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Title: Ever Vigilant
Rating: PG-13 for druggings and very vague offscreen torture
Characters: Sheppard, McKay
Dislaimer: I don't own SGA.
Summary: McKay prefers bedside vigils. They're easier. Sheppard whump, McKay POV, friendship, indulgence. Big hugs for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wildcat88 for the beta.
A/N: The last comfort fic of my comfort/indulgence splurge, this one slightly longer with a lot more effort involved.
Ever Vigilant
The first time Rodney had ever sat by anyone's bedside was when Sheppard had been recovering from turning into a bug. Rodney's great aunt didn't count – that had been a one time visit; he had been five and in the presence of a total stranger for all he knew. She'd mostly scared the crap out of him. (She hadn't been the one who shaved. She'd been the one with tiny little vampire teeth and a smile that was more like a death's head grin.) His mother's illness didn't count – the visits had been brief and always with her in a wheelchair or pretending to be up and about with the aid of a nurse because she'd never said it but hated people seeing her weak. She'd even have someone do her makeup for her.
With Sheppard it had been legit and not as bad as Rodney had thought it was going to be. He'd thought he was going to be bored out of his skull. But he'd had his laptop and was never around when Sheppard woke up. Carson wouldn't let him, let anyone, stick around when Sheppard started emerging from his drug-induced coma. It gets bad, was all Carson would say. Which, according to the distant echo of screams one could sometimes hear haunting the halls, was enough said.
Rodney had come to discover that he liked bedside vigils. They were uncomplicated, a quick and easy service providing little effort on his part; a little more effort if the bedridden were awake yet no different than the effort applied in most social situations on a daily basis.
Then crap happened and Rodney realized that he sucked at the whole comfort thing. Not for want of trying; for want of needing to say something. For all the speed-talking people accused him of, words were elusive things when actually needed. Just because people talked it didn't mean they were saying anything. It was when he had to say something that talking made Rodney's jaw ache, sometimes his neck, bleeding into his head. Saying things hurt.
And, for the life of him, he had no idea why he kept trying.
Anger: now there was an incentive to say things. When Sheppard disappeared yet again for unknown reasons, Rodney had plenty to say – to the people of the town they'd been visiting when Sheppard up and vanished, to Woolsey when he dithered about how to go about looking for Sheppard (Rodney was pretty sure he was going about it cost-effectively), to the IOA when they dropped hints about the search for Sheppard being a lost cause (and probably not cost-effective), and to anyone who he thought was silently agreeing.
Ronon and Teyla had his back through it all, Ronon especially, who could say things without speaking a word. Rodney's jealousy of him was unending.
Four months of searching with nothing to show for it was incentive enough for the IOA to officially call off the search. Which, of course, only applied to the military, not Ronon, Teyla, fellow Athosians and the few allies who actually liked Atlantis. Of all the things to rub off of Sheppard onto Rodney, it had to be optimism. Until a body was found, Sheppard was still alive.
And Rodney was hopeful: practically a beacon of hope, if he did say so himself. He attacked his various projects and repairs with a lot more gusto, flying high on certainty, anticipation and anger. He imagined various scenarios of Sheppard's triumphant return, not-so-triumphant, and occasionally, against Rodney's will – because pessimism refused to be smothered – completely failed return.
Yet when the alarms sounded and the call of unscheduled activation was announced, all that preparation was wasted. Rodney literally dropped what he was doing, actually didn't care if he'd broken the laptop, and took off at a run to the 'gate room. He arrived in time to see Stackhouse's team surrounding like an honor guard a single figure in peasant garb.
Rodney's fingers tightened around the rail until his knuckles were white. Sheppard walked tall, whole, healthy if thinner, and smiling.
That bastard was smiling. Months of searching, worrying, thinking the best and the worst, and the jerk had waltzed back home the picture of health; the product of kindly villagers taking pity on the pretty boy; a man untouched.
Rodney pushed from the rail and stormed down the stairs. It was wrong to be angry, he knew. He was supposed to be happy – overjoyed. Sheppard was alive, well, the picture of friggin', stupid health. It should have inspired cheers and kudos and all that good crap.
And Rodney was glad; he really was. Or would be after he knocked Sheppard on his ass for all the worry he'd caused. Being said picture of health, why hadn't he come home sooner?
The million dollar question, like a quiet alarm in the back of Rodney's skull, breathed a whisper louder than the fury.
Something was wrong.
Sheppard's eyes darted quick as a startled bird to Rodney and his smile grew, wide as the Cheshire cat's. The perfect target for a good deck to the face. But when McKay stopped, fist at the ready, all he could do was stand there and stare.
Sheppard was alive. He was back. He was smiling, looking at Rodney with eyes like happy hazel marbles.
Something was very wrong.
Then it hit Rodney, a physical blow of a realization that made him sway.
Lieutenant Colonel “I'm fine” Sheppard always had something to say when Rodney McKay was around. Always. Good, bad, pithy, whatever. Of all the things to rub off of Rodney onto Sheppard, Sheppard had once joked that it was never knowing when the keep his mouth shut. Rodney had agreed about the not-keeping-mouth-shut part. The rest he'd bristled, sputtered and spat insults over.
At most there should have been an “I see you haven't blown up my city, McKay.” At least a, “Hey, McKay.”
Sheppard had yet to say anything.
The epiphany shut down Rodney's brain long enough for his startled “Wait!” with hand stretched out at the advancing soldiers and medics to fall short. One touch to John's arm by a nurse, and chaos.
It was like someone flipping a switch in a room full of bats and a high-strung cat. Sheppard startled bad, loose and lank to a blur of feral terror and fury, jerking back from the gathering crowd and bellowing an incoherent roar of words. And of course it had to happen in the presence of marines, who for all their training were a remarkably skittish bunch. One half of those present raised weapons from P-90s to stunners, the others tried to make a grab for Sheppard's flailing arms.
Sheppard was having none of it, scuttling backward toward the, thankfully, closed 'gate. He screamed more foul language than Rodney had ever heard coming out of that man's mouth, top of his lungs with spittle flying and face going beet red from the exertion. Bordering the red was white, darkening the blood-shot veins in his eyes. This wasn't anger they were seeing; this was terror and rage and a man who had no idea where he was and what was going on. It was unbridled insanity.
On hitting the wall Sheppard inched into the corner, warding off the people trying to help him with raised hands and a few uncoordinated kicks. He packed himself into the corner where rage caved way too quickly to pure terror. Sheppard panted then gasped air into lungs that weren't keeping up with a thrashing heart. It was only a matter of time before he hyperventilated. Or, worse, one of the idiot goons decided it would be a good idea to tackle him. Solutions found in sports were universal for grunts or jarheads or whatever the hell their nicknames were.
It was to Rodney's great surprise that he suddenly found himself at the forefront of the kindly mob “just trying to help,” shouting himself raw and apparently having been shouting for a while. He usually didn't irritate his throat with verbal tirades so damn fast.
“Just back off!”
“Rodney?”
And they did back off, slowly, as though Rodney's name spoken in such a tentative way, unnatural for the man cowering in the corner, had more power than shouts ever could. Sheppard's gaze locked on Rodney like a drowning man to the edge of a lifeboat. That gaze bled pleas for help, oozed dependency, and Rodney suddenly wondered if this was just another Asuran Sheppard clone come to screw with their reality and make their hope a laughingstock.
Sheppard didn't normally so much as blink helplessness even on the bad days.
It scared Rodney more than anything ever had: not being on a hive ship, not flying too close to a sun, not Sheppard being fed on.
Sheppard did not do helpless. Ever.
Something was oh so very damn wrong.
Gulping, Rodney inched his way toward a quaking Sheppard who was so childlike in his fear that Rodney nearly let his guard down. He quickly reminded himself, this is Sheppard. Rodney painted a smile on his face that made his clenching jaw ache, and held out a hand that he hoped Sheppard didn't notice was shaking. Rodney couldn't help his own self-preservation. A skinny, timid Sheppard did not equal a harmless Sheppard. The cocky Air Force pilot's looks alone could be pretty damn lethal... on a mental level, that is.
