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The Wrong Foot
“Just c’mon, Doctor Parrish!” Lorne hissed.
“But, I left my testing kit…”
Grabbing Parrish’s sleeve and dragging him along for the second time that night, Lorne snapped, “I’ll buy you a new one!”
Their marine escort followed them up the ramp into the jumper and settled on the benches in the back as Lorne went to the pilot’s seat and engaged the engines. Parrish threw himself into the co-pilot’s seat and pouted silently with his arms crossed.
When they got through the Gate, Lorne gestured upwards when he caught Chuck’s eye. Lorne thought the overhead iris open with his mind and took the jumper straight up. He figured their tempers were a little high and they all needed a little breather before they reported in.
Even in the midst of his snit, Parrish couldn’t resist the urge to lean forward and gawk at the Atlantis skyline at night. Smiling at his rapt expression, Lorne took them around and through the spires, giving him a chance to see Atlantis the way very few civilians had the opportunity to.
The marines were impressed as well; they came forward and leaned on the backs of Lorne and Parrish’s seats. Lorne swooped them down by the water and then up and around the perimeter of the city, glancing at a few of the trouble spots to be sure the repairs made by Engineering were holding.
He brought them back and let the ‘jumper settle into place in the bay. He let the rear ramp lower and waved to the marines. “You guys hit the showers and file your reports by 0900.”
“Yes sir!”
When Parrish stood to leave, Lorne grabbed his arm and held him in the cockpit area. “Wait up a second Doc.”
Parrish rolled his eyes but did not attempt to pull away. When the marines had cleared the jumper bay, Lorne raised the rear hatch. He dropped his hand away from the botanist’s arm and fluttered it slightly before resting it on his own knee. “Listen, I think maybe we got off on the wrong foot. I wanted to apologize. It’s been a while since I had civilians on my team and I got a little impatient back there.”
“I thought you didn’t like me.”
“That’s not true.”
“So, you like me?” Parrish gave him a little half smirk as he met Lorne’s eyes.
Huh. Lorne was picking up a vibe. He shrugged and smiled in return, “Yeah, I guess I do.”
“Thanks for the tour.” Parrish leaned on the side of Lorne’s seat and gestured around. “That was pretty cool.”
“I thought you might like to see the city the way I do.” Blushing slightly at the unintended slip, Lorne shifted in his seat, his shoulder brushing Parrish’s hand. The botanist did not move his hand away.
Following the graceful fingers, he looked up to see Parrish staring at him. He returned the gaze silently for a moment before whispering, “This is the best posting I’ve ever had.”
Smiling, Parrish leaned down and whispered back, “You know, I was beginning to doubt it, but maybe Atlantis and I got off on the wrong foot too. I think things are starting to look up.”
“Really, Doctor Parrish?”
“Call me David, if we’re going to be… working together.”
“I’m Evan. Glad to have you on my team, David.”
*****************************************
No Touching
“What happened? What’s wrong with him?” Lorne asked, sliding to a halt on the slick tile floor of the infirmary beside Sheppard, who was rocking on his heels and grinning. He shouldn’t be grinning! He’d borrowed Lorne’s geek and broken him, the man should not be grinning!
Sheppard continued to smirk. “Well, he and Rodney got into a bit of an argument and they took a tumble down a hill and landed in some flowers.”
Evan ran a hand over his face. Broken limbs! A week before their holiday leave. They were supposed to have a honeymooon! “How badly was he hurt in the fall?”
“Oh, not at all. It’s just his nose.”
“What’s wrong with his nose?”
“It sort of got smashed by Ronon’s fist.”
“RONON PUNCHED MY BOTANIST?!?”
“Hey, shhh, calm down. He’s okay. He hardly feels it, really. He and Rodney are still flying high from the flowers. They both started making moves on Ronon, getting frisky, if you catch my drift, and the big guy started swinging. He’s very sorry. Aren’t you, Chewie?”
Lorne glared at Dex, sitting on a gurney nearby. “Very sorry,” Ronon grumbled, though he didn’t look apologetic.
Evan pushed past Sheppard to walk down the row of curtained treatment beds. Finding David, he walked up to the bed, looking his fiance over for permanent damages. His nose was a little swollen, but otherwise, he looked fine.
“Hi! I’m so glad to see you. Come here, I need to investigate the effects of this stuff before it wears off.” David held both hands out to him, beckoning with a waggle of all ten fingers.
“Oh, no. No monkey business now!” Doctor Keller chastised, coming up behind Evan. “We have a Class Two Sex Pollen Incident here, and there will be no cross-pollinating on my watch. Out, Major.”
“But... Look, Ronon broke my nose. I need comforting from my significant other,” David protested, letting his lower lip jut out and pouting at the doctor.
“He can comfort you from over there. No touching. You and Rodney already infected Ronon.”
David crossed his arms and glared after Jennifer as she left. “Evan...” he whined.
“I’m on duty, I can’t afford your sexy cooties. Look, I’ll come back later and I’ll bring you ice cream and I’ll cuddle with you, okay?”
“Ice cream?”
“Strawberry.” He seemed mollified by the promise, brightening considerably.
“I really want to touch you right now. In the name of science, that is.”
Evan laughed and shook his head. “In the name of science, my ass!”
“I like your ass.” David leered at him.
“I know you do. Stop thinking about it, you’ll get all worked up again, and I can’t do anything about it just yet.”
He stayed near the foot of the bed, talking to David about the flowers David had rolled in, their upcoming leave, the hut the Athosians had offered them on the beach for their stay, what they needed to pack and whether David was going to let Evan paint or not on their vacation. The argument about sex verses painting lasted about as long as David’s energy, he suddenly yawned and slumped back against the pillows.
“I’m so sleepy.”
“Then don’t fight it. Have a nap. I’ll come see you later.”
David yawned again and closed his eyes. “Thanks for staying with me. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
*********************************************
This or the Volcano
“Evan, this is not how I imagined this going when I imagined my wedding day.”
“Me either, let me undo the buttons.”
“This is not romantic, not at all romantic in any way.”
“We’ll do romantic another time. We’ll do candles and friends and poetry and Teyla singing and cake and slow dancing. I promise, David. We’ll have a real wedding.”
“But they’re watching!”
“Don’t whine, roll with it. Better this than the volcano, right?”
“You hands are shaking.”
“Public sex is not exactly my thing. I’ve got some performance anxiety. You’re wearing Spongebob boxers?”
“There’s nothing wrong with Spongebob.”
“I didn’t say there was. I just never knew you liked Spongebob. I took you for a Simpsons guy.”
“I like lots of cartoons. I have Mickey boxers too. Hey, they’re staring at us. Did you understand any of the ceremony? It all sounded like gibberish to me.”
“I think the shaman presiding over it was only slightly higher than a kite. David, why are you folding our clothes?”
“Because I’m nervous, and when I’m nervous, I clean. Look, my hands are shaking too. I guess we’re moving now. Hey watch where you stick that thing, Gruesome! Are they all going to watch us?”
“I have no idea. The translators only seem to be catching every other word. I think we’ve fallen in with a bunch of stoners, to be honest.”
“Perverted stoners with sharp spears and a penchant for exhibitionism. I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
“Would you rather be Mrs Lorne or Mrs Hairy Angry Chieftain?”
“Point. I wish I had kept my mouth shut about the virgin thing.”
“So do I, David, so do I. Damn it, I think everyone in the village is here to see this.”
“The garland is making my nose itch. Did I have to be the bride?”
“It’s your virginity being offered, so yeah, pretty sure. You know, I’ve read a lot of reports about teams being forced into situations like this. I never thought I’d be one of them.”
“Is this even legal? I mean, will the SGC recognize the marriage?”
“There’s a form to have it annulled. Enough people have been through it that they have a policy and procedure for it.”
“Hey, stop pushing!”
“I think he wants you to bend over the stone table thing there. Damn, there’s a lot of people here.”
“I’m going! I’m going! Wait a minute, let me kiss my husband, you impatient barbarian.”
“I’m sorry about this, David.”
“I’m just annoyed about the audience, actually. This should be a lot more private.”
“Well, keep being annoyed, it seems to be keeping you from freaking out.”
“Could I get a blanket or something? This rock is cold! I am not putting my naked body on that bare rock, I’ll catch my death.”
