning the tale far beyond even my extensive imagination.
And people ask me what I see in him.
The answer, ultimately, is fairly simple. And if anyone who I thought had a prayer of understanding it would have asked me, I’d tell them this story.
But it’s never going to happen, trust me.
One minute we were standing in a clearing, surrounded by trees and looking for whatever it was Teyla had heard, not that I ever hear what Teyla hears. The next minute, we were someplace else.
Pale blue walls and a ceiling surrounded us in cavernous proportions, like a room built for people twice human size. There were no windows, and only one large doorway. I quickly did a three-sixty, trying to figure out how we’d gone from the forest to here and where exactly here was, but saw only my puzzled teammates wondering the same thing.
And then they walked in.
Not much bigger than us, actually, the two looked basically human. But while I’m not a big believer in religious symbolism, the reddish cast to their face and hair somehow immediately had me ominously thinking of devils. For all I knew, they had horns under that bushy hair and tails beneath the tunics they wore. I had no idea how right I’d prove to be.
“Where are we?” I asked impatiently. The lack of information as to what was going on already had me on edge.
“And where is Major Sheppard?” Teyla asked from behind me in a tone I rarely heard from her. I swung back sharply, paying attention now to the faces I’d assumed without looking were really there: Teyla, Ford...but no Sheppard.
I whirled back to our hosts, glowering. “Yes, where is Major Sheppard?”
“And our weapons?” Ford added.
This was just getting better and better. Then the taller devil guy spoke and brought the other shoe crashing down.
“We did not mean to alarm you--you are in no danger and we have not harmed your companion. He is still among the trees where you were.”
“Why not bring him here with us?” Teyla asked, stepping forward, chin lifting. I was reminded again this woman was a leader of her people.
“We have a task for him. This is why you were removed. Your weapons will be returned to you when you leave.”
That really didn’t sound good. “Removed?” Ford echoed my thoughts suspiciously.
“Observe,” devil guy said--his friend didn’t seem to be the talking type--and the far wall suddenly came to life in full Technicolor glory like a 3D television screen. The three of us automatically moved closer to see the image better.
There wasn’t much to see: lots and lots of too-familiar trees roughly encircling a clearing. And in that clearing stood John Sheppard, weapon at ready, posture one of battle-readiness, head swiveling with alertness. But his face...
My eyes narrowed. The frame widened. Suddenly, I understood.
There were bodies lying on the ground around him. Three of them, all very familiar. I felt the nausea rise in my throat as I recognized Aiden Ford’s unseeing gaze, and saw next to him a figure in a black-and-blue jacket. I closed my eyes before I could see more.
“But...that’s us!” You couldn’t put one over our lieutenant.
Teyla understood, however, and said quietly what I was trying very hard not to think about. “He believes we are dead.”
My eyes opened involuntarily, in time to see John’s gaze travel around the clearing one last time. There was no emotion in his face, no grief or anger, but his eyes...they started to burn with a light that made my throat go dry. As I watched, the man I knew disappeared completely, replaced by something feral and more dangerous than I would have ever believed. This man scared me.
One minute he was there, the next he melted into the forest with the intensity of a predator stalking his prey. And I didn’t think that was an analogy.
I stood staring at the now-empty clearing on the screen, then finally licked my numb lips and turned to stare at our diabolical hosts. “What did you do?” I asked hoarsely.
Their expression didn’t change, that placid look apparently the only one they had. “We did what was necessary. I will explain.
“We have not had violence here for many millennia. There is no need for emotion; we have grown beyond it long ago, and its extremes distress us now. There are, regardless, a few on our planet who remain unenlightened and continue to practice bloodshed. They have attacked, killed, frightened many of us. But we have none who are able to stop them.”
“Like Major Sheppard,” I whispered. There were times I wished fervently I wasn’t so fast on the uptake.
“Indeed. We immediately saw he was a warrior and could help us. However, even emotion needs motivation, and so we provided it. By believing you were attacked and killed, he will now retaliate and solve our problem as well.”
“But how? I mean...that’s not us.” Ford asked. I was still working to understand that John thought we were dead, and trying not to picture myself in his place.
“We are capable of creating illusion as powerful as reality. We merely removed you from the clearing and gave your Major Sheppard the illusion of your attack and deaths. For him, it was very real.”
“My God,” I spoke before I realized it. “And you call them barbarians!”
“What Dr. McKay means is that you have no right either to inflict such pain on Major Sheppard nor to use him in such a way,” Teyla said.
“What Dr. McKay means,” I said sharply, “is that you’re the animals, not the people out in the forest.”
“Doctor...” Teyla demurred.
I wheeled on her. “Did you see his face? He thinks we’re dead. Can you imagine--” And then I really looked at her, and saw that, yes, she could. I slumped. “We can’t just stand here and watch this happen,” I said helplessly.
“It is the only way,” the devil--and it was hard to think of him any other way now--said pleasantly. “Do not worry. You are safe, and your teammate will certainly persevere and then you will rejoin him. All will be well.”
“I think he’s right about the persevering part,” Ford said. Teyla and I turned back to the screen.
The view had changed from the clearing to the forest, and a too-idle part of my brain admired the technology that was somehow filming this, until dread drowned out even that. Because what that amazing technology showed was Sheppard silently closing in on an oblivious pair of chatting natives.