But this was Sheppard, Mr. “leave no man behind.” The man who'd so casually sailed away on a 'jumper full of nuke into the nearest hive ship to save an entire city. The man who did it again minus the nuke but plus a hole in his side all to save Teyla.
And he'd said Rodney's name. Okay, so, maybe that wasn't much for Rodney to stake his own life on – crazy people usually didn't know they were crazy. But this stupidity needed to stop before someone got hurt, namely Sheppard. Possibly others but they would have deserved it. You don't corner a frightened soldier trained in combat by this galaxy's version of Xena and Conan and think you won't come out unscathed. Sheppard could be without limbs and still kill everyone with a bite to the femoral artery, like that black knight in the Monty Python movie, only making good on the threat.
“That's right,” Rodney said. He cleared his throat of the slight waver distorting his voice. “That's right, Sheppard. It's Rodney. Dr. Rodney McKay, PhD.”
Sheppard swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing like a trapped and spooked mouse. “M-Meredith.”
Rodney rolled his eyes and sneered with great loathing, “Yes... Meredith. Now will you please step away from there and go to the infirmary so we can see how damaged your brain is already? Busy man, haven't got all day.” He snapped his fingers. “Chop, chop.” Which in hindsight might not have been a good idea.
It wasn't a good idea. Sheppard reached out slowly, testingly until thin fingers touched Rodney's wrist, jerked back, touched again, then finally wrapped themselves around flesh and bone.
“Yes, I'm real.” said Rodney. “You can let go now.”
Sheppard didn't. He did shuffle away from the corner up to Rodney's side, stiff, trembling and liable to snap if someone so much as coughed. Up close, Sheppard was pale enough to rival a Wraith's complexion. His eyes were bloodshot and sunken, his cheeks hollow, his clothes torn and filthy but then what was one to expect of peasant garb? That was the problem with Pegasus – half the planets were forever trapped in a Renaissance Fair.
Rodney's eyes strayed to Sheppard's wrists sticking out of the frayed sleeves, and rings of raw skin glowing blood red against the white. Against all laws of nature, Rodney's heart crawled into his throat and set down stakes there.
Sheppard was hurt.
“Mo -” Rodney squeaked. He coughed. “Move.” When no one obliged, he barked, “Move!” forcing himself to ignore Sheppard's flinch. He led Sheppard to the infirmary, Sheppard's hand tightening until it hurt.
---------------------------
Rodney could not say that Sheppard was a lot of things. He was always wrong when he did. He'd once thought John an idiot with his head literally and figuratively in the clouds, then learned offhandedly that he'd taken the Mensa test and passed. He'd once assumed Sheppard too lazy a military leader, then he'd saved Atlantis pretty much single handedly and all before a major storm clobbered them. He once thought Sheppard insufferable, obnoxious and a shameless flirt... which hadn't changed except to be a hell of a lot more tolerable.
What Rodney could say about Sheppard, without a second thought, was that he wasn't clingy. He wasn't even touchy-feely, not by a long shot. Rodney had witnessed the few times Sheppard had been hugged, mostly by Teyla; seen the way he'd stiffen up with a deer-in-the-headlights look. Rodney hadn't thought anything of it at the time because touching was seriously overrated. Hugs were cruel: all that crushing and suffocating and total loss of personal space. It involved no walls yet Rodney himself had never felt so claustrophobic as when he was trapped in the arms of the overly affectionate. Ronon hugs were scary as hell.
So Rodney felt himself justified in his panic over Sheppard's need for physical contact. He'd seen Sheppard feral plenty of times. “Needy” was new, pathetic and completely not Sheppard. Rodney was beginning to deeply consider the Asuran clone idea.
Sheppard had a grip on Rodney that was an iron vice, already forming a bruise. It tightened when they entered the infirmary, tightened until it hurt when Sheppard was ordered onto an infirmary bed. It was a sharp pain – Rodney was sure the bones of his arms were grinding together – and Rodney didn't think when he yanked his arm free of Sheppard's grasp. But even disoriented and whatever else was wrong with him, Sheppard was still quick, whipping his hand out like a striking snake and putting McKay's arm back in a vice.
Rodney sneered. “Sheppard! What the hell is your problem? Let me go!”
Sheppard didn't. In fact, he gripped tighter until Rodney had barely any feeling left in his hand. Which Rodney conceded was a small favor for the time being – it didn't hurt as bad with a numb limb. It was painfully obvious Sheppard wasn't going to let go and it would be a bad idea if anyone forced him to. He was shaking, panting, going impossibly whiter and fighting to stay still even as his body flinched with the need to flee from all the touches.
Something else Rodney could say of Sheppard with certainty was that he was stubborn. If Sheppard made a decision based on his sense of right and wrong, changing his mind was a lost cause. So, somewhere deep inside that addled skull, a glimmer of sanity pulsed. A lone, coherent Sheppard was wandering the plains of his own screwed up brain, wrangling in a thousand psychotic Sheppard's forever trying to make a break for it. Sheppard knew where he was, knew what was going on, knew what he needed to do. But that lone, sane Sheppard wasn't enough and needed all the help he could get.
Rodney patted John's arm awkwardly. “Okay, you can hold on. But could you at least lighten the death grip a little? That's my favorite arm you're damaging.”
The lone, sane Sheppard must have heard. The grip eased enough for blood to flow through and feed starving tissue. Jennifer nodded her approval at Rodney then went in to slice away the peasant shirt.
Sheppard's hand tightened. When the shirt was gone and Keller and that nurse Marie laid off the touching for a moment, the grip eased. When the touching resumed, gloves fingering bruises on colorless skin, the grip tightened. Sheppard looked even worse beneath the clothes, kind of gamy and wild, like a man forced to live off an insubstantial diet that had kept him alive but not much else. There was still muscle, obviously, or Rodney wouldn't be fretting over the end result of this exam being his arm broken. There was still shape to his biceps, but there was also an uncomfortable visibility to his ribs that Rodney was sure couldn't be called healthy.
“Pressure sores on his lower and upper back,” said Jennifer, her touch light but still scaring the hell out of Sheppard. Moving around to the front, she took Sheppard's face in both hands and held it, making eye contact whether he liked it or not. “Colonel Sheppard. I need to draw some blood. Which means sticking a needle in your arm. But that's all I'm doing – taking blood. Okay?”
Rodney had noticed the majority of bruising along Sheppard's arm. Yet until Jennifer's heads-up to the blood draw he hadn't completely considered they might be the result of multiple punctures. It made Rodney gulp again. It explained why the bruises looked to be in such a neat row, and there were so many of them...
What the hell had happened?
“Inserting the needle,” Jennifer said after tying Sheppard's arm off above the site of impalement. Sheppard flinched, cringed a little but otherwise didn't attempt to bolt. That, there, was why Rodney had to give the medical profession grudging respect. For such a soft science it demanded iron nerves, the kind of nerves you'd think only Sheppard's precious grunts had in spades. Nerves you'd think a petite little doctor with a lot of doubts didn't have. Had it been Rodney sticking Sheppard's skin, the sticking part wouldn't have happened; Rodney would have been too busy dodging potential fists to the face and other aggravated assaults to make it happen.
“All done,” Jennifer said with a pleased smile and a vial full of blood. Marie took the blood, then Jennifer John's wrist lightly in her gloved hand, grabbing his attention away from the puncture site without startling him. She was good. She was damn good.
“Okay, Colonel,” Jennifer said. “Scan time. You know the drill.”
The sane Sheppard in Sheppard's head did. The psychotic Sheppards didn't. The lieutenant colonel slid off the bed hunchbacked and keen-eyed with a dangerous amount of suspicion. His hand squeezed Rodney's wrist convulsively, as though uncertain as to whether or not he needed to start flipping out.
It was inspiring a fight against panic in Rodney. If Sheppard wigged, Rodney was going to be in the heart of it, involuntarily attached to Sheppard and everything. Despite his obvious presence doing some good, Rodney was the last guy in this city, this planet – the whole friggin' galaxy including the Milky Way – to so much as consider talking Sheppard down from a drug-induced, hallucinatory rampage. (Track marks equaled drugging; Rodney didn't need a drug test to tell him that and sure as hell wasn't waiting around for the results.)