“They’re going to throw you into the volcano anyway if you keep yelling at them, David.”
“They will not. I’m the first virgin they’ve seen in years. Hey, you don’t want to fill out that form when we get back, do you, Evan? The annulment form?”
“I don’t if you don’t.”
“Well, I don’t. Now, let’s get on with this thing. I’m as ready as I’m gonna be.”
“I kinda love you, David Parrish.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s why I married you, flyboy. Now let’s make with the consummating and get the heck out of here, I have a real wedding to plan.”
***************************************
Bad Crystal
Parrish paced along the path outside Beckett’s nook. The bells on his toes jingled with a merriment that was very out of place, given the circumstances. Carson wouldn’t let him into the nook to check on Lorne, so he didn’t know how his friend fared. It was worrisome.
As he was pacing, Cadman bounded up to him, smiling broadly. She fell into step beside him, the pom pom tied to the end of her red ponytail bobbing with each step. “Why so glum, chum?” she asked, poking him in the arm.
He let out a squeak of protest at swatted at her hand. “Lorne is... sick.”
She snorted and waved a hand dismissively, making a face. “Don’t be stupid, Parrish, pixies don’t get sick.”
“Well, Lorne is sick. Beckett said so. And I believe Beckett, because he’s a whole lot smarter than you or me or anybody in the greenhouse.”
“Even McKay?”
It was Parrish’s turn to snort. “Even McKay. He claims to know all this stuff, but he can’t even keep a cactus alive!”
They heard jingling as Beckett came walking towards them. He had a serious expression on his face as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, I think I know what caused it.”
Parrish grasped the fur trimmed edge of Beckett’s golden tunic. “What is it?”
“He’s been poisoned.”
“Poisoned?”
“Aye. I don’t know how.”
Parrish gave a heavy sigh. “I do. He insisted on going exploring in the lower levels. HE must have touched something down there he shouldn’t have.”
Beside him, Cadman gasped and slapped her hands over her mouth. “No one is allowed to go there!”
“Well, he followed that reckless Sheppard, the two of them are constantly getting into mischief. Parrish stomped a foot, which made a smattering of dust drift down from his wings.
“Will he die?” Cadman asked bluntly.
“I don’t know,” Beckett admitted.
“I’m going to ask that Sheppard what they did when they were exploring this time.” Parrish turned and stormed off in the direction of Sheppard’s nook.
Not only did Sheppard know what they had touched, he had a piece of it with him. A chunk of a crystal that glowed dully on the floor of his nook when Parrish poked his head in. Sheppard, like Lorne, was sick, sprawled out over his sleeping platform. Unlike Lorne, he didn’t share with anyone, so nobody had known he was sick.
The first thing he did, after dragging Sheppard to Beckett, was to take the piece of crystal out of his greenhouse. He wrapped it in a piece of fabric and hauled it away, leaving it far from the entrance and the green growing things and the living beings that tended to them.
By the time he got back to Beckett’s nook, Lorne was feeling better. His color was back to normal and he was awake when Beckett let him in to see him. Sheppard was beginning to stir too. He wasn’t sure whether to hug his nookmate or scold him for his foolishness. In the end, he hugged him and made him promise to be less reckless in the future.
Poisoning by crystals? It was a puzzle that would not be solved inside his greenhouse, not if it made people sick!
***************************
Frozen Wings and Hole-y Stockings
“But what is it?” Lorne asked, dancing a circle around the fallen creature as Parrish stood leaning over it, his hands on the knees of his leggings. Neither of them had ever seen anything like this before in the snowy North.
“Don’t touch it!” Parrish commanded as his best friend Lorne reached a finger out towards the bulbous end of the winged creature.
Lorne scowled and crossed his arms. He looked a total rapscallion, dirt on his cheeks, his stocking cap askew and holes in the knees of his striped stockings. The curled toes of his shoes were limp and missing their jingle bells, lost ages ago in some fall or tussle.
“You don’t know what it is either, so don’t pretend you do!” Lorne stuck his tongue out at Parrish when he looked over at him.
“Whatever it is, it is an injured creature and it needs our help. It does not need you poking at it.” Parrish slapped his hand away when Lorne would have touched the frozen wing that fluttered limply on the snow.
Lorne huffed, his breath making fog in the air. It was too cold for them to be outside, they would be frozen through soon if they didn’t get moving. “It’s cold. Let’s take it someplace where it’s warm.”
Parrish nodded in agreement and straightened up. “That is the first sensible thing you’ve said all day.” He pulled a poinsettia leaf from the pack on his back and unfolded it. “We’ll carry him on this.”
Lorne wrinkled his nose. “How do you know it’s a him?”
“Just help me get him on the leaf, Lorne, I’m freezing my jingle bells off here.”
When they pushed the creature onto the leaf, it buzzed slightly, flapping its wings. “I don’t think he belongs around here. He’s got no fur. He’s not made for snow and ice.”
“Probably came on the toy train, and lost his way, then his wings froze.” Parrish patted the creature’s side. “There, there, we’ll get you someplace warmer.”
Together, the two tiny Christmas pixies lifted the edge of the leaf and carried the lost and injured creature to the first building they came to; the greenhouse where they helped tend the Christmas poinsettias and other holiday plants. Once inside, they called for help, which brought several of their pixie friends running. Parrish glared at the suggestion Kav made to cook it and Lorne kicked him hard in the candy cane for making it. Kav apologized and they all made up and nobody shoved Kav out the door into the snow by himself, as Lorne had threatened to do.
The warmth of the greenhouse revived the creature. It began to flap its wings more and more, and eventually it rose from the leaf and hovered in the air before the pixies. Parrish reached out to pat its belly as it hovered over his head. The creature buzzed happily and then suddenly the bulbous end of its body began to glow.
Delighted, the pixies clapped their hands and murmured in appreciation of their visitor’s trick. Lorne followed along as best he could as their rescued creature began to fly around the greenhouse. Regaining its strength, it dove and darted around, blinking it’s hindquarters now and then, much to the delight of the pixies.
“What is it?” Lorne asked, skidding to a halt beside Parrish, panting for breath after running so much. He had a new tear in his stockings and one on his tunic, Parrish noted. He really needed a mate to look after him. Too bad he wouldn’t have anything to do with any of the girls. For some reason, he shunned them all to spend all his time with Parrish, though many had tried to attract his attention.
“I think it might be a firefly,” Parrish replied, watching their visitor buzz over the heads of the other pixies. I remember stories my grandmother told me, back from the days when we were garden pixies.”
“Oh. Yeah. I heard those stories too. He is very lost, isn’t he?”
“Yeah. But he can stay here in the greenhouse. I don’t think he’ll eat much.” Parrish declared. He looked over at his friend and frowned. “Hey, Lorne, aren’t you cold? Don’t you have another pair of stockings?”
Lorne looked down at his bare knees, showing through the holes and shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe in my nook somewhere.”
Licking his thumb, Parrish wiped at the streak of dirt on Lorne’s cheek, clucking his tongue as he did so. “Such a mess. Come on, let’s clean you up. You need a keeper, ” he declared as he took Lorne by the elbow and led him towards the corner of the greenhouse where all their sleeping nooks were.
Lorne stopped and stared at Parrish intently when he turned towards him. “You could keep me.”
“Huh? Me?”
“Yeah. I like you. You always take care of me. You could come live in my nook. I like being with you.”
Parrish tilted his head and stared for a few moments. He felt warmth spreading from his belly outwards as Lorne smiled at him. “Don’t you want one of the girls to share your nook?”
“No, I want you to. Please?”
“But...”
After glancing up, Lorne went up on the worn toes of his wilted shoes and kissed Parrish on the lips. “Why’d you do that?” Parrish demanded when Lorne pulled away, although he had liked it very much.
Lorne pointed up, where their firefly friend was perched on a sprig of an overhanging plant. “Had to, you know the rules. Mistletoe. Besides, I wanted to. Can I do it again?”
“Yeah, but let’s go in your nook first, I don’t want everyone watching.”
“I don’t think the firefly cares,” Lorne said as he took Parrish’s hand and led him to his nook.
They did indeed find a fresh pair of stockings, with no holes in them. But it took a very long time to get Lorne into them. Lorne’s nook happened to be directly under a mistletoe plant.