They were as red-tinted as our hosts, but their clothes were less flowing, more utilitarian. They were also armed with what looked like crude rifles, slung casually over their shoulders. Their faces were hard, and I didn’t have any trouble imagining them the murderers our own personal devil claimed they were.
It didn’t make it any easier to watch what happened next.
Sheppard slit the throat of one before I even saw him move, the ear-to-ear slice guaranteeing a silent, bloody death in seconds. Even as I stared, appalled, at the dying man, his confederate joined him with one twist of the neck. The footage had no sound, but I could swear I heard the snap.
“Wow,” Ford breathed next to me, stunned but impressed.
John Sheppard, a shadow of the man with whom I’d had a serious discussion of Meg Ryan versus Julia Roberts just the evening before, barely paused to give the two men he’d murdered an uninterested glance before stalking away. Continuing the hunt.
As I turned away, horrified and sickened, I couldn’t help but wonder if the Sheppard of last night was the real shadow.
I lost track of time, place, everything but my mission.
The unfriendlies hadn’t stayed in a group, breaking up into little clusters of one to three, most of them unguarded, casual. Normally, that would have puzzled me; they weren’t acting like a group that had just committed a single, coordinated attack. Now, all that mattered was that it made my job easier.
I used the life-signs detector to point me toward each little group, but as I got close, training and instinct took over and I didn’t need any more help. I was stealthy and deadly, and most of the time the enemy didn’t even know what hit them. Broken necks were the cleanest, slit throats messy but also quiet, and then there was the one guy who managed to fight back and ended up with a broken skull. I had to wipe some of his blood off after that one. It didn’t slow me down.
I did stop once, to take a drink and check my weapons. Standing there, canteen in hand, I flashed back to another mission: Rodney complaining about the taste of the water, Ford offering him his own canteen, to our resident germaphobe’s horror, Teyla watching them with the amusement I usually see in parents of small kids. I felt my mouth twitch; I nearly smiled. For just one brief moment, I almost let it hit me that they were all gone, lying behind me in that clearing. But I dodged it, shut it down ruthlessly. I couldn’t think about that and keep going, keep doing what I was doing, and I had to keep going.
There were sixteen of them. Even in my frenzied fury, I kept count. The last two were the farthest away, as unremarkable as the others had been. I disposed of one almost casually, then without having planned or intended it, switched out my knife for my handgun for the last. There was no need for stealth anymore. He stared at me, shock making his skin pale to almost human tone. I pointed my gun at his head, the center of his forehead, finger on the trigger. And for the first time, I heard one of them speak.
“Why? Why are you doing this?”
None of the rest of them had even had a chance to say something. I don’t know, maybe I let him on purpose, darkly curious as to what he had to say for himself. But I expected excuses and lies--We didn’t know it was you! We were just protecting ourselves!--not a question. I didn’t move a muscle. “You know why.”
“We didn’t do anything!”
I paused. Not hesitated, because it didn’t change a thing. But I did pause to wonder if he was really stupid enough to say something that obviously a lie.
“Please!”
And his hand, near his side, ticked.
With a wordless growl, I pulled the trigger. He rolled aside, already dead, the knife he’d been reaching for clattering to the forest floor. I stared at it, then at his dead eyes, and wondered for a moment if I should have let him do it.
My hand sagged to my side, the gun limp in my fingers. Now what? My mission was done, the unfriendlies gone. All that was left to take care of were the bodies back in the clearing.
Then what?
Teyla watched the massacre impassively, her face harder than I can ever remember seeing it. It didn’t seem to repel her, but then, she’s a warrior. Ford, enthusiastic marine that he is, cheered his commanding officer on. But me...I couldn’t stand to watch. I’ve never been a big fan of gore anyway, but that wasn’t what was turning my stomach about all this.
I spun away violently from the screen, addressing our two silent captors; I’d long since given up thinking of them as hosts. “You have to stop this!”
“It is necessary,” the main guy said, as calmly as if he were asking me if I wanted something to drink.
“Don’t you see what you’re doing to him? You’re hurting a good man, turning him into something he’s not.” I gestured back to the screen behind me.
“We have not changed your teammate. What he is now was always inside him. That is why we chose him.”
Yeah, and that was one of the parts I was having serious trouble with. But I would work that out later. What mattered now was stopping this sick charade. “That may be inside him,” I said tightly, “but that is not who he is. You’re using him. Did you toss your compassion out with your anger?”
“It is necessary,” the devil-in-civilized-clothing repeated impassively.
Frustrated, I turned away, just in time to see Sheppard zero in on a lone man cleaning his weapon. I swallowed and looked down, gaze seizing on my pack. I couldn’t just sit there, watching or even imagining what was going on on that screen, so I did what I could and pulled out my equipment and set up shop right there in the middle of the room. I started scanning the room and the surrounding area. Science at least always made sense.
Only three life signs showed up in the immediate vicinity. Surprised, I glanced up, but the room was empty except for the three of us. The door was also gone. Illusions, I wondered caustically, like our bodies out in the forest? Or just bored with us now that they’d gotten what they wanted?
Ford sucked in a breath, and I bent a little more sharply over my work, determined to shut everything else out.