Be that as it may, something in Rodney – maybe the panic, maybe an underlying need to help a friend in pain – encouraged him to do something more than he was doing.
He patted John's hand gripping his wrist. “It's okay; I'm here. I, uh... won't let anyone hurt you.”
To his surprise, the grip slacked, just a fraction, the out Rodney needed if he was fast enough. When he needed to get out, of course. As much as Rodney hated to admit it, the contact thing really was helping. Sheppard followed Jennifer, Rodney following John against his will. There was a lot of hesitancy on John's part after reaching the scan bed, but sweet words from Jennifer and stuttering, pathetic encouragement from Rodney (another hand-pat included) eventually had him on the bed, stretched his full length and trembling harder. When the scanner started to move, Sheppard's breaths increased.
In all the years Rodney had known Sheppard, he couldn't recall a time he'd seen John so terrified.
Strike that. He had. Twice: the split second between the iratus bug increasing its feed and Sheppard screaming, and the moment the Wraith's hand touched Sheppard's chest before Sheppard's features contorted in pain. Heart-pounding, blood draining, helpless, powerless, vulnerable terror. Terror that turned grown, brave men into children, reminding all those bastards unlucky enough to be a witness that, eventually, everyone shatters.
But then what was bravery than moving on in spite of fear? Everyone had a right to be afraid, be they soldier or scientist, grown man or child. Fear was a chemical reaction inherent in all living things. It was self-preservation and a bunch of firing synapses plucking the right chords to produce the right result. When acting on those signals, you were caving to instinct – perfectly viable enough excuse. When acting against them, you were being courageous, doing what needed to be done...
Being an idiot.
Depending on the situation, that is. Attacking a Wraith with nothing but a knife, for example – complete idiocy. Rodney didn't care that Sheppard had had a plan, the man had been out of his mind pulling off that little stunt. Lying on a scanning bed and fighting the urge to bolt – courage. Sheppard wasn't being drug-addled terrified, he was being drug-addled brave.
Rodney twisted his arm as best he could against the pain until he was gripping Sheppard’s in return. “It's okay, Sheppard. You're okay. You're doing great.”
Sheppard replied by breathing faster. When the scan was complete, his respirations continued to climb, his eyes bulging wide in a panic that should have ended when the scan did. Panting became gasping, arching his body off the bed, ribcage pressing the point of his sternum into his skin. The grip burned Rodney's arm with agony, but he ignored it, acting on an instinct of his own sharpened by years of experiencing similar reactions.
“He's having a panic attack!” By the time the words left Rodney's mouth, he was already hauling Sheppard upright with one arm, pitching him forward at an angle that would force his lungs to slow down. Jennifer was there, wide-eyed but in control, pressing a re-breather mask to Sheppard's face. She rubbed his heaving back while she and Rodney surrounded him in reassurance.
“You're fine. You're safe. Just breathe, in and out.” Progress was measured by the slackening of Sheppard's hand on Rodney's arms and his body no longer inflating until Rodney thought it would burst. It ended with Sheppard slumping into Rodney. The attack had exhausted him beyond the demands of his paranoia, with only energy enough for intermittent shivers.
Sheppard's body was wet, warm, bony and the contact was really starting to gross Rodney out. But he sighed and endured, promising himself the reward of making sure Sheppard knew to owe him one – many 'ones' - when the man was coherent enough to understand everything Rodney was saying.
Rodney's arm still tightened around John. He didn't want him to fall.
---------------------------
Even tucked into bed and a quiet corner of the infirmary that was more like a guest room than a hospital room, Rodney felt it prudent that he, Teyla and Ronon set up a sort of watch. Jennifer theorized that whatever was done to Sheppard may have taken place in an infirmary-like setting, depending on what the people who had hurt Sheppard were doing. For that reason, the less like an infirmary or lab Sheppard's surroundings, the fewer panic attacks. Not a promise, just the best Jennifer could do without the use of sedatives. She wasn't giving him anything until the crap in his body was gone.
Which may or may not mean withdrawal. She couldn't be certain; the substances polluting his blood were too foreign to be certain of anything.
So, team guard duty, just like with Ronon. They planned the schedule and Teyla took first watch – four hours each. Rodney wasn't sure if that was too much or too little, but neither Ronon nor Teyla had a problem with it.
It was an easy vigil, as easy as when they had sat by Sheppard while healing from the mutation. When he woke with a gasp and terror in his eyes, all he needed was one look at whoever was sitting there and a hand or wrist to grip, and he was calm as a kitten and back to sleep. Rodney always made sure to keep his undamaged wrist presented. The other was still recovering under an ice-pack, not broken according to Jennifer.
Not broken Rodney's ass. The X-ray machine was broken, and the scanner. He would have to look into that. Speaking of X-rays, he'd been fortunate enough to miss that particular vigil. Ronon had ended up taking the brunt of Sheppard's neediness with barely a bruise to show for it. Only because Sheppard had finally reached the point of being too weak for a solid grip. It still didn't make Ronon any less of a hardy bastard.
There was no withdrawal as the drugs metabolized away, only gradual clarity. Rodney knew when, on his watch, Sheppard woke with a gasp but languid eyes moving sluggishly under hooded eyelids instead of wild roving. And he didn't grab Rodney's wrist.
There was puking, though. Lots of puking even with nothing to puke, forcing Rodney to shove a kidney dish under Sheppard's chin and expose his hand to potential splashing or bad aims. It made Rodney wonder what the hell he was doing. He was a busy man, prone to illness, and it wasn't like Ronon or Teyla had anything better to do.
Okay, just Ronon; it wasn't like marine-beating was a paying career.
But he endured. He had agreed to this, after all. It was funny. When the heaves ended, with plenty or nothing to show for it, it left Sheppard passed out and sweaty, sticking his hair to his forehead. It reminded Rodney of childhood illnesses and the irritation of itchy hair on sweaty skin – back when he had hair aplenty to plaster. He didn't really think when he pushed Sheppard's hair away from his forehead... then did think enough to use a couple of tissues. He didn't care that this was just a side effect and not a disease. Drugging pounded the immune system into submission, turning the human body into a virus-version of during spring break.
The sweat was enough to soak clean through three tissues. Rodney stared at them in disgust. No amount of Sheppard owing him one was going to get him through this. The crap he did for friends...
A day later, Sheppard was waking up without the gasp, and the puking was little more than pathetic dry-heaves. It resulted in a lot of body aches for Sheppard that the lingering drugs wouldn't allow Jennifer to remedy, subjecting Rodney's watch to a lot of moaning and groaning. The whimpering was the hardest to witness because there was always a little fear leaking through. Even when in pain, Sheppard wasn't usually so open, so... raw. Rodney wasn't used to it, and seeing it so much so often was starting to make him uneasy, like a voyeur into things never meant to be observed by human eyes.
Rodney McKay was a selfish man, sometimes. To witness another's pain or fear felt too much like an obligation, what with most of humanity under the impression that when you saw pain, fear, so on and so forth then it was your duty to do something about it. Rodney didn't want to do anything about it. He didn't know how, and would just end up making matters worse, he was sure of it. He could provide comfort with his physical presence and a few words – he'd done it before – but he didn't dare push it beyond that.
He wondered if that was why Sheppard was so damn private about everything: reassurances and comfort gone awry, people meaning well without having a clue as to what they were doing - people with a lot of good intentions and little to no actual knowledge about Sheppard himself, just guesswork. Good intentions plus know-it-all-ism equaled more pavement for the road to hell – that kind of thing.
It was just a theory.
Another day, Sheppard was sitting up drinking from a bowl of broth and finally able to take something for all the aches and pains. There'd been no broken bones, only a lot of bruising and sores, deep bruising and sores. There were no more nightmares although it was hard to dream when given a mild sedative. A light fever still burned in Sheppard, and Jennifer wanted him well-rested.