********************
A New Line of Work
Lorne was never letting another team take his botanist offworld again. Ever. It had become a mantra of sorts, he was muttering it over and over again as he stomped to the locker room and geared up for the rescue mission. He shouldn’t have let David talk him into it, his little exploration of P89-432 could have waited a day or two until Evan had taken care of the chaotic mess on his desk.
“Never again!” Lorne vowed, pointing a finger at Stackhouse and charging him, “Do not let me fall for his pleading, he can wait until the whole team can go. I don’t care if it is your boyfriend taking him!”
“Yes, sir,” Stackhouse replied, hiding a smirk behind his hand as Cadman caught his eye and starting making faces at him.
Storming out of the locker room, Lorne didn’t wait to see if his team was following. When they arrived in the Gate Room, Mr. Woolsey was waiting on the stairs; he had a jacket on and looked ready to travel.
“Are you coming with us, Mr. Woolsey?” Evan asked.
“I think some legal representation might be in order,” the administrator answered. Lorne couldn’t argue; Woolsey seemed intent on coming along.
They were met at the gate by a representative of the local law enforcement and taken to an office to meet with members of the judiciary council. What in the hell had David and the others gotten themselves tangled up in? Dancing naked in the temple?
Evan wondered as he followed along and let Woolsey do all the talking.
Once they arrived at the council chambers, the charges were explained to them and even Lorne had a hard time keeping a straight face. He had to turn and glare at Cadman and Stacks, who were muffling giggles behind him. It was difficult, when he wanted to laugh along with them. But they had to maintain a sense of propriety.
“Hopefully you can see the problem, Mr. Woolsey,” the councilor was saying. “We cannot have strangers sullying the purity of the temple grounds. We are a pious people and the solicitation of favors is strictly regulated and confined to particular areas. What would become of our devotion if we allowed anyone coming through the Ring of Light to carry on in such a manner?”
“May we see the prisoners before the sentencing?” Mr. Woolsey asked.
“It is unusual, but I will allow it, since you are foreigners here.”
Leaving Cadman and Stackhouse safely ensconced in the office with a deck of cards where they couldn’t get into any trouble with the locals, Lorne and Woolsey went to the holding cells.
Lieutenant Markham was leaning against the bars, his face pressed between them as they arrived. His hangdog expression lightened considerably upon seeing them. “Major! Mister Woolsey!”
“Evan!” David launched himself from the bench in the cell at the bars, clinging with both hands as he looked at him with a pleading expression. “You came to get us out, right? Please tell me we’re getting out of here?”
Evan shook his head and the faces of Markham, Parrish and Sergeant Willis all fell. “Not just yet, they got you on a serious charge, guys.”
“We still don’t understand what they were going on about!” Markham exclaimed as the councilor stepped away to give them the illusion of privacy.
“According to the local constables, you guys are prostitutes,” Lorne said.
Dropping down onto the bench, Willis made a sound that was very much like a squeak, Markham’s jaw dropped and Parrish just blinked at him. Recovering first, David protested, “We are not. We didn’t… Evan, we didn’t do anything like that!”
Woolsey cleared his throat and informed them, “The plant that you were displaying on your table is locally accepted as the solicitation for sexual favors.”
“The plant? The one with the little pink flowers and herbaceous scent?” David asked.
“Apparently it’s an aphrodisiac. And you’re a hooker, Doctor Parrish.” Evan made sure he was facing away from the councilor; he couldn’t keep the grin off his face any longer. But David and the others couldn’t miss his amusement.
“This isn’t funny, Evan!” David hissed.
He smirked and leaned close to the bars. “So funny.”
The councilor clapped his hands and took Lorne and Woolsey away. The hearing was a simple manner and they were able to plead ignorance of the law after explaining that David was a scientist that studied plants and was unaware of the cultural significance of displaying the sample he had purchased at the marketplace. They negotiated the civil fine and the team was released, on the understanding that they leave the city immediately.
Upon their return to Atlantis, Evan slapped David on the shoulder and leaned close to his ear. “So, I’ve got some chocolate in my quarters; think we can come to an arrangement?”
“You are not funny, Major,” David huffed and stomped away to get checked over by medical. The cheery pink flowers on the plant he clutched bounced as he moved, and completely ruined his exit as everyone burst into laughter.
*******************************
Always Come Home
When I left, I was unfair;
I begged you to wait.
I should not have done; it was cruel, what I asked.
More cruelty; I promised I would return;
You promised to wait.
It was not my promise to make; it is no man’s promise to make.
When everyone else had given me up as lost;
You waited.
As I asked; as I should not have asked.
They told you I was gone, told you not to hope;
You hoped and waited.
In the face of impossibility when all others stopped.
The memory of you sustained me;
Kept me alive in the face of hopeless odds.
Abandoned and alone, all I had was your memory.
Because of you, I lived.
Because of you,I survived.
Because of you,I returned.
And you waited.
Promises kept, despite all.
~*~
The chime on the door rang, David ignored it. People came and went, the chime rang again and again, but Atlantis respected David’s request for privacy and would not allow anyone to enter the room. Evan’s room. It was odd, how after all this time, David, like Evan, had come to think of the city almost as a person. If Atlantis was indeed a person, then wasn’t she too grieving for Evan?
Grieving or not, when the favored son demanded entrance, Atlantis rolled over and allowed it. Eventually Sheppard came to the door overrode the lock and came in.
“Parrish… David. It’s been a few days. You have to come out, you have to eat. Beckett wants to toss you in the infirmary.”
David shrugged and stared at the unfinished painting on the easel looking out over the balcony. The spires of the city that were in view from the balcony were only partially filled in on the canvas. Evan had loved this view of their home, and had chosen these quarters because of it.
Sheppard came up behind him and awkwardly patted his back and squeezed his shoulder. “Look, I know. I understand how hard this is. I know what Evan was to you.”
“Everything,” David whispered.
“He’s gone. I’m sorry. I’m so damned sorry. But he wouldn’t want you wasting away like this. Come to the mess hall with me, eat something.”
“He’ll be back. He promised. Evan keeps his promises.”
Sheppard looked at him very sadly, but he did not try to dissuade him. Not that day, anyway. Later he did, as did Beckett and Heightmeyer.
But David knew what he knew. Evan had promised he would be back, and had sealed the oath with a kiss.
He went through the motions, dragged through life over the next few weeks by Sheppard, tenacious as a bulldog, refusing to let David wallow alone and wait. The city sided with Sheppard, not allowing David to hide any longer.
He stayed in the city when they tried to make him leave. Atlantis helped him then. She hid him, masked his life signs when the Daedalus came. He stood on the West Pier and watched the ship leave, not the slightest bit sorry for his deception. He had to be here when Evan came back. He had promised. He had sworn to wait where Evan could find him. A promise he had sealed with a solemn kiss.
~*~
Sold, like a piece of garden equipment. He had been grabbed and taken from his team, thrown in chains, whisked through the Stargate and away from everyone he knew. The worst part; he had been taken away from David.
Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, all under the lash, at the mercy of his captors. He was brought down by a cut on his foot, of all things, a stupid injury from a scythe wielded by an idiot. Untreated by more than a rinse in cold creek water, the wound quickly turned septic. His foot swelled and he could not walk, soon, he could no longer stand. His ration was cut; a useless slave was not fed.
Growing weaker, he tried, he tried to hold on. He had promised David that he would come back. A stupid thing to do, he knew better. Impulsive and romantic. But still, unwise.
His captors, superstitious, proclaimed him possessed by evil spirits when he began to shout out for David in his delirium.
Evan’s foot was afire, he was in pain. Tight and red, it was swollen and oozed puss. He begged them to cut it off, but they feared him now, thought him a vessel for evil. Very few would go near him, fewer would touch him. They dragged him on a tarpaulin to the Ring of the Gods and left him there, sweating and shivering, drenched in sweat, surrounded with offerings of burning incense.
He stared up at the blazing sun and cried out for David. He remembered David’s touch, the way he felt in Evan’s arms, the way he smiled, the way he always waited. Had promised to always wait.
It was agony, but he rolled to his stomach and pushed up to his knees. He had a promise to keep. He dragged himself up onto the DHD and awkwardly brought his hand down on each crystal to dial home. The Gate flared to life. But death waited, he couldn’t go through. They had taken his GDO when they sold him. He couldn’t signal the city. He shut the gate down. Then he dialed it again. Repeated the process. Three short, three long, two short before he collapsed.