There wasn’t much to see, though. A lot of power being used nearby, unsurprisingly. For all we knew, everything we’d seen so far was illusion, and that would take a huge amount of power to keep going. But the killing machine Sheppard had become was real, and so were, most likely, the people he was killing. The devil had no reason to lie about that one. What were we going to do, take off in a snit?
My fingers didn’t slow down but my thoughts wandered. I was recording every bit of useful information I could squeeze out of this sick little world because that would be it, there would be no trade or peaceful relations after this. Even if our red friends would have been willing, their lack of emotions meant they would have no reliable ethics, either, as we’d already seen firsthand, and that made for a dangerous ally. The technology hadn’t even tempted me after they’d turned that screen on. No, we wouldn’t be coming back here. If I had any say, we’d erase this address from our computers completely.
“Doctor,” Teyla said quietly behind me, “I believe this is the final one.”
My work basically done, I was shutting down my laptop even as I looked up. Despite myself, my eyes were drawn back to the screen. I slowly climbed to my feet as I realized Sheppard was just standing there, his back to us, his gun trained on one of the forest people, but waiting, listening to what the man was saying. I stared at the scene. Saw the man form the word “please.”
Saw Sheppard shoot him. I jerked as if I’d heard the shot.
There was a glint of a knife as the dead man slumped. He’d been trying to kill Sheppard. It should have made it easier, except I know Sheppard would have killed him even without the knife.
Even as I watched with quiet revulsion, I saw his shoulders bow, something crumbling inside him. He was done. He had nothing left.
The next moment, we were standing behind him in the forest, the room gone as if it had never existed, and maybe it never had. My pack was lying on the leaf-strewn ground now as I stood over it, my handgun heavy at my hip again. And not ten feet away was the bent figure of John Sheppard, his back still to us, two bodies at his feet. The smell of blood and gunpowder was in the air, and it, or something else, made me swallow uneasily.
He must have sensed something, those hyper hunting senses turned up high, because he suddenly turned toward us. And froze.
Sheppard was splattered with blood that wasn’t own. His stance was still that of a predator, and there was a menace in his pared-down movements that the screen hadn’t begun to communicate. But as his stare passed Teyla and paused on me, that wasn’t what made me recoil.
I didn’t recognize him. The eyes could have been a stranger’s, the soul they should have been a window to, completely missing. And even when something almost familiar leapt briefly in those depths, it was gone before I could analyze it.
“Major!” Ford crowed, and that blank gaze left me and moved on to the lieutenant. Then squinted at him.
“Ford?”
“Yeah, it’s me.” He was already sobering, knowing this wasn’t quite the victory scene he’d imagined. No, I thought bleakly. There was one more casualty besides the ones Ford had counted. “Are you okay, sir?”
“Major Sheppard, the aliens of this planet wished you to rid them of an...enemy. They made it appear as if we were dead so that you would retaliate.” Teyla’s tone was respectful and sympathetic. Sheppard had been the victim here, right?
He flinched as her words sunk in. He hadn’t reacted to our being alive, but he did to the thought of being used. Not that I was bitter. I was too busy being angry to be bitter. I just wasn’t sure who to be angry with anymore.
Those dead, empty eyes moved back to me once more. Probably waiting for me to break the ice, say something petulant and amusing to make it all better. Except, how did you make a killing spree better? I didn’t know this person who was staring at me and, uncomfortable, I finally looked away.
“Perhaps we should return to the gate,” Teyla suggested in the long silence that followed. Good idea. I quickly fell to packing my equipment. Great idea. I never wanted to see this planet again. Or trees. Or the color red. Or...
Well, I had no idea what I wanted from John Sheppard. Because the fact of the matter was, the last time I’d seen my friend was back in that clearing, right before we’d been zapped out. Since then, it had only been a stranger masquerading as Sheppard. And while I could have forgiven John what I’d seen him do, the stranger was another matter entirely. In fact, he still scared me, and I moved obliquely to put Ford between us.
It didn’t seem to matter. Without a glance back at us, Sheppard took the lead with Teyla, asking questions in a hoarse, flat tone while Ford and I followed in silence. I noticed we were returning to the gate by way of the clearing, and at its edge we all automatically slowed and stopped, Sheppard staring at the space as if he’d almost expected the bodies to still be there. Then without a word, we moved on.
I thought about his expression as he’d stood there earlier with his team apparently wiped out. I replayed the outrage I’d felt, the arguments I’d made to our captors. A good man... I dwelt again on the fear and compassion I’d felt over what he was going through, the uncertainty of how I would have been able to handle it, and the way his body had sagged when it was over, like his spirit had folded inside him. I pulled it all out and examined it and compared it to the weary figure walking in front of me and...I just didn’t know. Figuring out one person was hard enough and not a particular strength of mine to begin with. But making sense of Jeckyll and Hyde? I just didn’t know if I could do it. If I even wanted to.
We walked through the gate in relief and silence.
They kept watching me, like they expected me to snap and start killing people again at any minute.
I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t, myself. Not the killing part; I killed, and stopped killing, very deliberately. But the snapping part...yeah. And the way they were watching me wasn’t helping.
First it was just McKay on the planet, and believe me, even before it sunk in what was going on, I could tell from his face I’d gone too far. He’d seen what I’d done and it repelled him, Sheppard’s little scientist all grown up. It wasn’t anything I didn’t already know in my gut, but seeing it in McKay’s horrified eyes just drove it home that I’d crossed a line and I wasn’t going back.