Sheppard was also talking. Not a lot – he still slept most of the day away – but when he was coherent said as much as he could about the people who had hurt him.
It wasn't much. Being drugged had kept him too out of it to remember names and faces. He remembered technology being involved – shuddering when he did – and the planet having weird, twisty trees that reminded him of writhing octopus (and that the octopus trees had tried to grab him). He didn't know why he had been dressed like a peasant, or that he had even been dressed.
“I was pretty sure I'd been naked the whole time,” he said with a troubled furrow in his brow, like it was bothersome rather than humiliating with a lot of disturbing sub-context. Maybe because Jennifer had assured everyone, Sheppard especially, that nothing “unpleasant” had been done to him below the waist, he didn't think it a big deal.
“I remember freaking... or something. I don't know; it's kind of a blur. There was an off-world team – I think I was really happy about that. Always nice to find people you know when you don't know where the hell you are, I guess. Then home then... I...” Sheppard shook his head. “I don't... it went all blurry again.”
Jennifer's theory – babbled in medical jargon before the courtesy of laymen's terms - was that technology and drugs had played merry hell with the part's of Sheppard's brain in charge of emotion, reason, so on and so forth, creating fluctuations of lucidity and hallucinations.
Other than what was said, Sheppard said little else beyond one-word answers. Rodney blamed it on exhaustion, ignoring how much it felt like being in denial.
--------------------------
Only when Sheppard's blood was one-hundred percent clear did Jennifer let him return to his room with much reluctance. In typical Sheppard fashion, to look at him was to think nothing had happened at all. He was talking more, smiling more and easing back into life before he'd been taken as though the taking part was just a dream left up to the new shrink to analyze. Even when it came to searching for the ones who'd done the taking, it felt more like a search for hostiles to prevent the taking from happening again, not an act of vindication. Sheppard didn't want any more people taken. That was his motivation, not seeing that the bastards paid.
Rodney was jealous. He'd love to be able to brush off trauma the way Sheppard did, to stop having nightmares about Wraith ships, madmen with knives and the people under him dying by accident or suicide. But then what did Rodney know? It was Sheppard, the man about as open as a time capsule in cement. There was more going on in that bed-head than Rodney was seeing. Of course there was. There had to be. The guy was human, not friggin' Rambo.
Everyone deals. Rodney goes to the shrink more often than most and voluntarily. Sheppard does... must do... whatever he does – maybe look in a mirror and tell himself to buck up and get over it. Possibly because he had one of “those” fathers. Rodney's father had been that way, all “get over it” and “pull yourself together” and “Nobel prize winners don't cry because they have to take a Band-Aid off.” It had been on the hairy part of his arm. What the hell wasn't there to cry about?
The fact was, somehow, in a way that worked for him, Sheppard was dealing or he would have been a basket case a long time ago. Maybe he was a basket case and just good at hiding it. In which case, Rodney was even more jealous.
Woolsey, on the other hand, still being the new guy, was worried. He said as much to Sheppard's team, which Rodney didn't feel right about. Whatever Woolsey had to say, he could just as easily say it front of Sheppard. When Rodney said as much, Woolsey pressed on as though he hadn't heard. Which was beyond rude, but since he obviously wasn't listening Rodney decided not to say anything... yet.
“What he went through was bad. Very bad,” Woolsey said.
“Being fed on a Wraith bad or turned into a bug bad?” Ronon countered wonderfully.
“Tortured and can't remember, making him a liability if he remembers at an inopportune time bad. Say, for example, during a Wraith attack?”
Rodney had to give him that touche, as much as he loathed to. But Woolsey was still wet behind the ears when it came to Sheppard. Files can only tell you so much, all of it technical, general and completely unhelpful.
“Yes,” Rodney simpered, “because being fed on by a Wraith has left him completely at their mercy when they show up. Please. If Sheppard's many traumatic experiences were going to scar him like that, he'd be dead by now.”
“John is still healing, yes,” said Teyla. “What happened to him is affecting him and may very well affect him for some time, but it will not affect who he is and will most definitely not affect his job.”
“We've all been through crap,” said Ronon with a shrug. “We're still alive, okay? Yeah, it isn't easy, but what other choice do we have? We know what matters - he knows what matters, and he's going to keep going no matter what.”
“But what if, this time, it's too much? What if he remembers and is unable to deal with it?”
Rodney snorted. Seriously wet behind the ears, Woolsey.
“He'll let us know,” was all Ronon said, cryptic even to Rodney but he would go along with it if it meant getting Woolsey off of Sheppard's back. Woolsey meant well, Rodney got it but, again, Woolsey didn't get Sheppard. Having Woolsey breathe down Sheppard's neck and force therapy on him wasn't going to help matters.
People like Sheppard you don't force anything on, healing especially. It was the equivalent of pushing him into a corner and, trained soldier that he was, of course he was going to push back. The trick to helping Sheppard was to go with the flow – if it was normalcy Sheppard wanted, it was normalcy Sheppard got, no matter how many elephants in the room had to go ignored.
Being there, so far, had proven to be the most effective way to help Sheppard; not talking or sharing feelings or anything that was going to end up making everyone uncomfortable. Just being there.
----------------------------
The tricky part was knowing when to be there. Four days of barging into Sheppard's room for a game of chess or to kick his ass at Resident Evil would get on anyone's nerves, Rodney supposed. Rodney forced himself not to take offense when twenty minutes into a zombie massacre Sheppard announced his sudden fatigue. Maybe he was feigning, but Rodney liked to think he wasn't. Sheppard still looked tired, bags under the eyes and everything, and most of the time when Rodney barged in he found Sheppard as little more than a lump under the blankets.
Then Rodney would quietly pad out to his lab or his own room and wait. He was always waiting; he wasn't sure what for: a knock at the door, a lieutenant colonel with a question he forgot because he was in denial, maybe even a panicked Sheppard, followed by beer out on the pier. Rodney was resigned to the fact that that wasn't going to happen – this was Sheppard, and all previous displays of utter vulnerability had been the fault of drugs. And, yet, still he waited. Maybe it was only fair that Sheppard show a moment of weakness after nothing but moments of weakness days before, and it sucked that it wasn't happening. Rodney had showed, damn it. It was Sheppard's turn, now.
The fifth day Sheppard was sleeping less but still not in the mood for much company. It was making Rodney nervous, wondering if, maybe, Woolsey was right: this was one trauma too far and Sheppard couldn't deal. Or, maybe, Sheppard was tired of all the hovering. Rodney had reveled in all the attention lavished on him after the brain squid incident, but after a week had been ready to throw the nearest object at the next person to waltz through his door. That person happened to be Jeannie. He was still e-mailing apologies and a promise to buy her something nice. Even as an adult she still knew how to manipulate.
That's what it was – jadedness to attention. Sheppard was just people-jaded.
Satisfied with that answer, Rodney gave up on sleep and headed to the mess for an after midnight snack. All this attempt at fathoming what was going on in Sheppard's thick skull was turning him into an insomniac. It made him sigh. If he was going to lose sleep, there were more productive ways to go about it.
He found Sheppard in the mess, hunched in sweats and his jacket against a chilly night as he picked at a bowl of grapes. He was back to having a normal appetite but too soon for there to be enough padding on his bones to keep him warm without a little help.
Rodney sat down across from him. “This a private party?”
“Nope.” Sheppard pushed the grapes toward him. “Thought I was hungry. Guess I wasn't.”
Lying fink. Five days of nothing but sleep and Sheppard was still sporting an un-fetching shade of gray under his eyes. But at least he wasn't so damn pale; that had to count for something.
All the same, Rodney seemed incapable of stopping himself when he asked, “Bad dreams?”
The gaze Sheppard flicked at him was brief in its anger before flattening into indifference. He shrugged. “A little.” Then he added, too quickly, “I'm fine, though.”
Rodney, grape pinched between thumb and forefinger, stared at Sheppard. Sheppard wasn't fine. A person would have to be blind, deaf and on another planet to not see that he wasn't fine, and he wondered if that was what Ronon had been talking about when he'd told Woolsey Sheppard would let them know. In which case, Rodney felt like an idiot. Of course Sheppard would let them know he wasn't fine. When Sheppard wasn't fine, he wasn't dealing. When he wasn't dealing, all facades started to crack like old glue.