~*~
He heard words over his head, bits of conversation. Little by little, he was able to concentrate enough to make out the meaning. “… septicemia. He’s in critical condition.”
“Will he live, Doc?” That was Sheppard’s drawl. He was home? They’d found him. They had brought him home to Atlantis. He felt the presence of Atlantis, the tingle of the connection his gene gave him to the Ancient place.
The doctor didn’t sound quite so positive. “If he fights.”
“He’ll fight. He made it this far, he’ll make it,” David’s voice was insistent, a little frantic. “Don’t you dare give up on him!”
“Promised.” Evan whispered, flailing limply for David, knowing he would be within arm’s reach. His hand was caught, held, caressed.
Cool lips touched his forehead. “Yeah, exactly. You promised. Now you fight. A little longer, a little more. You came back, but not all the way. Come all the way back to me, Evan.” David’s fingers, long and cool and gentle, stroked the long hair back from Evan’s forehead.
A little more. He was almost there, almost safe. He was safe, he was home.
~*~
David fussed.
A lot.
He cosseted Evan throughout his recovery, spitting in the eye of convention and completely outing them to the senior and medical staffs. Sheppard didn’t care; he was too happy having Lorne back to enforce regs he didn’t believe in or follow completely to the letter himself. Beckett wanted to throttle the botanist by the time he signed off on Evan’s discharge.
When Evan was allowed to return to his quarters, he found he now had a permanent roommate, they were no longer keeping separate quarters. He didn’t mind. At all.
He had fought his way back to this, for this. How could he complain?
He kissed David’s lips sweetly as they stood on the balcony, breathing in fresh air. “I’ve resigned from the Gate Team, I’m strictly administrative now. I’m not leaving the city again unless it is absolutely necessary. I intend to keep the promise I made to you.”
David sighed and leaned against him. “Me too, I’ll be right here.”
*********************************
Come for Me
It was supposed to be a simple, easy day for AG-2. A cakewalk, Major Lorne had thought; just take Doctor Hisho exploring in the lower levels of the city on a search for the crystal manufacturing lab that had been hinted about in the Ancient database. Both Evan and Sheppard had tried to locate the room using the Atlantis control chair, but the city was either being stubborn giving up the location, or it no longer knew where the lab was.
The city’s database seemed to be swiss cheese. Doctor McKay ranted on and on about it, but Evan felt that they were lucky to have anything from the Ancients. Atlantis was a grand old lady; they could hardly expect her to be as spry as she might have been in her heyday.
It was hard to remember that fact when he and his team were in danger because of their grand old lady’s disrepair.
“We aren’t getting out of this,” Evan whispered the words that had been going through his mind for the last fifteen minutes. He raised his head and saw his teammates, Stackhouse and Cadman, staring at him in the darkness.
Cadman’s eyes slid over to where the still form of Doctor Hisho was rapidly cooling by the bulkhead across the way. She knew. Evan could see it in her eyes, in the dim light of the emergency lanterns, she knew the truth; they were doomed.
“They’ll find us,” Stacks wasn’t ready to admit it yet.
“Not before the air runs out. Not before we freeze to death,” Laura said in a monotone. “This chamber is airtight, like a bank vault.”
Pressed into the corner behind the smoking ruins of the control panel Hisho had been working on, Evan wrapped his arms around his knees and shivered. This was ridiculous. “Guys, we should sit together.” Laura immediately crawled over, wrapped her arm around Evan’s shoulders and huddled close. After a minute, Stackhouse moved to sit beside Laura, and settled in to share body heat.
Evan knew it was hopeless. They were off the grid. They had traveled six levels lower than their original planned search route and had drifted several buildings off the search area. Their check-in wasn’t scheduled for another three hours. They would be out of air long before then; this compartment had no outside ventilation, Hisho had told them it was the Ancient equivalent of a clean room. With the power out in the entire section, the internal ventilation unit wouldn’t work, even if it were not currently a smoking husk. Most of the equipment in the room had blown with the power overload Hisho had inadvertently initiated.
“Doctor Hisho might be the lucky one,” Stackhouse mumbled.
“He’s dead,” Laura replied.
Stacks shrugged. “He’s not feeling the cold. He’s not choking on the fumes from the burning junk,” the sergeant coughed. He had been closest to the ventilation unit when it blew and had inhaled some smoke and chemicals before Cadman knocked him away from it.
They sat in silence for a while before Evan took a deep shuddering breath and said, “I’m worried about David, how they’ll break the news to him.”
“I’m sure Colonel Sheppard will be kind about it, even if he doesn’t know about you two,” Laura said. Their team knew though they were the only ones who did. And David would just be told that his team was not coming back. He would have no one to turn to, no one that understood his grief, that understood he’d lost his partner when his team leader died.
“I should’ve left a note, should have made him an emergency contact. We should have told someone else, maybe Beckett. Someone should break it to him gently.”
Stackhouse was staring at him. His voice was raspy as he said, “At least he didn’t come today; his obsession with the new sapling project saved his ass.”
Miserable and thinking about David, Evan leaned into the hug Laura gave him. He slid his hand up to grasp hers where it rested on his upper arm and intertwined their fingers. “I should have told someone.” He bowed his head and closed his eyes.
“Don’t go to sleep, sir!” Laura’s voice snapped Evan awake, jolting him upright.
“I’m not.”
She bumped her forehead to his. “Liar.”
“So cold,” Stackhouse chattered. He was literally wrapped around Cadman.
“It’s your turn, sing something, sir,” Laura whispered. They had started taking turns occasionally singing or chanting or speaking the lyrics to songs in order to stay awake, knowing if they went to sleep, they would likely never wake again. Evan started to laugh.
Stacks looked around Laura and asked Evan, “What’s funny?”
“What if the last words I say or think about are the lyrics to Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves?”
“Thanks, sir, now you’ve potentially got my last thoughts wondering if you’re into the drag scene, and how you’d look in a Cher wig,” Laura poked his ribs through his tac vest and chuckled.
“I don’t have the legs. And since we’re dying and all, you guys can call me Evan.”
As it turned out, the last thing he thought about before he slipped into what promised to be forever sleep was David.
~*~
“Evan. Evan Lorne, wake up.” Someone was roughly shaking his shoulder.
“Go way.”
“Uh-uh, baby, not until you open your eyes. I have coffee, real coffee.”
He smelled it as it was passed under his nose. He sniffed, inhaling the lovely, bracing odor. He opened his eyes to see anxious eyes peering into his. “David?” he whispered in confusion. “How?”
“Your botanist here came looking for me, claiming something was wrong.” Sheppard was crouched behind David, holding up an emergency lantern. He reached around to slap Evan’s shoulder with his free hand. “He wouldn’t leave me alone until I checked into it.”
David pressed the thermos into his hands and held it steady as Evan raised it to his lips and sipped at it. It was just how he liked it too, light and sweet with a little vanilla.
“The team?” Evan asked. The room was lit only by handheld lanterns, but it was much brighter than it had been when they had only Evan and Stackhouse’s battery operated lights. He turned his head, and saw that Stackhouse being treated by a medic; he had an oxygen mask over his face and was breathing deeply. Cadman was sitting up, wrapped in a blanket, talking to Teyla.
“Stackhouse has a bit of smoke inhalation. Cadman is chilled, maybe some mild hypothermia, but you should all be okay,” Sheppard replied.
“Here, I’ve got a wool blanket for you.” Evan leaned forward and David wrapped the blanket around him, as well as his arms, holding Evan tightly. David had his forehead pressed to the top of Evan’s head and the botanist was trembling. He slumped into David before realizing that Sheppard was still there. His eyes met Sheppard’s over David’s shoulder.
His CO held the look and then nodded. “Don’t worry about it,” Sheppard said before patting Evan’s shoulder again and leaving to go over to Stackhouse. The medical team was helping the sergeant to climb up onto a gurney that had been wheeled in.
Evan took another gulp of the coffee, relishing the warmth as it slid down his throat. He looked at his watch. His teeth were clattering together as he said, “How did you know? There’s still over an hour until our check in.”