Then there was Elizabeth, staring in undisguised shock as I gave my mission report. Teyla had preceded it with her report, which covered the holes in mine, but it didn’t make my story any easier to take. I wasn’t the person they thought they knew anymore, and I could feel things shift between Weir and me, just as they had with McKay.
The strange part, the part I didn’t get at all, was why that didn’t bother me.
I’d had to become my own army of one once before, too, when the Genii invaded Atlantis and took Rodney and Elizabeth hostage. I turned the tables on them, prey becoming predator, and killed some people along the way, including over fifty of them with a flick of a gateroom switch. I’d recoiled at each of those deaths, though. I hadn’t let it slow me down because I had no choice in what I was doing, but still, they dragged on my conscience, along with Sumner and the people I’d lost since stepping through that damned ring. After they called me a hero and everyone congratulated me, came the insomnia and nightmares.
This time...nothing. No recoiling, no regrets, no second thoughts. Not even when I’d learned it was all a setup to get me to kill those people and the real bad guys were the ones who kept their hands clean up in their nice little city. Threw me a little, but remorse? Nope. McKay had seen that, too, and hadn’t met my eyes since. I didn’t feel anything about that, either.
That was the part that made me balk.
So the stares, the whispers as we walked through the gate, then later in the halls after the debriefing, they couldn’t have said anything I hadn’t already wondered about myself, my humanity, my sanity. I’d just killed sixteen people without feeling a thing, and knew I’d do it again in the same situation. I wasn’t proud of that, but I wasn’t ashamed of it, either.
It did make me wonder if I belonged in civilized society, however.
I went straight to my room after the debriefing, ignoring Elizabeth’s tentative suggestion I go see Heightmeyer, ignoring the looks along the way, and locked the door after myself. Then I sank into the nearest chair and didn’t move for a very long time.
I went over the kills one by one, trying to remember the faces. You weren’t supposed to do that because it just made it harder, but that’s what I wanted right now: hard, painful, feeling something. But of all the details, the faces were the sketchiest, except for the last one. Him I remembered clearly, the way he’d looked at me without comprehension, trying to hide his fear. The way his mouth sagged open and his eyes went blank when I shot him. I considered it frame by unflinching frame, searching for a reaction in my heart. Failing.
I stood and strode over to the mirror on the wall. There was still some blood smeared on my cheek and above one eye; Weir had offered to let me shower before the debriefing but I’d refused, wanting it done with. But that wasn’t what I was looking at. I stared into my own eyes, and saw the same emptiness in them as in the guy I’d killed.
God help me, I really was going crazy.
Why was now so different from when the Genii invaded, I wondered, stumbling back to the chair. It had been about saving my people then, not avenging them, yeah. But did that really make all the difference? The men in the forest, none of them were innocents. The devils had had no reason to lie about that; I knew there was blood on the soldiers’ hands, probably more than on most of the Genii’s I’d killed. Did that mean they deserved to be slaughtered like that?
I flashed back to the scene in the clearing, the bullet-ridden bodies, and felt the first stir of...something since I’d turned around to find my team alive. Both scenes were just as sharp and real in my memory, the living and the dead. I had been sure my people had been murdered within a few feet of me.
My hand was trembling as I ran it through my hair.
Yeah, I had reason to react the way I had. Against the wrong people, it turned out, but I don’t think anybody was innocent on that planet. I’d known I had it in me, the ability to kill that way. No one else on the expedition had, though, and I’d just tipped my hand.
I inched a little closer to snapping.
My thoughts kept going back to that scene in the clearing. I hadn’t let them before, but now that I had plenty of time and no distractions, my masochistic little mind wouldn’t take no for an answer anymore. Whether I’d gotten them back or not, I had lost my team that day: Teyla looking like she was sleeping except for how slack her face was. Ford looking surprised, his throat obscenely chewed up. And Rodney...
I didn’t make it to the bathroom in time to throw up.
I left the mess and shuffled the rest of the way into the small room, sitting down on the floor with my back to the wall. I stayed there a long time. At least, I think it was a long time, because when I staggered to my feet and out my room door, the hallways were almost empty. I don’t know what I thought about or even where I thought I was going. I just knew I was feeling again, and it was a lot worse than the not-feeling.
A man without a mission or a place, I simply fled.
Well, I was studiously and intently not getting any work done.
Everybody thinks I spend a good deal of my time in the lab because I was such a genius and always have a lot of work to do. They’re right, of course, but the truth is that some of the time I’m hiding. From the petty squabbles of the scientists under me, from the weight of Atlantis’s responsibility on me, but mostly from the people. I’d never been with so many in such close quarters before and...it gets to me after a while, all the useless chatter and staring eyes and nudging bodies. So, lab. They still know where to find me if necessary--I think everyone looks here now instead of my room--but I get a little badly needed peace, too.
And I badly needed peace just then.
That stranger masquerading as John Sheppard had come back to Atlantis with us, debriefing without first washing the blood of his face. Did he have any idea how repellant that was? Then again, I don’t think he cared much about anything just then.
Certainly not about the sixteen corpses he’d left back on the planet.