Rodney swallowed, suddenly wishing they'd discussed in more detail what to do when Sheppard wasn't fine. Be around, yes. But was it really enough? Crap, Rodney really should have thought this all through better...
Sheppard sighed, leaning on an elbow and rubbing his face. “It's no big deal. They come and go and, sometimes... sometimes I just forget where I am. I just need fresh air, to be awake for a little while. I'm fine after that.”
All Rodney could reply with was in inquisitive grunt, then popping a grape into his mouth, pinching it between his teeth until juice hit the back of his tongue. “What about sleeping pills?” he asked.
“Then I can barely wake up at all. Few more nights of this, though, I might be willing to make an exception. Like I said, it isn't all the time. I'll get over it. Always do.”
Rodney nodded, stuffing his face with more grapes. He should have kept stuffing, because he just had to ask, “So you eventually stop having nightmares?”
John pursed his lips ruefully. “I don't think anyone ever stops. I've never stopped,” which the last part Rodney had the feeling wasn't meant to be said, but if that were the case, Sheppard was either too tired or beyond caring to, well, care.
“What helps?” Rodney asked next. He really wanted to know.
John's rueful pursing became a rueful smile. “Exhausting the hell out of yourself until you're too tired to dream.”
“Ah,” Rodney said, grinning. “So there is motivation behind all that running at unearthly hours in the morning. See, you should use my method – unraveling the mysteries of the universe until the crack of dawn. Far more productive.”
“My method allows me to haul ass. Which, if you haven't noticed, we happen to do a lot of around here.”
“Yes, well, my method will eventually make it so that we never have to haul ass again.”
With an inquisitively raised eyebrow, Sheppard passed his gaze around their surroundings. “Funny. Don't seem to see the end results anywhere.”
Rodney threw a grape at him. “Shut up.” All it did was make Sheppard chuckle. Then Sheppard yawned until his jaw popped and decided he'd had enough fresh air. The grape bowl empty, Rodney decided to escort him back since it was on the way to his own room.
Sheppard was obviously too exhausted to consider things like personal space, with barely a centimeter between them. Sometimes their shoulders would bump, not hard enough to knock Rodney off course, so he ignored it and Sheppard didn't seem to notice. When they reached his quarters, instead of going to the bed, Sheppard went to his desk and grabbed his laptop.
“Wanna watch a movie?”
“I thought you were tired?”
“I said I had enough fresh air.” He set the laptop on the end of the bed. “I got the Dark Knight disk already in, sodas in the cooler. The good stuff, lots of caffeine.” He smirked. “Should keep you up 'til the crack of dawn, saving us from hauling ass.”
Rodney opened his mouth to inform him that, as a matter of fact, he'd been in bed trying to sleep.
“Also got some beer and chips. Just because beer’s out for me doesn't mean everyone has to suffer.”
Rodney snapped his mouth shut, then shrugged. Why not? A light buzz had a way of conking him out for a good eight hours and then some. Plus Sheppard was finally in the mood for company, and wasn't it typical that it happened to be at an awful hour? The man was sadistic when it came to time. Rodney imagined that if he could, Sheppard would never sleep, and Rodney would be there right along with him reveling in forever being awake. Oh, the work he could get done, the dreams he could stop dreaming...
Rodney grabbed a beer and a bag of chips, pulled up a chair and parked himself. “Let's do this.”
By the end of the movie, Sheppard was on his side, asleep. Rodney thought about leaving then decided against it. He should probably stay a little longer, just to make sure Sheppard didn't go searching for more “fresh air.” Besides, Rodney wasn't tired yet. In passing, after popping in another movie, Rodney patted Sheppard's shoulder. Sheppard sighed like a man having finally reached his destination after a long, arduous journey.
Rodney grinned. He liked bedside vigils.
The End
Rating: PG-13 for druggings and very vague offscreen torture
Characters: Sheppard, McKay
Dislaimer: I don't own SGA.
Summary: McKay prefers bedside vigils. They're easier. Sheppard whump, McKay POV, friendship, indulgence. Big hugs for
wildcat88 for the beta.A/N: The last comfort fic of my comfort/indulgence splurge, this one slightly longer with a lot more effort involved.
The first time Rodney had ever sat by anyone's bedside was when Sheppard had been recovering from turning into a bug. Rodney's great aunt didn't count – that had been a one time visit; he had been five and in the presence of a total stranger for all he knew. She'd mostly scared the crap out of him. (She hadn't been the one who shaved. She'd been the one with tiny little vampire teeth and a smile that was more like a death's head grin.) His mother's illness didn't count – the visits had been brief and always with her in a wheelchair or pretending to be up and about with the aid of a nurse because she'd never said it but hated people seeing her weak. She'd even have someone do her makeup for her.
With Sheppard it had been legit and not as bad as Rodney had thought it was going to be. He'd thought he was going to be bored out of his skull. But he'd had his laptop and was never around when Sheppard woke up. Carson wouldn't let him, let anyone, stick around when Sheppard started emerging from his drug-induced coma. It gets bad, was all Carson would say. Which, according to the distant echo of screams one could sometimes hear haunting the halls, was enough said.
Rodney had come to discover that he liked bedside vigils. They were uncomplicated, a quick and easy service providing little effort on his part; a little more effort if the bedridden were awake yet no different than the effort applied in most social situations on a daily basis.
Then crap happened and Rodney realized that he sucked at the whole comfort thing. Not for want of trying; for want of needing to say something. For all the speed-talking people accused him of, words were elusive things when actually needed. Just because people talked it didn't mean they were saying anything. It was when he had to say something that talking made Rodney's jaw ache, sometimes his neck, bleeding into his head. Saying things hurt.
And, for the life of him, he had no idea why he kept trying.
Anger: now there was an incentive to say things. When Sheppard disappeared yet again for unknown reasons, Rodney had plenty to say – to the people of the town they'd been visiting when Sheppard up and vanished, to Woolsey when he dithered about how to go about looking for Sheppard (Rodney was pretty sure he was going about it cost-effectively), to the IOA when they dropped hints about the search for Sheppard being a lost cause (and probably not cost-effective), and to anyone who he thought was silently agreeing.
Ronon and Teyla had his back through it all, Ronon especially, who could say things without speaking a word. Rodney's jealousy of him was unending.
Four months of searching with nothing to show for it was incentive enough for the IOA to officially call off the search. Which, of course, only applied to the military, not Ronon, Teyla, fellow Athosians and the few allies who actually liked Atlantis. Of all the things to rub off of Sheppard onto Rodney, it had to be optimism. Until a body was found, Sheppard was still alive.
And Rodney was hopeful: practically a beacon of hope, if he did say so himself. He attacked his various projects and repairs with a lot more gusto, flying high on certainty, anticipation and anger. He imagined various scenarios of Sheppard's triumphant return, not-so-triumphant, and occasionally, against Rodney's will – because pessimism refused to be smothered – completely failed return.
Yet when the alarms sounded and the call of unscheduled activation was announced, all that preparation was wasted. Rodney literally dropped what he was doing, actually didn't care if he'd broken the laptop, and took off at a run to the 'gate room. He arrived in time to see Stackhouse's team surrounding like an honor guard a single figure in peasant garb.
Rodney's fingers tightened around the rail until his knuckles were white. Sheppard walked tall, whole, healthy if thinner, and smiling.
That bastard was smiling. Months of searching, worrying, thinking the best and the worst, and the jerk had waltzed back home the picture of health; the product of kindly villagers taking pity on the pretty boy; a man untouched.
Rodney pushed from the rail and stormed down the stairs. It was wrong to be angry, he knew. He was supposed to be happy – overjoyed. Sheppard was alive, well, the picture of friggin', stupid health. It should have inspired cheers and kudos and all that good crap.
And Rodney was glad; he really was. Or would be after he knocked Sheppard on his ass for all the worry he'd caused. Being said picture of health, why hadn't he come home sooner?