Suddenly remembering that they had witnesses, David leaned back and rubbed Evan’s shoulders and arms. “The city told me.”
“The city told you? How?” Parrish only had a minor expression of the ATA gene; he’d never displayed any connection to the city before this.
“I was working in the greenhouse and I went to enter the floor plan of where I’d planted the saplings into the database. As soon as I touched my palm to it, a map came up and started flashing at me. I thought it was a mistake, but then I realized it was the buildings you guys were going to go exploring. I was also getting this vibe, this really bad feeling that something was seriously wrong.”
As he was speaking, David had reached out to take Evan’s hand and was squeezing it tightly. Most of the people in the room were busy moving Stackhouse out and getting Cadman up onto a second gurney. “I couldn’t get it to tell me any more so I went to Colonel Sheppard. He used the chair interface and found that this whole section had gone completely dark.”
“He came looking himself?” Evan glanced over at Sheppard now kneeling beside Doctor Hisho.
“When I told him I was going alone, he offered. He was really nice about it all, a lot nicer than he had to be. I think he knows about us, Evan.”
The medics were done with Cadman and now turned their attention towards Evan. “Yeah, I think so too, but I think it will be okay.”
He had not realized how exhausted he was until the medics made him move out of the corner where he had been wedged for hours. He winced as his muscles protested at the movement. David was hovering as he stood on very shaky legs, and Evan heard his gasp as he collapsed. The medics caught him and lifted him onto the gurney. His eyes were heavy, he couldn’t keep them open.
David had found them. Somehow Atlantis had known to tell David. As he gave up the fight and closed his eyes, he wondered how.
**************************************
Mistaken
“Right, I don’t know what you’re doing here, Evan, but you’re leaving, now,” the voice was low and menacing and close to his ear. David winced as his arm was tugged up behind his back and held there as he was frog-marched towards the doors.
“Just a moment, you’ve mistaken me for someone else!” David wriggled to get away, but the grip on his arm was strong, pain shot up his arm as it was yanked up.
The voice near his ear was impatient. “No tricks, Evan, we do not have time.”
“I’m not Evan! I don’t even know an Evan!”
He was shoved through a door and into a kitchen. His arm was released and he was shoved back against the door to a freezer. An angry man in black stared him in the face. “You were told this one was off limits! You’re compromising my cover, asshole! You were told to back off and lay low, Lorne!” The man punched him in the shoulder.
Lorne? . He glanced down to see hands not his own. He was dressed in a black t-shirt and black jeans and he had muscles, the same muscles he had admired on his team leader a time or two when offworld. Had this guy mistaken him for Major Lorne, his team leader? Was Evan his first name? David didn’t recall ever hearing it. Where was he? What in the hell was he doing here? He’d gone to bed in Atlantis.
“Let me go!” he hissed in the man’s face. Surprisingly the man did just that.
“I need to leave. I need to get to a phone.”
He was shoved towards a steel door. “Yeah, you made a big mistake, Lorne; you need to get the hell out. Don’t come back, you’ve worn out your welcome.”
David moved quickly towards the door and down the alleyway. He went a few blocks before ducking into a McChickKing and going to the bathroom, bolting the door behind him. He stared into the mirror at Major Lorne’s face. What the hell was going on?
~*~
“Sir, please, you have to believe me, I’m Lorne!”
Sheppard blinked and stared. “Prove it.”
“You’ve got a pair of handcuffs in your desk drawer.”
“I’m the military commander here, of course I ha…”
“That you use to chain M…”
“Sergeants! Out!” Sheppard barked at the MP escort.
“What did you do, Lorne?”
“I didn’t do anything! Well, almost anything. I was doing light switch duty for Bill Lee at the SGC while I waited for a lift to town. I might have touched something.”
“I sent you on a simple mission, Lorne.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“So if you’re here, that means Parrish is in Colorado Springs? In your body?”
“I assume so. Oh, shit.”
“What?”
“I was tailing someone, a favor for an old friend, if Parrish got caught…”
“Bad?”
“Possibly dead kinds of bad.”
“Great. Just great,” Sheppard sighed.
They heard klaxons overhead. “Unscheduled offworld activation! SGC IDC!”
“Here it comes,” Lorne grunted, climbing out of his chair. “I wonder if they were merciful about it?”
“I never knew you were such a pessimist, Lorne.”
“Yeah well. I am. This was not the way I wanted to get into David’s pants, this is far too literal.”
Sheppard chuckled at that and slapped Lorne on the shoulder.
They approached the communications panel. “SGC this is Sheppard, we’re receiving, go ahead.”
“This is Major Davis, Colonel Sheppard. We got a very odd phone call this afternoon. We did a trace and we beamed up your Major Lorne.”
“Is he alive?”
“Oh, yes, he’s fine. Except he claims he’s not what he appears to be and refuses to say any more. Can you perhaps shed some light on this; he is your XO, after all. Does he have a history of unbalanced behavior?”
“I’m going to kill him!” Lorne seethed beside Sheppard. Sheppard made a shushing move with his hand.
“Well, we have a bit of a situation. It seems Major Lorne might have activated a device earlier today when he was working with Doctor Lee. It appears to have done some kind of transfer of consciousness. Major Lorne’s personality seems to be over here in someone else’s body.”
“Right, well, we’ll have him go through the box again and we’ll ship him back on the Daedalus. We’re sending you a databurst. SGC Out.” The Gate shut down as soon as the transfer was sent.
“So now we just wait?”
“Now we just wait.” Sheppard replied. “Parrish should reactivate the thing and you’ll be switched around again.”
~*~
Three weeks later, the Daedalus landed on the South Pier. Sheppard and Lorne went out to meet them. As the ramp went down and people started filing out, Sheppard nudged Lorne and tossed his chin. “Well, Lorne, have you ever been told to go fu…”
“You’ve been waiting three weeks to say that, haven’t you?” he knew the frown and disapproving stare didn’t have the same impact on his CO coming from Parrish’s face. But he tossed both at Sheppard anyway.
Leaving Sheppard standing there laughing at him, he jogged over towards Parrish and fell into step beside him. “So, hi.”
“Hi? That’s all you have to say?”
“Yeah?”
“I brought the whole damned box with me. Nothing in it would work for me. Colonel Carter thinks it has something to do with the mind switch.”
“We’ll figure it out. Can we go somewhere and talk?”
Parrish grabbed his sleeve and tugged him to the rail, away from the flow of traffic. “Good enough. Talk.”
“Listen I’m sorry, I know this is my fault. I guess I was kinda missing you when I was working with Lee, so I was sorta thinking about you.”
“What have you done to my hair? Why is it sticking up like that? Did you color my hair?” Parrish reached out and touched the much shorter ends of ‘his’ hair.
“I didn’t color it; your roots were just darker.”
“I guess it doesn’t suck. You were thinking about me?’
“Yeah.”
“Can’t you get in trouble for that kind of thinking?”
“Not so long as I’m serving with a CO that’s thinking the same kind of thing about someone else.”
“Oh. So, I guess we should go fix this, huh?”
“Unless you ever had a fantasy about actually fu…”
Parrish clamped a hand over Lorne’s mouth. “Have you been waiting three weeks to say that?” With the hand still in place, Lorne smirked and nodded.
“Idiot. Why didn’t you tell me your name was Evan?’
He shrugged and then Parrish pulled his hand away. “Never came up. So, are you interested in a little science experiment?”
Parrish grabbed his arm and dragged him towards the door. “We’d better get to it before Beckett starts demanding our presence in the infirmary!”
*********************************************
How I Feel
It took Lorne a while to figure out where it had started. Tracking his steps back for the day finally brought him to the science labs, and he figured out it had been the ball-like device he had picked up and tossed in his hands while he waited for Parrish to collect the gear he need for their mission.
Frowning, Parrish had snatched it out of his hands and put it back in the box on the worktable. Neither of them noticed that the device had been activated. They only noticed the effects later.
When Parrish was collecting samples on the planet, he was suddenly struck with a blinding headache, one that knocked him off his feet, literally. He had been crouched beside a plant, and woke lying in the dirt. His head hurt, a lot. He closed his eyes and found himself having a waking dream of sorts. Images flashed in his mind, memories not his own assailed him. He also felt the emotions associated with the memories.
