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John Sheppard left the medical wing behind, his mind full of Everett and his bloodied chest and his shaking hands and his aged face and… God sometimes he hated this galaxy.
“Major Sheppard!”
He turned to see Radek Zelenka striding toward him and let a smile start to wear away the horror. Zelenka looked exhausted and hopped up on something and sick and worried all at once. John figured he wasn’t the only one in that condition around here.
“Radek,” he greeted him. “Good to see you.”
“Yes, the same to you,” Radek said, a wealth of relief and a little wonder in his response. “I am sure Rodney has explained to you the many ways your demise would have inconvenienced him,” he said with a smile of his own.
John’s stomach tightened a little. “Actually, I haven’t seen him yet.” Or any of his team. And he really, really needed to. When those darts had made their kamikaze run and Atlantis’s radios had gone dark…
“Ah,” Radek said, just a thread of worry in his tone, like he was too exhausted to muster much response. “Teyla is with him. Or was, the last time I heard. They were making their way back to the main tower.”
“And here we are.”
John grinned at the dragging, half-asleep and wired voice, and turned to see exactly what he wanted to see. Rodney and Teyla were walking toward them from the western pier, each in one piece, neither one wasted and drained like Colonel Everett. Teyla was alert but reaching the limits of her energy. McKay was stumbling and a little glazed—typical for him at the tail end of a potentially world-ending crisis. Right now, John didn’t think he’d ever seen a better sight.
“Not dead, I see,” Rodney greeted him, with an edge to the words and confrontation in his stance. Subtle, but John had seen it often enough to know McKay was pissed at him.
“You, either,” John replied, refusing to engage. They’d have it out later, but right now, all he really wanted to do was bask in the survival of his friends. “Nice work with the shield.” Stroking McKay’s ego was a good way to distract him.
And of course, it worked. Sort of.
“Nearly didn’t get it working in time,” Rodney griped, trading a stressed look with Radek. “We need to review the systems and make sure we can take full advantage of the new ZPM.” He yawned. “God, is there any of that coffee left?” He stumbled as they all resumed their trek toward the gateroom. “And a sandwich,” he added, eyes half-closed. “Big sandwich.”
“They have ample food in the mess hall,” Radek assured him. “I am going to run the diagnostics on the system, Rodney,” he said, turning off at the next junction. “I will let you know when the long-range sensors are back up.”
Rodney waved him off with a nod of thanks and kept putting one foot in front of the other, though that seemed to be about all he could do.
“Shouldn’t he be sleeping off those stimulants Carson gave you two?” John asked.
"Radek's already had his two-hour nap," Rodney explained. "Lucky him."
"You still haven't slept?" John asked incredulously. They were going on at least 48 hours here.
"Little busy saving the city and all that." There was a touch of bitterness to the words, and John saw Teyla purse her lips for a second before her face became that bland neutrality that made her such a good leader.
“I believe I will check in with Elizabeth and see where else I might be of help,” she said. She didn’t say it pointedly, but she didn’t have to.
“The Daedalus has sent down some clean-up teams,” John told her. “Check in with Elizabeth long enough to let her know you’re okay, then log some rest yourself.”
“Gladly.” Teyla gave him a smile. “I am happy you’re back, John.”
“Me, too,” he said, watching her go.
Which left him with the zombie formerly known as Rodney McKay. The scientist had stopped because they’d stopped, but he was clearly just… not there.
“Rodney, you should—”
McKay shook himself like a dog, blinking a few times like he couldn’t see straight. “You’re right,” he said. “I should probably help Radek with the diagnostics—”
“I was going to say you should probably get some sleep.” John shook his head at the blank look on Rodney’s face.
It rapidly gave way to confusion. “Oh. Yeah,” he agreed. “Coffee first, though.”
“Coffee’s just going to keep you up,” John pointed out.
Rodney nodded automatically. “Not sure I can stay awake long enough to get to my quarters,” he admitted candidly. “Coffee first.”
John followed him to the mess—mostly because he didn’t want the man to just collapse in the hall. And also because… Well, he was Rodney. And for a while there, John hadn’t been sure he was going to see him again.
McKay managed to get a cup of coffee and snag a sandwich and sit at a table by the window, all without falling on his ass. John was impressed.
Hell, John thought, taking a seat across the table from him and looking out at the sea and the silent sky. He was impressed by everything Rodney and Radek and the others had accomplished.