The million dollar question, like a quiet alarm in the back of Rodney's skull, breathed a whisper louder than the fury.
Something was wrong.
Sheppard's eyes darted quick as a startled bird to Rodney and his smile grew, wide as the Cheshire cat's. The perfect target for a good deck to the face. But when McKay stopped, fist at the ready, all he could do was stand there and stare.
Sheppard was alive. He was back. He was smiling, looking at Rodney with eyes like happy hazel marbles.
Something was very wrong.
Then it hit Rodney, a physical blow of a realization that made him sway.
Lieutenant Colonel “I'm fine” Sheppard always had something to say when Rodney McKay was around. Always. Good, bad, pithy, whatever. Of all the things to rub off of Rodney onto Sheppard, Sheppard had once joked that it was never knowing when the keep his mouth shut. Rodney had agreed about the not-keeping-mouth-shut part. The rest he'd bristled, sputtered and spat insults over.
At most there should have been an “I see you haven't blown up my city, McKay.” At least a, “Hey, McKay.”
Sheppard had yet to say anything.
The epiphany shut down Rodney's brain long enough for his startled “Wait!” with hand stretched out at the advancing soldiers and medics to fall short. One touch to John's arm by a nurse, and chaos.
It was like someone flipping a switch in a room full of bats and a high-strung cat. Sheppard startled bad, loose and lank to a blur of feral terror and fury, jerking back from the gathering crowd and bellowing an incoherent roar of words. And of course it had to happen in the presence of marines, who for all their training were a remarkably skittish bunch. One half of those present raised weapons from P-90s to stunners, the others tried to make a grab for Sheppard's flailing arms.
Sheppard was having none of it, scuttling backward toward the, thankfully, closed 'gate. He screamed more foul language than Rodney had ever heard coming out of that man's mouth, top of his lungs with spittle flying and face going beet red from the exertion. Bordering the red was white, darkening the blood-shot veins in his eyes. This wasn't anger they were seeing; this was terror and rage and a man who had no idea where he was and what was going on. It was unbridled insanity.
On hitting the wall Sheppard inched into the corner, warding off the people trying to help him with raised hands and a few uncoordinated kicks. He packed himself into the corner where rage caved way too quickly to pure terror. Sheppard panted then gasped air into lungs that weren't keeping up with a thrashing heart. It was only a matter of time before he hyperventilated. Or, worse, one of the idiot goons decided it would be a good idea to tackle him. Solutions found in sports were universal for grunts or jarheads or whatever the hell their nicknames were.
It was to Rodney's great surprise that he suddenly found himself at the forefront of the kindly mob “just trying to help,” shouting himself raw and apparently having been shouting for a while. He usually didn't irritate his throat with verbal tirades so damn fast.
“Just back off!”
“Rodney?”
And they did back off, slowly, as though Rodney's name spoken in such a tentative way, unnatural for the man cowering in the corner, had more power than shouts ever could. Sheppard's gaze locked on Rodney like a drowning man to the edge of a lifeboat. That gaze bled pleas for help, oozed dependency, and Rodney suddenly wondered if this was just another Asuran Sheppard clone come to screw with their reality and make their hope a laughingstock.
Sheppard didn't normally so much as blink helplessness even on the bad days.
It scared Rodney more than anything ever had: not being on a hive ship, not flying too close to a sun, not Sheppard being fed on.
Sheppard did not do helpless. Ever.
Something was oh so very damn wrong.
Gulping, Rodney inched his way toward a quaking Sheppard who was so childlike in his fear that Rodney nearly let his guard down. He quickly reminded himself, this is Sheppard. Rodney painted a smile on his face that made his clenching jaw ache, and held out a hand that he hoped Sheppard didn't notice was shaking. Rodney couldn't help his own self-preservation. A skinny, timid Sheppard did not equal a harmless Sheppard. The cocky Air Force pilot's looks alone could be pretty damn lethal... on a mental level, that is.
But this was Sheppard, Mr. “leave no man behind.” The man who'd so casually sailed away on a 'jumper full of nuke into the nearest hive ship to save an entire city. The man who did it again minus the nuke but plus a hole in his side all to save Teyla.
And he'd said Rodney's name. Okay, so, maybe that wasn't much for Rodney to stake his own life on – crazy people usually didn't know they were crazy. But this stupidity needed to stop before someone got hurt, namely Sheppard. Possibly others but they would have deserved it. You don't corner a frightened soldier trained in combat by this galaxy's version of Xena and Conan and think you won't come out unscathed. Sheppard could be without limbs and still kill everyone with a bite to the femoral artery, like that black knight in the Monty Python movie, only making good on the threat.
“That's right,” Rodney said. He cleared his throat of the slight waver distorting his voice. “That's right, Sheppard. It's Rodney. Dr. Rodney McKay, PhD.”
Sheppard swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing like a trapped and spooked mouse. “M-Meredith.”
Rodney rolled his eyes and sneered with great loathing, “Yes... Meredith. Now will you please step away from there and go to the infirmary so we can see how damaged your brain is already? Busy man, haven't got all day.” He snapped his fingers. “Chop, chop.” Which in hindsight might not have been a good idea.
It wasn't a good idea. Sheppard reached out slowly, testingly until thin fingers touched Rodney's wrist, jerked back, touched again, then finally wrapped themselves around flesh and bone.
“Yes, I'm real.” said Rodney. “You can let go now.”
Sheppard didn't. He did shuffle away from the corner up to Rodney's side, stiff, trembling and liable to snap if someone so much as coughed. Up close, Sheppard was pale enough to rival a Wraith's complexion. His eyes were bloodshot and sunken, his cheeks hollow, his clothes torn and filthy but then what was one to expect of peasant garb? That was the problem with Pegasus – half the planets were forever trapped in a Renaissance Fair.
Rodney's eyes strayed to Sheppard's wrists sticking out of the frayed sleeves, and rings of raw skin glowing blood red against the white. Against all laws of nature, Rodney's heart crawled into his throat and set down stakes there.
Sheppard was hurt.
“Mo -” Rodney squeaked. He coughed. “Move.” When no one obliged, he barked, “Move!” forcing himself to ignore Sheppard's flinch. He led Sheppard to the infirmary, Sheppard's hand tightening until it hurt.
---------------------------
Rodney could not say that Sheppard was a lot of things. He was always wrong when he did. He'd once thought John an idiot with his head literally and figuratively in the clouds, then learned offhandedly that he'd taken the Mensa test and passed. He'd once assumed Sheppard too lazy a military leader, then he'd saved Atlantis pretty much single handedly and all before a major storm clobbered them. He once thought Sheppard insufferable, obnoxious and a shameless flirt... which hadn't changed except to be a hell of a lot more tolerable.
What Rodney could say about Sheppard, without a second thought, was that he wasn't clingy. He wasn't even touchy-feely, not by a long shot. Rodney had witnessed the few times Sheppard had been hugged, mostly by Teyla; seen the way he'd stiffen up with a deer-in-the-headlights look. Rodney hadn't thought anything of it at the time because touching was seriously overrated. Hugs were cruel: all that crushing and suffocating and total loss of personal space. It involved no walls yet Rodney himself had never felt so claustrophobic as when he was trapped in the arms of the overly affectionate. Ronon hugs were scary as hell.
So Rodney felt himself justified in his panic over Sheppard's need for physical contact. He'd seen Sheppard feral plenty of times. “Needy” was new, pathetic and completely not Sheppard. Rodney was beginning to deeply consider the Asuran clone idea.
Sheppard had a grip on Rodney that was an iron vice, already forming a bruise. It tightened when they entered the infirmary, tightened until it hurt when Sheppard was ordered onto an infirmary bed. It was a sharp pain – Rodney was sure the bones of his arms were grinding together – and Rodney didn't think when he yanked his arm free of Sheppard's grasp. But even disoriented and whatever else was wrong with him, Sheppard was still quick, whipping his hand out like a striking snake and putting McKay's arm back in a vice.
Rodney sneered. “Sheppard! What the hell is your problem? Let me go!”