“Doc? Doctor Parrish, what happened?” Major Lorne’s hands were on him, checking him over for injuries.
“I don’t know, “he mumbled. “Something weird. Like a dream, but not a dream, more like memories.”
Helping him sit up, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, Lorne asked, “What kind of memories? Stuff you forgot?”
“No. At least, I don’t think so. This was like watching a movie, seeing things through someone else’s eyes. Damn, my head hurts.”
“I’m going to call this mission a wash, we’re going home,” Lorne said, lifting David to his feet. “You don’t look so good, Doc, I’m worried about you.” As they walked back to the Gate, Lorne practically carried David.
Another flash hit him just before they went through. Parrish reached out and grabbed hold of Lorne’s forearms, clinging tightly to him as another wave of images washed over him. He had flashes of a schoolyard, sports, Christmas morning, a laughing woman doing macramé, and boot camp. David had never been, but he knew without a doubt that those were memories of boot camp.
When it was over, he sagged. He would have fallen if Lorne had not been supporting him. David met his eyes and he became certain of another fact. “Oh, my God. Your memories, I think these are your memories, Major. Did your mother do macramé? Did you get a GI Joe Snake Eyes in your stocking one Christmas? Did you twist your ankle on the obstacle course at boot camp?”
As he asked each question, Lorne’s expression changed to shock, his complexion going ashen. “Yeah, to all of that. We need to get you back to the infirmary, Doc.”
Before they reached the infirmary, David bent double as he was hit with another set of images and emotions. This time it was different, everything he saw was associated with Atlantis. He felt Lorne’s delight and love for the puddlejumpers. Felt his wonderment at sitting in the chair and making the city respond to his commands. He was amused at Lorne’s irritation with Sheppard’s constant dumping of paperwork on Lorne’s desk.
What shocked him was the sequence about himself. He saw himself through Lorne’s eyes, on missions with the team, working in the greenhouse, at meals in the mess hall. He remembered a lot of the instances, what was surprising to him were the emotions that went with it. He looked up at Lorne, catching his eyes. The major held the look for a few moments and then blushed and looked away.
“Infirmary, Doc,” Lorne said, taking his elbow as David straightened up and started forward again.
Major Lorne was in love with him. There was no mistaking the emotions that had gone with the visions. David’s head was pounding with pain, but his heart was soaring with joy. If it hadn’t been for this, he would have gone on without knowing. Lorne was very, very good at hiding things, it seemed. All this time working together and David hadn’t a clue that his crush was reciprocated.
The doctor was confounded by the situation, and ordered Lorne to retrace his steps. He returned to the infirmary with the ball from the lab, which was glowing slightly in his hand. He gave Parrish an apologetic look, and rubbed the back of his neck. “I think this might be the culprit. It was on when I went down there. It hadn’t been on when I was playing with it this morning.”
“Did you touch the device as well, Doctor Parrish?” Beckett asked, eyeing the ball with distrust.
“Yeah, I took it away from him and put it back in the box. I didn’t notice it working either.” Another wave of pain warned him that another batch of memories was about to come. “Ow. It’s happening again,” he warned, wrapping his hands around his middle and hunching over on the gurney.
“Shut the bloody thing off, Major.”
Lorne blushed. “Right, yeah. Okay, it’s off.”
The pain subsided, but not before David got another view of himself and was slammed with Lorne’s feelings for him. He felt Lorne’s arm around his shoulders, holding him up when he would have slumped over. “I’m okay, thanks, Major.”
“No problem Doc, it was my fault, after all.” Lorne was rubbing David’s back. He wondered if the Major was aware of it. It felt nice, he felt like someone cared for him. It had been a very long time since he had felt that way.
Doctor Beckett gave him a shot. “That should help with the residual headache. I’ll let you go in a little while. Will you stay with him for a bit, Major?”
“Of course. Why don’t you lie back and get comfortable?” Lorne said as Beckett wandered off.
Shaking his head in refusal, David said, “I’d prefer it if you kept rubbing my back. Maybe get my neck?”
“Sure. I can do that.” Lorne had strong fingers, and he knew how to properly massage a neck. David let out a long, low groan as Lorne’s fingers worked out a knot. “Okay, Doc, you have to stop doing that.”
“What?” David groaned again.
“The almost sex noises, you’re giving me wrong ideas here, Doc.”
Looking up at Lorne, David gave a shrug. “Maybe they aren’t so wrong. Stop calling me Doc, my name is David. Call me David, Major.”
The fingers had paused in the massage. “Only if you call me Evan.”
“Deal.” David crooked a finger at him and he leaned in. Taking matters into his own hands, so to speak, David reached up and clasped the sides of Evan’s face, pulling him closer. He pressed their lips together, kissing him firmly.
Lorne went completely still with shock at first, then sighed and returned the kiss. When David released him, Evan looked into his eyes. “I guess my secret is out, huh?”
“So out. So very, very out,” David agreed. “Will you help me back to my quarters? I don’t want to stay here. We can continue this discussion more privately.”
“Sure. I’ll walk you home. You want to sneak out or you want me to go get Beckett?”
David grinned. “Let’s be sneaky.” He slid off the gurney and his knees buckled. “Oh crap.”
Luckily, Lorne caught him. “You sure you’re up to leaving? Maybe I should get the doctor.”
“Nah, just woozy, it gives me an excuse to be clingy. Let’s make with the breakout.”
Lorne laughed lightly. They made it out of the infirmary without incident and David only had to hold on to Evan a few times on the way home.
“I wish I didn’t have this headache to contend with,” David sighed wistfully as Evan helped him to his bed. “I’d ask you to stay.”
“You could ask me.”
David peered up at him. “Yeah? Do you want to stay?”
“Sure. I’d like to keep an eye on you. And maybe by morning your headache will be gone.” Evan waggled an eyebrow suggestively. “Tomorrow is Sunday, we’re both off duty. We could have that discussion tomorrow, after we’ve slept on it.”
They both stripped down to t-shirts and shorts. David curled on his side in his usual sleeping position and Evan scooted close and spooned around him, reaching over to take David’s hand and intertwining their fingers. “Well, this is certainly not how I thought today would end.”
“Me either. But it’s nice, headache notwithstanding.”
“Yeah, it is. Goodnight, David,” Evan pressed a kiss to the back of his neck and sighed, settling down.
“’Night, Evan.”
*******************************************
Forever Sleep
“We aren’t getting out of this,” Evan whispered the words that had been going through his mind for the last fifteen minutes. He raised his head and saw his teammates, Stackhouse and Cadman, staring at him.
Cadman’s eyes slid over to the still form of Doctor Hisho, rapidly cooling by the bulkhead across the way. She knew. Evan could see it in her eyes, she knew the truth.
“They’ll find us,” Stacks wasn’t ready to admit it yet.
“Not before the air runs out. Not before we freeze to death,” Laura said in a monotone.
Pressed into the corner behind the smoking ruins of the dead DHD, Evan wrapped his arms around his knees and shivered. This was ridiculous. “Guys, we should sit together.” Laura immediately crawled over, wrapped her arm around Evan’s shoulders and huddled close. After a minute, Stackhouse moved to sit beside Laura, the weird foiled material of the emergency blanket he had wrapped around him making a weird crinkling noise as he settled in to share body heat.
Evan knew it was hopeless. Eventually Atlantis would piece the information together and figure out that they had been chased through the Gate from their original location and they might even find the address for this abandoned space station. But not in time to save his team. Laura said, “Even if they dial in, we have no way of dialing out.”
“Doctor Hisho might be the lucky one,” Stackhouse mumbled.
“He’s dead,” Laura replied.
Stacks shrugged. “He’s not feeling the cold. He doesn’t have to smell those things either.” Stacks tossed his head towards the corpses of the aliens that had shot up this Gate Room, killed their geek and destroyed the DHD.
They sat in silence for a while before Evan took a deep breath and said, “David won’t know. They won’t tell him right away. He’ll have to hear it third or forth hand.”
“David? Doctor Parrish?” Laura asked.
“Yeah. I should’ve left a note, should have made him an emergency contact. He shouldn’t find out that way.”
Stackhouse was staring at him. “I didn’t know you were… rotten way for anyone to hear.”
Miserable, thinking about David, Evan leaned into the hug Laura gave him. He slid his hand up to grasp hers where it rested on his upper arm and intertwined their fingers. “I should have told someone.”