It made me wince every time I thought about it. That was more than three times the people I’d lost to that nanovirus infestation from Hell, which I still tried not to think about. But sixteen...and no reaction after. This was the man I’d considered my best friend for months now. How could I not have known he was capable of this? What was I supposed to do now that I knew?
Well...okay, maybe I’d had an idea. Sheppard had turned commando on us once before, and he killed a lot more people then. It seems to me I hadn’t minded it too much either, then, considering some of those people had tortured me and my life was still on the line. We’d even congratulated him after, and there’s probably a nice letter about it from Elizabeth tucked away in his file. So wasn’t I the neat little hypocrite here?
But he’d done it to save us, and the city. It had bothered him, too, I’d seen it. Now, his face looked like it was cut from marble, his eyes cold. Like he’d left his humanity back in that clearing.
With our bodies.
And there, people, was the rub. John hadn’t suddenly flipped out and gone homicidal. He’d been driven to it by our apparent deaths. Because he’d cared enough, because we mattered enough to him to react that strongly. Didn’t exactly mesh with the unemotional wasteland that was the man now, did it?
Maybe the real issue wasn’t what had he’d done on that planet. The more I thought about it, the less it surprised me he had that in him, and if the detachment was necessary for survival, more power to him. Honestly, there was a pragmatic comfort in knowing someone was on your side who could get the job done, because next time it could be my life back on the line. No, the real question should have been, could things go back to the way they were, the John Sheppard I knew reclaiming the shell that was walking around the city and the rest of us not looking at him like he was a ticking time bomb?
I didn’t know. I really didn’t know.
The door opened.
I frowned into the hands I was scrubbing my face with, frown deepening when I saw the object of my distraction standing in the door. He was still in his mission outfit, still bloody, and that was pretty much the last thing I wanted to be seeing right now.
“What are you--?”
My eyes reached his face, and my irritated question stopped in its tracks.
His arm rose to clasp the edge of the door frame, knuckles immediately blanching white, and my gaze followed the movement. “My God, you’re shaking,” I murmured. I’d already slipped off my work stool and I took a step closer. “Major?”
He didn’t answer. It looked like it was taking everything he had just to stand there. The shaking alone should have rattled him off his feet. And then there were his eyes. Not empty anymore, not at all. But he wasn’t back, either. He was just...lost. Profoundly lost. Yet he’d found his way to my lab.
I considered calling Carson. For at least a whole second I thought about it. The shaking had to be some kind of emotional shock or PTSD or some other unhelpful acronym, and there were surely medical things that could be done to help him. But...nothing was secret in Atlantis. John’s condition would be all over the city within an hour, and that was the last thing he needed right now. No, the only secret that would stay safe would be the one behind closed doors.
I took the last few steps over to him, tugged him a little further inside, and keyed the door to shut and lock behind him.
Knowing what not to do wasn’t the same as knowing what to do, however, and I stood there a moment with a handful of his jacket, staring at him uncertainly, him staring back at me. His eyes hadn’t budged from me from the moment he’d first appeared.
This was John Sheppard, my friend, in pain. I could do this.
“Here, Major,” I said, cajoling him toward the cot a few feet away. “Sit down before your legs give out. I’m not carrying you.”
His legs did give out a few moments later, dumping him onto the edge of the cot, where he swayed for a moment, ready to topple off before I caught him. Good enough.
“Okay, let’s just take your jacket off then, shall we? Besides the fact that it’s grossing me out, I don’t think you need it anymore.” His hands were actually freezing; I winced when I brushed against one as I pulled his vest off. It just didn’t seem like a jacket soaked in your enemies’ blood would do much to warm you up.
The vest ended up in a heap by the bed. I didn’t often worry about neatness and even less now. As I reached for his jacket, though, Sheppard pulled it a little closer to himself. “Rodney.” Speaking took visible effort, and for the first time, his eyes shied away from me. “You don’t--”
I could see where this was going, and glad as I was that he was present enough to be stringing words together, I cut him off before he embarrassed both of us. “Shut up,” I said briskly. “You gave up any right to object when you wandered into my lab.” I started wrestling with his jacket, and this time he didn’t resist. In fact, that almost looked like a wan smile. I ignored him, concentrated on what I was doing, and let my mouth run on on its own. “You didn’t want to be fussed over, you shouldn’t have shown up here looking like a reject from Night of the Living Dead.” There was the sour smell of vomit on his breath, too, and I didn’t have to wonder too hard what he’d been doing before he got here.
The jacket followed the vest, and boots and holster followed the jacket. The eyes that were watching me were more aware now and a little self-conscious. But considering he was still trembling violently, I thought I had a solid case for staying in charge. I pulled the two cot blankets up around his shoulders and reached down to tuck his hands in.
They were streaked with red, his nails rimmed with it.
“Just a minute, Major,” I said quietly, and hurried into the adjoining bathroom, grabbing a dish I used for parts on the way. I returned with warm water and a wad of toilet paper, to find him sitting exactly as I’d left him. “Oh, so now you listen to me,” I griped softly as I crouched in front of him and started cleaning. “When I’m talking about discoveries that might change the course of civilization, you yawn and make fun, but, sit, stay, that you listen to. Perhaps I was using words with too many syllables. I should have expected a canine-level intelligence in the first place.” I cleaned the blood off his face as gently as I could and moved on to his hands. A minute at the sink would have been a lot easier, but moving him to the bathroom for that...uh, no.