Sheppard didn't. In fact, he gripped tighter until Rodney had barely any feeling left in his hand. Which Rodney conceded was a small favor for the time being – it didn't hurt as bad with a numb limb. It was painfully obvious Sheppard wasn't going to let go and it would be a bad idea if anyone forced him to. He was shaking, panting, going impossibly whiter and fighting to stay still even as his body flinched with the need to flee from all the touches.
Something else Rodney could say of Sheppard with certainty was that he was stubborn. If Sheppard made a decision based on his sense of right and wrong, changing his mind was a lost cause. So, somewhere deep inside that addled skull, a glimmer of sanity pulsed. A lone, coherent Sheppard was wandering the plains of his own screwed up brain, wrangling in a thousand psychotic Sheppard's forever trying to make a break for it. Sheppard knew where he was, knew what was going on, knew what he needed to do. But that lone, sane Sheppard wasn't enough and needed all the help he could get.
Rodney patted John's arm awkwardly. “Okay, you can hold on. But could you at least lighten the death grip a little? That's my favorite arm you're damaging.”
The lone, sane Sheppard must have heard. The grip eased enough for blood to flow through and feed starving tissue. Jennifer nodded her approval at Rodney then went in to slice away the peasant shirt.
Sheppard's hand tightened. When the shirt was gone and Keller and that nurse Marie laid off the touching for a moment, the grip eased. When the touching resumed, gloves fingering bruises on colorless skin, the grip tightened. Sheppard looked even worse beneath the clothes, kind of gamy and wild, like a man forced to live off an insubstantial diet that had kept him alive but not much else. There was still muscle, obviously, or Rodney wouldn't be fretting over the end result of this exam being his arm broken. There was still shape to his biceps, but there was also an uncomfortable visibility to his ribs that Rodney was sure couldn't be called healthy.
“Pressure sores on his lower and upper back,” said Jennifer, her touch light but still scaring the hell out of Sheppard. Moving around to the front, she took Sheppard's face in both hands and held it, making eye contact whether he liked it or not. “Colonel Sheppard. I need to draw some blood. Which means sticking a needle in your arm. But that's all I'm doing – taking blood. Okay?”
Rodney had noticed the majority of bruising along Sheppard's arm. Yet until Jennifer's heads-up to the blood draw he hadn't completely considered they might be the result of multiple punctures. It made Rodney gulp again. It explained why the bruises looked to be in such a neat row, and there were so many of them...
What the hell had happened?
“Inserting the needle,” Jennifer said after tying Sheppard's arm off above the site of impalement. Sheppard flinched, cringed a little but otherwise didn't attempt to bolt. That, there, was why Rodney had to give the medical profession grudging respect. For such a soft science it demanded iron nerves, the kind of nerves you'd think only Sheppard's precious grunts had in spades. Nerves you'd think a petite little doctor with a lot of doubts didn't have. Had it been Rodney sticking Sheppard's skin, the sticking part wouldn't have happened; Rodney would have been too busy dodging potential fists to the face and other aggravated assaults to make it happen.
“All done,” Jennifer said with a pleased smile and a vial full of blood. Marie took the blood, then Jennifer John's wrist lightly in her gloved hand, grabbing his attention away from the puncture site without startling him. She was good. She was damn good.
“Okay, Colonel,” Jennifer said. “Scan time. You know the drill.”
The sane Sheppard in Sheppard's head did. The psychotic Sheppards didn't. The lieutenant colonel slid off the bed hunchbacked and keen-eyed with a dangerous amount of suspicion. His hand squeezed Rodney's wrist convulsively, as though uncertain as to whether or not he needed to start flipping out.
It was inspiring a fight against panic in Rodney. If Sheppard wigged, Rodney was going to be in the heart of it, involuntarily attached to Sheppard and everything. Despite his obvious presence doing some good, Rodney was the last guy in this city, this planet – the whole friggin' galaxy including the Milky Way – to so much as consider talking Sheppard down from a drug-induced, hallucinatory rampage. (Track marks equaled drugging; Rodney didn't need a drug test to tell him that and sure as hell wasn't waiting around for the results.)
Be that as it may, something in Rodney – maybe the panic, maybe an underlying need to help a friend in pain – encouraged him to do something more than he was doing.
He patted John's hand gripping his wrist. “It's okay; I'm here. I, uh... won't let anyone hurt you.”
To his surprise, the grip slacked, just a fraction, the out Rodney needed if he was fast enough. When he needed to get out, of course. As much as Rodney hated to admit it, the contact thing really was helping. Sheppard followed Jennifer, Rodney following John against his will. There was a lot of hesitancy on John's part after reaching the scan bed, but sweet words from Jennifer and stuttering, pathetic encouragement from Rodney (another hand-pat included) eventually had him on the bed, stretched his full length and trembling harder. When the scanner started to move, Sheppard's breaths increased.
In all the years Rodney had known Sheppard, he couldn't recall a time he'd seen John so terrified.
Strike that. He had. Twice: the split second between the iratus bug increasing its feed and Sheppard screaming, and the moment the Wraith's hand touched Sheppard's chest before Sheppard's features contorted in pain. Heart-pounding, blood draining, helpless, powerless, vulnerable terror. Terror that turned grown, brave men into children, reminding all those bastards unlucky enough to be a witness that, eventually, everyone shatters.
But then what was bravery than moving on in spite of fear? Everyone had a right to be afraid, be they soldier or scientist, grown man or child. Fear was a chemical reaction inherent in all living things. It was self-preservation and a bunch of firing synapses plucking the right chords to produce the right result. When acting on those signals, you were caving to instinct – perfectly viable enough excuse. When acting against them, you were being courageous, doing what needed to be done...
Being an idiot.
Depending on the situation, that is. Attacking a Wraith with nothing but a knife, for example – complete idiocy. Rodney didn't care that Sheppard had had a plan, the man had been out of his mind pulling off that little stunt. Lying on a scanning bed and fighting the urge to bolt – courage. Sheppard wasn't being drug-addled terrified, he was being drug-addled brave.
Rodney twisted his arm as best he could against the pain until he was gripping Sheppard’s in return. “It's okay, Sheppard. You're okay. You're doing great.”
Sheppard replied by breathing faster. When the scan was complete, his respirations continued to climb, his eyes bulging wide in a panic that should have ended when the scan did. Panting became gasping, arching his body off the bed, ribcage pressing the point of his sternum into his skin. The grip burned Rodney's arm with agony, but he ignored it, acting on an instinct of his own sharpened by years of experiencing similar reactions.
“He's having a panic attack!” By the time the words left Rodney's mouth, he was already hauling Sheppard upright with one arm, pitching him forward at an angle that would force his lungs to slow down. Jennifer was there, wide-eyed but in control, pressing a re-breather mask to Sheppard's face. She rubbed his heaving back while she and Rodney surrounded him in reassurance.
“You're fine. You're safe. Just breathe, in and out.” Progress was measured by the slackening of Sheppard's hand on Rodney's arms and his body no longer inflating until Rodney thought it would burst. It ended with Sheppard slumping into Rodney. The attack had exhausted him beyond the demands of his paranoia, with only energy enough for intermittent shivers.
Sheppard's body was wet, warm, bony and the contact was really starting to gross Rodney out. But he sighed and endured, promising himself the reward of making sure Sheppard knew to owe him one – many 'ones' - when the man was coherent enough to understand everything Rodney was saying.
Rodney's arm still tightened around John. He didn't want him to fall.
---------------------------
Even tucked into bed and a quiet corner of the infirmary that was more like a guest room than a hospital room, Rodney felt it prudent that he, Teyla and Ronon set up a sort of watch. Jennifer theorized that whatever was done to Sheppard may have taken place in an infirmary-like setting, depending on what the people who had hurt Sheppard were doing. For that reason, the less like an infirmary or lab Sheppard's surroundings, the fewer panic attacks. Not a promise, just the best Jennifer could do without the use of sedatives. She wasn't giving him anything until the crap in his body was gone.
Which may or may not mean withdrawal. She couldn't be certain; the substances polluting his blood were too foreign to be certain of anything.