“Don’t go to sleep, sir!” Laura’s voice snapped Evan awake, jolting him upright.
“I’m not.”
She bumped her forehead to his. “Liar.”
“So cold,” Stackhouse chattered. He was literally wrapped around Cadman, his blanket around his shoulders, hers around his legs, trapping the heat as best they could.
“It’s your turn, sing something, sir,” Laura whispered. They had started taking turns singing or chanting or speaking the lyrics to songs in order to stay awake, knowing if they went to sleep, they would likely never wake again. Evan started to laugh.
Stacks looked around Laura and asked, “What’s funny?”
“What if the last words I say or think about are Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves?”
“Thanks, sir, now you’ve got my last thoughts wondering if you’re into the drag scene, and how you’d look in a Cher wig.” Laura poked his ribs through his tac vest and chuckled.
“I don’t have the legs.”
As it turned out, the last thing he thought about before he slipped into what promised to be forever sleep was David.
~*~
“Lorne. Evan Lorne, wake up.” Someone was roughly shaking his shoulder.
“Go way.”
“Uh-uh, buddy, not until you open your eyes. I have coffee, real coffee.”
He smelled it as it was passed under his nose. He sniffed, inhaling the lovely, bracing odor. He opened his eyes to see Colonel Sheppard peering into his face. “Sir?” he whispered in confusion. “How?”
“Zelenka tracked you down. We sent the MALP through, saw the DHD and planned accordingly.” Sheppard pressed the thermos into his hands and held it steady as Evan raised it to his lips and sipped at it. It was just how he liked it too, light and sweet with a little vanilla. He turned his head, and saw Stackhouse being treated by a medic. Cadman was sitting up, wrapped in a real blanket, talking to Ronon.
“My team?”
“A little chilled, maybe some mild hypothermia, but you should all be okay. Here, I’ve got a wool blanket for you.” Evan leaned forward and Sheppard tucked the blanket around him.
He took another gulp of the coffee, relishing the warmth as it slid down his throat. His teeth were clattering together as he said, “Thanks, sir. Hey, how’d you know about the vanilla?”
“Doctor Parrish told me.” Sheppard met his eyes and gave a brisk nod, “Don’t worry.” Then he slapped Evan’s shoulder and said, “I’m going to go check on progress with the mobile dialing device. Rodney, how’s it coming?”
Evan watched him go. His secret, apparently, was now completely out of the bag. His team and his CO knew. The relief he felt was a different kind of warmth. He didn’t have to lie anymore.
******************************************
While You were Sleeping
It still amazed David that he had literally been holding Evan’s life in his hands. One moment, Evan was leaning against the console, talking amiably with the Grand High Whatcamacallit of Bumbletown and the next, Evan was across the room in a bloody and charred heap. The shrapnel from the exploding equipment had torn wide gashes in his chest and abdomen and bits and pieces of smoking remnants of the machine were still raining down on them.
He vaguely remembered shouting Evan’s name and then running to his side, skidding on his knees the last few feet. He had pulled a piece of hot metal off Evan’s chest and thrown it aside. Then he had instinctively put his hand across the hole in his abdomen and pushed the piece of intestine back inside. Remembering his SGC field first aid courses, David had applied pressure to a second wound higher up. Then he’d started shouting for help.
David didn’t know how long he had stayed there, keeping pressure on the wounds while Evan bled over his hands. There was chaos going on around him, but he ignored everything, including the pain from his hand, which he had burned on the hot metal. Evan Lorne was the only thing he cared about. He kept up a steady stream of encouragement, calling Evan’s name, telling him to hold on, promising him help was on the way, begging him not to leave him, begging him to stay, begging him not to die.
Then suddenly Carson Beckett was there, kneeling beside Evan. “All right now, lad. Let go, move aside, let me see what I’m working with.”
From behind him, Colonel Sheppard grasped David’s shoulders gently, “Parrish, let me in there, you go and get yourself looked after.” Reluctantly, David pulled his hands away and let Beckett take over, let Sheppard slip into the spot beside Evan to help the doctor. A medic ran up and guided David away to a clear spot and sat him down to fuss over his injuries. He kept his eyes locked on Evan. A small irrational part of him fervently believed that so long as he could see Evan, he couldn’t slip away from him. David hadn’t realized he was bleeding from a dozen wounds until the medic started peeling his field jacket away in strips of charred and bloody fabric.
“Oh,” David whispered, looking down and seeing all the blood, really seeing it, for the first time; his blood, Evan’s blood. He felt his stomach churn and he turned aside and upchucked the lovely meal the Bumbletown people had fed them before their tour of the malfunctioning exploding junk works they called state of the art in Bumbletown.
Across the room, Beckett had pulled out a defibrillator. “Evan, no!” David called.
He scrambled away from the tech to land on his knees beside Sheppard. He reached out, but Sheppard caught him and held him back, just as Beckett yelled, “Clear!” Evan’s body jerked under the shock.
Thankfully, the cardiac machine started to emit a rhythmic beat, Evan’s heart had started again. “That’s a good lad. Right, let’s get him back to Atlantis.” David began to sob in relief, turning his face into Sheppard’s neck and crying unashamedly as Beckett and the medics lifted Evan and got him on a stretcher then carried him away.
“Parrish, I have to go fly the jumper now, come on, time to go.” Sheppard’s voice was not unkind as he patted David’s back and helped him to his feet.
David nodded and got up to follow the Colonel to the jumper. He sat on the floor beside Evan’s head, staying out of the way as the medics worked on him.
~*~
David flipped through the pages of the book in his lap awkwardly. His bandaged hand made it difficult. Laura Cadman had lent him the book of poetry when he started to read Shakespeare’s sonnets for the third time in her presence. He cleared his throat and started to read.
“The end was quick and bitter.
Slow and sweet was the time between us,
Slow and sweet were the nights
When my hands did not touch one another in despair but in the love
Of your body which came between them…”
A gently touch on his arm made him pause. He looked up to see Marie the medical technician standing at his shoulder. “Doctor Parrish, you’ll need to step out for a bit, we need to change Major Lorne’s dressings and clean him up a bit.”
Going up on his toes, David leaned over the side of the bed rail and kissed Evan’s forehead. “I’ll be back.”
“You should get your own dressings changed while you wait. Go see Suzanne.” He nodded at the nurse’s suggestion and went to find Suzanne.
Suzanne had just gone to gather supplies to do his bandages when a ruckus rose up from Evan’s corner of the infirmary, equipment being moved around, and an alarm sounded. David panicked as Marie jogged past him, calling for Doctor Beckett. He ran back to Evan’s bedside. He stopped short at the foot of the bed when he saw that Evan’s eyes were open. “Evan?”
He smiled up at David. Evan’s voice was raspy and a little raw after days of disuse and intubation with a breathing tube. “There you are. You stopped reading.”
He should have been happy. He should have been overjoyed that his lover was no longer lying there unconscious. Instead, he was mildly annoyed. “You were listening?”
“Of course I was. I like when you read to me,” Evan yawned, his voice a little slurred and sleepy.
“You weren’t unconscious?”
“I woke up a while ago. You seemed very intent on your reading; I didn’t want to bother you.”
David moved up by Evan’s head and shook his head as he groused, “You didn’t want to bother me? For crying out loud, Evan, I was reading to pass the time while I waited for you to wake up!”
“Oh. Well, I like when you read to me.” Evan’s eyelids started to flutter and he yawned. “Read to me some more, David.”
As Carson came in and started checking Evan over, David slumped down into the bedside chair with relief. Evan seemed to be asleep again, but David didn’t mind so much now. He picked up a book from the pile on the floor beside his chair and thumbed it open with his good hand. “When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes…”
Poetry: Quick and Bitter by Yehuda Amichai
Sonnet 29 by William Shakespeare
***************************************
Under the Influence
Major Lorne stood at attention beside the rest of his team and paid his respects at Doctor Kate Heightmeyer’s memorial service. He nodded and chatted with people afterwards, listening to other people’s memories of the good doctor, singing her praises, lamenting her passing. He pressed his forehead to Teyla’s to honor her Athosian custom and then gave her a hug to honor his.