He’d endured it all silently, but as I worked on his hands, I could hear him swallow and glanced up. He looked old. “McKay,” he murmured, then shook his head.
I wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. Resignation? Despair? It wasn’t like I understood the man all the time when he was himself, let alone this struggling-for-normalcy version. So I kept doing the only thing I knew, taking care of what was needed but acting like nothing unusual was happening.
“I realize this might not be up to your usual standards of hygiene,” I said in a tone only a few shades less scathing than normal. “Although considering what you do to your hair, the less said about your personal care, the better.” One nail was proving particularly stubborn, and I scrubbed hard at it. “But anytime you want to get up and go take a shower, be my guest. Just, uh, in your quarters, of course.”
His hands were basically clean now, and I dried them in the edge of the blanket, then chafed them between my own to warm them up. They didn’t get warm per se so much as less cold, but I finally decided that was good enough and tucked them up against his side, then wound the blanket around him. Getting something warm inside him, too, would have been ideal, but considering we didn’t have any convenient panels on the walls that disgorged food like on Star Trek and the mess hall was two floors away, this would have to do.
“Okay, Major, let’s sit you back against the wall, okay?”
I expected to be manhandling him into place, but he surprised me by helping scoot backward so that he rested against the wall. He tilted his head back, too, and blinked wearily at the ceiling.
I stood there uncertainly a minute wondering, now what? The blood was gone, he was as warm and comfortable as I could make him, but the aloofness remained, as well as the tremors that wracked him. With an exasperated sigh, I climbed up next to him, shoulder to shoulder, adding body heat and my company to the effort.
We sat like that a long time. I’m not sure what was going through his mind, but mine was churning. This was the machine who’d murdered sixteen people today without hesitation. The man who’d killed because he’d lost his entire team. The friend I’d fretted over losing because he didn’t seem to be feeling any of it. The shaking was only just starting to get better, but I would have bet that his eyes, if I could see them, were still as wounded as when he’d first shown up at the door. My door.
I tilted my head his way. “They used you,” I said conversationally, but if he could have looked into my eyes, he would have seen something different.
A few seconds passed. “I know. I let them,” he said gruffly.
“No, letting them would have meant you’d have known what was going on,” I corrected patiently. “You reacted.”
He didn’t answer, but I could feel what he was thinking.
I sighed. “Look, as much as I’d like to pretend I’m shocked by what you did, I’m not. Okay, yes, I was at first, but now, I’m really not. You watched all of us die. If I’d have been in your shoes, I probably would have gone a little insane, too. Only much less...productively.”
A soft snort greeted that euphemistic assessment. My going crazy would have been dangerous only to myself and possibly some plant life I would have managed to shoot up before they took me out. No, the devils knew who to use. And as far as I was concerned, that made Sheppard the victim.
“The point is,” I continued flatly, “it’s part of who you are. If you didn’t have that in you,” and I trod softly here on the unburied bones of memories, “we would have lost the city by now and Elizabeth and I would be dead. So as far as I’m concerned, this is not such a bad thing.”
“I killed sixteen people today,” he said tonelessly.
There was a lot I could have said here: they weren’t innocents, he’d only done it because we were dead, he’d been tricked. But all I said quietly was, “I’ve killed a few, too, remember?” And I had. Deliberately--building bombs, force fields, and one memorable malfunctioning dam--and indirectly: making mistakes, figuring things out too slowly, letting ZedPMs slip through our fingers. “It’s not exactly why I joined this expedition,” I added.
“Yeah, that wasn’t on the Air Force recruiting brochures, either.” He was almost still now, only the occasional shudder still passing through him. His voice remained off, but at least it wasn’t the gruff monotone from the planet and the briefing. Now it held pain and, increasingly, fight. His head rolled a little toward mine. “So you’re saying it’s okay because you’ve done it, too?” Now he sounded almost whimsical.
I stared at him incredulously. “Is that what your twisted little mind came up with, killing is okay because my best friend does it, too? Okay, fine, yes, if it makes you feel better, I absolve you of all guilt because I’ve been forced into impossible situations and extreme choices that will give me nightmares for the rest of my life. Happy?”
“Not really, no.”
We’d sobered up fast. Already I was wishing I could take what back what I’d said. My lips twisted. “I really suck at this.”
“Yeah, you do.”
“Thank you for that,” I said dryly. “Yet still you keep turning up.”
“Still I keep turning up,” he agreed quietly. Because still I kept trying to put him back together, and although one day I might not be able to, still he kept turning up. As did I at his door, when he didn’t track me down first. Either we were complete masochists, or something about the two of us worked despite our decided lack of practice or experience at fixing people.
“All I’m saying is...” I cast around for the right words, wanting to get this right. “You were human. And I hate to disappoint you, but despite the sizeable Sheppard ego, that’s all you are. When you saw your team get wiped out before your eyes, you had a human response. It doesn’t make you any less than you were. In fact, some might say the reverse. So...get over it.”
“I’m not sure Elizabeth would quite agree with you.”
“Yes, well, that problem can wait until tomorrow. One crisis per day, okay?”
“Tomorrow.” He did sound exhausted. And not at peace, but at least here again, no longer lost. Maybe I wasn’t too good at the talking and comforting parts, but playing signpost, standing solidly in one place so he could find his own way back, that I could do.