“You did good,” he said quietly, looking back at Rodney…. Who was fast asleep sitting up, with his hand wrapped around a mug of coffee. He almost didn’t wake him, but that would’ve been too cruel. The last time Rodney fell asleep at a table, the rest of them had heard about the crick in his neck for a week. “Rodney?” he called.
Rodney snored.
“Rodney!”
McKay started violently and almost upended his coffee all over himself. “What?!” he cried, too exhausted to be on high alert, but clearly far too deep in crisis mode to prevent it. He blinked at John a second and sighed. “Oh, I had the worst dream.”
John smiled wryly. “If it was about energy-sucking vampires—”
“You had wings,” Rodney rode over him, his voice dropping back to the usual exhausted and slightly bitching monotone of Dr. McKay at the end of his rope. “Not even good, realistic wings. Warren Beatty in Heaven Can Wait wings.”
“He didn’t have wings in the movie, did he?” John asked. It was like a reflex after a year together. Rodney said something weird, John questioned it. It was soothing, sort of.
“What?” Rodney apparently rewound the tape in his head. “No. No, the movie poster? The sweatsuit and the wings?” He sipped his coffee. “You were flying straight at the hive ship. Carrying a bazooka.”
“Do you even know what a bazooka looks like?”
Rodney glared at him. “Entirely beside the point.”
“There’s a point?”
“You didn’t even say goodbye.”
John took a second to catch up. “What? Yes I did.”
“No,” Rodney said, like he was talking to an idiot. “You didn’t.”
“I did!” John wasn’t going to let him get away with this.
“ No . You say ‘So long, Rodney.’” McKay was suddenly quiet and completely furious. “‘So long’ is something you say when you’re headed out to Krispie Kreme. It’s what you say when you’re off to the store.” He looked at his coffee mug. “It’s not what you say when you’re going to run off and kill yourself.”
John sighed, exasperated. “It’s not like we had any choice,” he pointed out.
“You scared the hell out of Carson, you know?” Rodney continued, as if John hadn’t said a word. “You blew up and he looked at me and I could just see the terror in his eyes because one of the two of us was going to have to go next, weren’t we?”
“But I didn’t blow up,” John pointed out. He thought it sounded reasonable.
Rodney clearly disagreed. His lips drew into a tight line. “Well we didn’t know that, did we?” he muttered angrily. “And again, it’s completely beside the point.”
“And again, what is the point here?” Because John had to admit, he wasn’t sure he knew. Yes, he’d gone on a suicide mission, but this whole thing was a suicide mission, for God’s sake. It was the only reasonable chance they had.
“The point, Major,” Rodney said, standing up and leaving his uneaten sandwich and half-full coffee mug. “Is that I don’t have very many friends, all right? The wraith have done an awfully good job on their own trying to cut down that number. You don’t need to help them.”
He was three steps away before John found his voice. “I’m sorry,” he tried.
“You’re not.”
No, he wasn’t, actually. Not about trying to blow up the hive ship, but.... “I should have said goodbye.”
Rodney hung his head. “Yes, you should have.” He looked back at the table, at John, at his abandoned meal. “I’m too tired to even eat that.”
“God, now I know you really are a zombie,” John joked reflexively. He damned himself for it instantly. It sure as hell wasn’t time to be making jokes about the undead, was it?
Except maybe it was. Rodney cocked his head. “I’ll never look at Night of the Living Dead the same way again,” he said.
John rose and stood next to him. The least he could do was make sure McKay got to his quarters. He had to initiate their movement, but Rodney followed along readily enough.
“Romero might have gotten a few things wrong,” Rodney added, his brain obviously embracing the tangent. “Maybe he should come here to do research before he makes his next movie.”
“Romero would get eaten alive here,” John deadpanned.
“Oh, har har,” Rodney replied, showing he wasn’t too tired to get a joke. They walked in silence the final little bit to his door.
“Go get some sleep,” John ordered. “I’m going to track down Ford and see where we’re at with the Wraith in the city.”
Rodney nodded and opened his door.
“Major?” he called, stopping John as he walked away toward the gateroom.
“Yeah, Rodney?”
“Don’t ever do that again, okay?” He closed the door behind him without waiting for an answer.
John turned toward the center of the city.
“No promises, Rodney.”
******
the end