After the service, he returned to his quarters and downed half of a fifth of Jack Daniels he had stashed away in his footlocker. That night, Lorne slept without interruption, courtesy of the alcohol.
The next morning, he rose, showered and shaved, dragged on his uniform and forced himself to go to work. When his duty shift was over, he declined an invitation from David Parrish to go to Movie Night in the mess hall and returned to his quarters. He downed the remainder of the Jack and passed out across his bed, still in uniform. Again, Jack let him sleep.
Two days after Doctor Heightmeyer’s service, Evan was out of alcohol. He attempted to sleep, but the nightmares woke him as they always did. The nightmares were the thing that sent him to Doctor Heightmeyer in the first place. His sleepwalking and the nightmares were connected according to the doctor, and she had been working with him trying to get to the source of the issue.
The most telling thing that had come out of long therapy sessions of talking were that Evan had a problem reconciling his sexual identity with his rank and position in the military. DADT made it impossible for Major Lorne to act on the attraction he had for his teammate, Doctor Parrish. But Evan wanted to pursue David; he wanted a relationship deeper than friendship. He was torn between what he felt in his heart and what his head told him was right and proper and lawful. Major Lorne could not willfully disregard an order, and it was tearing Evan apart.
His nightmares clued her in. He had dreams of being caught and publically shamed for his sexual proclivities. In the worst of the dreams, he was stripped of his rank, court-martialed and sent to prison, to the disgust and censure of his family and friends. Evan had not told anyone about his sexual preferences and being outed was one of his deepest fears. Most of his nightmares had a similar theme; people finding out and the consequences that followed. He had a few irrational nightmares too, and those were the ones that frightened him the most and woke him screaming. He dreamed of being tortured, of being raped in prison, of monsters chasing him, of being marooned and shunned alone on an alien world. The nightmares had sent him crawling to Kate Heightmeyer begging for help.
She had been helping him. She had a new technique that she had developed using a piece of ancient tech in combination with regular talk therapy and hypnosis. He did not know the specifics, all he knew about the way the therapy worked was that she had a small device on her desk that flickered blue and green and after their talk session she would put him into a hypnotic state. He knew that since starting the therapy with Doctor Heightmeyer, he had been sleeping through the night. That made it all worth the time he was putting into the therapy.
Three nights after Doctor Heightmeyer’s memorial service, Evan tried again to sleep. He was exhausted after a full day on duty. The nightmares that woke him screaming, shaking and sweating were the bad kind - the rape and torture ones. He couldn’t bear to put his head back on the pillow, so he sat on his sofa with his laptop and played one hundred and sixteen games of Spider Solitaire. Then at 05:30, he showered, shaved and went to his office.
At the end of the day, Sheppard brought him a dozen reports that had to be redone because he had done them wrong. The Colonel told Lorne to knock off early because he looked a little ragged, and that he needed to rest up because AG-2 was going off world the next day. Regular operations were resuming on Atlantis.
On the way back to his quarters, Lorne took a detour to the physics lab and bribed Zelenka with the last of his black market reserves; three chocolate bars, a box of condoms and a tube of KY Jelly for a pint of Radek’s moonshine. A third of the moonshine was enough to knock him on his ass and let him sleep. Lorne started to fear that he was probably becoming an alcoholic.
On the fourth day after Atlantis paid tribute to the lost therapist, Lorne went off world with his team. During the fight that erupted, he got clubbed with a bar stool and suffered a concussion. Doctor Keller prescribed him some of the good pain pills. He hoarded his moonshine and rationed the pain pills to use at night to help him sleep.
Eleven nights after Heightmeyer’s memorial, Lorne was out of alcohol and pills and had not slept at all in two nights. Knowing it was a futile attempt, he curled up in his bed anyway and let sleep claim him.
He woke when someone slapped his face, hard. Then he was being shaken by the arms. … Lorne! Major, look at me!” Why was Parrish shouting at him? “Major Lorne!” Parrish slapped him again.
“What?” He pushed Parrish away. “Stop shouting at me.”
“Oh, thank God, you’re talking again. Evan, what in the hell is wrong with you?”
Evan looked around; he was on the balcony where Kate Heightmeyer had been when she jumped. “How’d I get here?”
“That’s what I want to know.” Parrish was holding his arms and staring up into his face. “You didn’t turn up for work; they had to use your sub-q transmitter to find you.”
“You found me?”
“Chuck found you; he told me you were here. Evan, you had your gun in your lap and you were sitting on the ledge.” David’s lower lip quivered a little and his eyes were very bright. “I pulled you down. Your gun is down two levels, it fell over onto a lower balcony.”
Lorne turned and looked over the railing. What the hell?
“Evan, what’s going on? Why would you…?”
“I wouldn’t! I mean, I don’t think I would.” He rubbed a hand over his face. He didn’t know anymore. “I guess I was sleepwalking again. I haven’t been sleeping very well.”
“With your sidearm?”
“I don’t know why I had it. I’m not suicidal, David, I swear.”
David’s hands fell away from Evan’s arms. “You need help.”
He snarled at David, “I was getting help. And then she went and took a dive off that stanchion over there!”
Spooked, Parrish backed away, his eyes wide. Evan realized he’d just yelled at the guy who had probably saved his life. “I’m sorry, David. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to do. I can’t sleep; I can’t control this thing anymore.”
David grasped his arm and tugged him towards the doors. “Let’s go to the infirmary. Tell Doctor Keller about your problem with sleeping, see what she says. If Doctor Heightmeyer was treating you, they can look up your records; get you back on the same course again.”
Blinking stupidly, Evan shook his head. “I should have thought of that.”
“You said you haven’t been sleeping. You probably haven’t been thinking clearly.” Parrish led him through the doors into the hallway. He was in his sleep pants and t-shirt, and barefoot, again. He was going to get a reputation if this kept happening. He followed Parrish quietly, letting the doctor drag him along by his arm. He’d scared David; he owed him his cooperation, at the very least.
Keller waved him over to an empty gurney and made him sit. She listened to his halting explanation of what had been happening. She frowned when she heard the part about Heightmeyer using Ancient tech. The doctor said she would get Heightmeyer’s records and see what she could do to help him until the SGC sent a new therapist to replace her. She then shot him with a sedative and pushed him down on the gurney.
Twelve days after Kate Heightmeyer’s memorial service, Evan Lorne woke up in the Atlantis infirmary to see David Parrish sleeping in the chair beside the bed, his head resting on his arms which were pressed against Evan’s hip. He had Evan’s right hand clasped in his.
Evan jolted completely awake and nearly panicked.
“Easy, Lorne. Don’t wake him; the nurse said he was up all night watching over you.” Lorne looked to his left to see Sheppard leaning against the wall. The Colonel tossed his chin at Parrish. “You gave him quite a scare. He wasn’t going to tell me what happened, but Chuck pulled up the security footage and squealed on you.”
“Damn it.” In his mind he added a few more colorful descriptive words about Chuck and his ancestry. Evan wiped his left hand over his face.
Sheppard reached over and punched his shoulder lightly. “Funny thing, we had this freak electrical surge and lost all our security footage from the last two days. I guess we’ll never figure out how your service revolver ended up on that balcony.”
“I guess not. I sure don’t remember anything.”
“Yeah, that’s what the doc told me. It seems you were under the influence of some gadget that Heightmeyer was playing with; she brought it in from the SGC with her. It was still running, but you weren’t getting the post hypnotic suggestions that she had been feeding you, so you kinda went a little haywire. I turned it off. Listen, she had some really freaky thing going on. When you’re feeling better, we’ll go through it and you can decide what you want to do about it.”
“So, this wasn’t just me?”
“No. You were under the influence of alien technology, Heightmeyer was playing a bit of a game with you.” Sheppard pushed away from the wall and started to leave. He looked indecisive for a moment and then turned back and said, “Listen, I didn’t ask, but your botanist there sure told me a lot. I’m the last guy on this planet to throw rocks in the glass house, if you get what I’m saying.”
Surprised, Lorne just nodded.
“So we’re cool?” Sheppard asked, tilting his head.
“We’re cool, sir.”
Sheppard left and Lorne glanced down to see that David was awake and staring up at him, though he hadn’t moved a muscle while he’d been talking with Sheppard.
“Are we cool?” David asked, squeezing Evan’s hand.
He squeezed back. “I think maybe we will be.”