“Tomorrow,” I repeated softly.
It happened gradually, unlike the sudden and decisive way I usually saw him fall asleep. This time he reluctantly let himself be soothed into slumber inch by inch, his head finally sliding over to rest on my shoulder. There was a comfort in knowing you weren’t the only person left in the world, so I let him make me his pillow and just sat there, still feeling the odd aftershock shake him in sleep. He didn’t usually snore, but the angle of his neck made his breathing loud.
Behold the killing machine that wiped out a planet’s crime problem. I’d worried I would never recognize him again, and here he was sleeping on my shoulder. There would probably be drool by morning, even worse breath, and that porcupine hair tickling my ear. All this because he’d killed a bunch of murderers in a fit of grieving vengeance. Maybe my time in Atlantis had twisted my standards, and I doubt John would have agreed with me, but I probably admired him more just then than I had after the Genii attack.
All of which would stay my secret, too. One good thing about us loners is we’re good at keeping secrets.
And the rare friend.
I woke up not knowing where I was.
That doesn’t happen very much anymore; as a soldier, if you don’t know where you are when you wake up, you can easily get dead. But for a moment, although I immediately recognized the décor of Atlantis, the mattress under me wasn’t familiar and the snoring in my ear definitely threw me.
A lab. Rodney’s lab. Rodney’s snoring, too. And me bundled up beside him like a swaddled baby, my chin on his shoulder.
The planet. The ambush. Sixteen men. Oh.
Oh.
I moved slowly and carefully, first getting my arms free, then easing away from Rodney. But it looked like I’d been leaning against him, not vice versa, and he stayed right where he was, sawing logs as he sat propped against the lab wall. My memory supported the leaning part, wasn’t so sure about the sleeping. I couldn’t remember making the decision to spend the night here. Just another sign of how off my game I’d been.
I lifted myself up from the cot by slow inches until I was standing over him, watching him sleep. It really wasn’t a pretty picture: mouth open, stubble on his jaw, pugnacious chin almost touching his chest. He didn’t look very comfortable, but I knew why he’d stayed there all night, long after I was dead to the world.
Okay, it wasn’t such a bad picture.
I sat on the workbench nearest the cot as I pulled my boots on, managing not to grimace at the blood that speckled them. First order of business after a shower and brushing my teeth would be shoe shining and laundry. I could put my boots on in pitch darkness, so my eyes wandered away from the evidence of my activities the day before, back to Rodney.
He’d pulled my boots before despite the fact blood sickened him a lot more than it did me, along with my similarly splattered jacket and my vest. I didn’t remember all of what had happened the previous night, at least not until I’d found myself wrapped up on his cot, but I do remember there hadn’t been any disgust in what he said or did, no pulling back in revulsion like he had on the planet, like I still expected others to do in the hallway.
I wasn’t sure exactly what had changed. He said he understood what I’d done, might have even reacted that way himself. Human, he’d called it. I made a soft sound of disbelief under my breath. I wasn’t completely sure I bought that, but it still felt good to hear. Especially from Rodney. Somewhere along the way, what he thought had started to matter a lot to me. If he didn’t think I was a monster, maybe it was true. Maybe I’d eventually believe it myself.
I didn’t yet, but I could at least accept what had happened now. Live with it. And that’s a lot more than I’d had twelve hours before.
How weird is it that a scientist, who should never have understood anything about me in the first place, became the first person in a really long time who got me?
Boots tied, I picked up my jacket and gear, nodded an affectionate thanks to my sleeping host, and walked out with my head held high.
There were still some looks and whispers, but it’s amazing how much it helps when you can look someone in the eye. Yeah, it was part bravado, but so was being a CO. I wasn’t sure I changed any minds, but at least I kept what little I had left of my pride.
At my room, I cleaned up, dropped off my gear, and went and grabbed breakfast, leaving a tray at Rodney’s lab, where he was still asleep although Dr. Z was hovering near the door obviously just aching to wake him up. “Give him another half-hour,” I whispered, and he reluctantly nodded. I must have worn Rodney out with my late-night disintegration; it was the least I could do.
Then I went to see Elizabeth.
It went better than I’d expected, actually. I went over what happened again, and why. She didn’t like it--neither did I, for that matter--but I think she understood. At least she wasn’t looking at me like she was scared of me anymore. I’m guessing not being splattered in blood helps with that. We agreed to steer clear of that planet in the future and that I would go to Heightmeyer once to make sure I wasn’t crazy, and then the matter would be closed. I didn’t tell her I’d already had a therapy session the night before courtesy of Dr. McKay. Elizabeth might have changed her mind about my sanity.
I went down to the gym afterward and beat a bag into submission and myself into exhaustion. A couple of my guys looked on, but they were cheering me, not assessing my mental fitness. Already I could feel a new vibe following me, at least where my people were concerned. No matter how much I would struggle with what had happened, at least I still had their respect. And that was...well, that was a lot.
But they were still less than half the expedition. The half that wasn’t relying on me to keep them safe.
I showered back in my room, started to head for the mess hall for lunch, and stopped at my door. It was easier to walk the halls today, but I still felt the weight of all those eyes and...I was tired. I’d used muscles the day before I didn’t often use, and added to the weight on my soul. I was coping--it’s not like I had a choice, between my responsibilities and Rodney--but I was beat. Maybe I’d just skip lunch. I crawled on top of my bed, picked up my book, and read mindlessly.
The door chimed twice before I realized it, not expecting any visitors. Maybe Ford or Teyla to see how I was doing, I conceded, or even Beckett, wanting to check me out after yesterday’s little mission. I opened the door with a mental command, not bothering to get up.
Rodney.
Okay, so I was still a little off my game. I should have seen that one coming.
He barged in without a shred of timidity, seemingly unfazed by my having spent the night huddled brokenly next to him. One of the many things I liked about Rodney; I was keeping a list.
“Why are you in bed?” he asked, frowning at me.
“I’m reading,” I answered, patiently because the obvious sometimes escaped our resident genius.
“It’s lunchtime. If we don’t get to the mess hall in the next ten minutes, the scientists’ meeting will break up and they’ll descend like locusts on the food. We’ll be lucky to get scraps.”
“So go.” I shrugged. “I’m not hungry.”
Keen eyes examined me very carefully, and not for the first time I got the sense they saw more than I wanted them to, more than I was showing. He just nodded to himself, like he’d proved a theory. “Of course you are,” he dismissed my protest with a wave. “Hurry up, I hear there’s cake.”
I knew when to surrender gracefully. I made a face but dragged myself off the bed, pulling my clean pair of boots on. “If it’s a science meeting, why aren’t you there?” I offered a final half-hearted argument, and got for my troubles a look one would bestow on a favored idiot.
“Radek’s taking notes for me. He listens better than I do, anyway.”
Well, no argument there. I followed Rodney out of the room without further protest. I’d already taken him breakfast, but if he wanted to do lunch, too, I owed him that much and more. Rodney wasn’t above milking it, either, but he wouldn’t gloat. Over this, he’d never gloat. He’d probably never mention it again, unless I brought it up. And I wasn’t about to.
He slowed his usual hyperactive stride to keep pace with me in the hallway. I didn’t think twice about it; he did that sometimes when we were discussing something, although we moved in easy silence this time. I didn’t start putting it together until we’d reached the mess hall, gone through the line, and sat down at a table together.
We’d just started into the food when there was indeed a sudden influx of ravenous scientists looking for food. I glanced at Rodney, and he tilted a told you so eyebrow at me. Amused, I kept eating.
Soon, I realized we were the main attraction, not the food.
Rodney started in on a story, some funny malfunction that had hit the ventilation units in the labs, complete with animated gestures and grins. I only half paid attention, watching all the white-coats who were watching us from nearby tables as if we’d walked in naked. Nope, I’d checked.
That was when it clicked. Rodney’s insistence on lunch, the timing, the lively conversation. I’d already made my stand with my guys. Now he was taking one with his. If we were having a nice little lunch together, I couldn’t be too homicidal and untrustworthy, right?
The corner of my mouth turned up as I chewed, and Rodney mirrored the gesture, the flow of words never missing a beat.
I would have done okay without the tacit vote of confidence, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about needing Rodney’s stamp of approval for anything. But would this make my life easier? Yes. Would it help things get back to normal? Sure. Would it help me get back to normal? Probably.
Did I appreciate it as a thoughtful gesture from a friend?
Heck, yeah.
And through all the fights and crises and disappointments and triumphs that followed, I never forgot it, either.
So, what do I see in Sheppard?
Besides the obvious? Oh, not much. Just a man who cares enough to risk not just his life, but his soul for his people. And then trusts me enough to help him find it after. No big deal, right?
Except, no one has before. Cared or trusted. I know I haven’t made it easy, but nothing easy is worthwhile, right? I’m buried treasure, Mrs. Humphries, my fourth grade teacher and the only one I ever regretted leaving behind, used to say. I didn’t believe her until Sheppard bothered to dig, and found something. One lesson I learned on my own, though, was that people who take the time to dig are more rare than hidden treasure. John wasn’t the only one who found something valuable.
So that would be my answer. That and this story, if I ever bothered to give a serious one. But I won’t. You have to do your own digging.
But, you know...it’s worth it.
So, again, what do I see in McKay?
The real answer to that is what he saw in me.
One of the things I liked about Antarctica was that it was a quiet place to work. No unfriendlies, no people dying, no visiting the dark places Afghanistan had brought out in me. But then I had to take a posting in another galaxy, and suddenly it was constant danger, soul-eating monsters, and responsibility for a whole city. I guess it was only a matter of time until my demons came out to play in front of God and everybody.
I expected the shock and mistrust. Expected the self-loathing and nightmares. I even expected a demotion, although that didn’t happen. What I didn’t expect was Rodney McKay.
I had slipped and given myself away, and he pretty much saw it all: Bruce Banner before, during, and after he became the Hulk. Yeah, he wasn’t crazy about it, either, but...he accepted it. Matter-of-factly. Unconditionally. Even gently. And trust me, a gentle McKay is a rare phenomenon.
Maybe other people take that for granted. Not me. I’ve been around too long.
So I don’t answer that question, or tell the story. If people are too stupid or lazy to notice he’s more than he seems, that’s their problem, not mine. Nor McKay’s. I make sure of that.
Their loss, too. Looking past the surface? It’s worth it.
Trust me.
The End