So, team guard duty, just like with Ronon. They planned the schedule and Teyla took first watch – four hours each. Rodney wasn't sure if that was too much or too little, but neither Ronon nor Teyla had a problem with it.
It was an easy vigil, as easy as when they had sat by Sheppard while healing from the mutation. When he woke with a gasp and terror in his eyes, all he needed was one look at whoever was sitting there and a hand or wrist to grip, and he was calm as a kitten and back to sleep. Rodney always made sure to keep his undamaged wrist presented. The other was still recovering under an ice-pack, not broken according to Jennifer.
Not broken Rodney's ass. The X-ray machine was broken, and the scanner. He would have to look into that. Speaking of X-rays, he'd been fortunate enough to miss that particular vigil. Ronon had ended up taking the brunt of Sheppard's neediness with barely a bruise to show for it. Only because Sheppard had finally reached the point of being too weak for a solid grip. It still didn't make Ronon any less of a hardy bastard.
There was no withdrawal as the drugs metabolized away, only gradual clarity. Rodney knew when, on his watch, Sheppard woke with a gasp but languid eyes moving sluggishly under hooded eyelids instead of wild roving. And he didn't grab Rodney's wrist.
There was puking, though. Lots of puking even with nothing to puke, forcing Rodney to shove a kidney dish under Sheppard's chin and expose his hand to potential splashing or bad aims. It made Rodney wonder what the hell he was doing. He was a busy man, prone to illness, and it wasn't like Ronon or Teyla had anything better to do.
Okay, just Ronon; it wasn't like marine-beating was a paying career.
But he endured. He had agreed to this, after all. It was funny. When the heaves ended, with plenty or nothing to show for it, it left Sheppard passed out and sweaty, sticking his hair to his forehead. It reminded Rodney of childhood illnesses and the irritation of itchy hair on sweaty skin – back when he had hair aplenty to plaster. He didn't really think when he pushed Sheppard's hair away from his forehead... then did think enough to use a couple of tissues. He didn't care that this was just a side effect and not a disease. Drugging pounded the immune system into submission, turning the human body into a virus-version of during spring break.
The sweat was enough to soak clean through three tissues. Rodney stared at them in disgust. No amount of Sheppard owing him one was going to get him through this. The crap he did for friends...
A day later, Sheppard was waking up without the gasp, and the puking was little more than pathetic dry-heaves. It resulted in a lot of body aches for Sheppard that the lingering drugs wouldn't allow Jennifer to remedy, subjecting Rodney's watch to a lot of moaning and groaning. The whimpering was the hardest to witness because there was always a little fear leaking through. Even when in pain, Sheppard wasn't usually so open, so... raw. Rodney wasn't used to it, and seeing it so much so often was starting to make him uneasy, like a voyeur into things never meant to be observed by human eyes.
Rodney McKay was a selfish man, sometimes. To witness another's pain or fear felt too much like an obligation, what with most of humanity under the impression that when you saw pain, fear, so on and so forth then it was your duty to do something about it. Rodney didn't want to do anything about it. He didn't know how, and would just end up making matters worse, he was sure of it. He could provide comfort with his physical presence and a few words – he'd done it before – but he didn't dare push it beyond that.
He wondered if that was why Sheppard was so damn private about everything: reassurances and comfort gone awry, people meaning well without having a clue as to what they were doing - people with a lot of good intentions and little to no actual knowledge about Sheppard himself, just guesswork. Good intentions plus know-it-all-ism equaled more pavement for the road to hell – that kind of thing.
It was just a theory.
Another day, Sheppard was sitting up drinking from a bowl of broth and finally able to take something for all the aches and pains. There'd been no broken bones, only a lot of bruising and sores, deep bruising and sores. There were no more nightmares although it was hard to dream when given a mild sedative. A light fever still burned in Sheppard, and Jennifer wanted him well-rested.
Sheppard was also talking. Not a lot – he still slept most of the day away – but when he was coherent said as much as he could about the people who had hurt him.
It wasn't much. Being drugged had kept him too out of it to remember names and faces. He remembered technology being involved – shuddering when he did – and the planet having weird, twisty trees that reminded him of writhing octopus (and that the octopus trees had tried to grab him). He didn't know why he had been dressed like a peasant, or that he had even been dressed.
“I was pretty sure I'd been naked the whole time,” he said with a troubled furrow in his brow, like it was bothersome rather than humiliating with a lot of disturbing sub-context. Maybe because Jennifer had assured everyone, Sheppard especially, that nothing “unpleasant” had been done to him below the waist, he didn't think it a big deal.
“I remember freaking... or something. I don't know; it's kind of a blur. There was an off-world team – I think I was really happy about that. Always nice to find people you know when you don't know where the hell you are, I guess. Then home then... I...” Sheppard shook his head. “I don't... it went all blurry again.”
Jennifer's theory – babbled in medical jargon before the courtesy of laymen's terms - was that technology and drugs had played merry hell with the part's of Sheppard's brain in charge of emotion, reason, so on and so forth, creating fluctuations of lucidity and hallucinations.
Other than what was said, Sheppard said little else beyond one-word answers. Rodney blamed it on exhaustion, ignoring how much it felt like being in denial.
--------------------------
Only when Sheppard's blood was one-hundred percent clear did Jennifer let him return to his room with much reluctance. In typical Sheppard fashion, to look at him was to think nothing had happened at all. He was talking more, smiling more and easing back into life before he'd been taken as though the taking part was just a dream left up to the new shrink to analyze. Even when it came to searching for the ones who'd done the taking, it felt more like a search for hostiles to prevent the taking from happening again, not an act of vindication. Sheppard didn't want any more people taken. That was his motivation, not seeing that the bastards paid.
Rodney was jealous. He'd love to be able to brush off trauma the way Sheppard did, to stop having nightmares about Wraith ships, madmen with knives and the people under him dying by accident or suicide. But then what did Rodney know? It was Sheppard, the man about as open as a time capsule in cement. There was more going on in that bed-head than Rodney was seeing. Of course there was. There had to be. The guy was human, not friggin' Rambo.
Everyone deals. Rodney goes to the shrink more often than most and voluntarily. Sheppard does... must do... whatever he does – maybe look in a mirror and tell himself to buck up and get over it. Possibly because he had one of “those” fathers. Rodney's father had been that way, all “get over it” and “pull yourself together” and “Nobel prize winners don't cry because they have to take a Band-Aid off.” It had been on the hairy part of his arm. What the hell wasn't there to cry about?
The fact was, somehow, in a way that worked for him, Sheppard was dealing or he would have been a basket case a long time ago. Maybe he was a basket case and just good at hiding it. In which case, Rodney was even more jealous.
Woolsey, on the other hand, still being the new guy, was worried. He said as much to Sheppard's team, which Rodney didn't feel right about. Whatever Woolsey had to say, he could just as easily say it front of Sheppard. When Rodney said as much, Woolsey pressed on as though he hadn't heard. Which was beyond rude, but since he obviously wasn't listening Rodney decided not to say anything... yet.
“What he went through was bad. Very bad,” Woolsey said.
“Being fed on a Wraith bad or turned into a bug bad?” Ronon countered wonderfully.
“Tortured and can't remember, making him a liability if he remembers at an inopportune time bad. Say, for example, during a Wraith attack?”
Rodney had to give him that touche, as much as he loathed to. But Woolsey was still wet behind the ears when it came to Sheppard. Files can only tell you so much, all of it technical, general and completely unhelpful.
“Yes,” Rodney simpered, “because being fed on by a Wraith has left him completely at their mercy when they show up. Please. If Sheppard's many traumatic experiences were going to scar him like that, he'd be dead by now.”
“John is still healing, yes,” said Teyla. “What happened to him is affecting him and may very well affect him for some time, but it will not affect who he is and will most definitely not affect his job.”
“We've all been through crap,” said Ronon with a shrug. “We're still alive, okay? Yeah, it isn't easy, but what other choice do we have? We know what matters - he knows what matters, and he's going to keep going no matter what.”
“But what if, this time, it's too much? What if he remembers and is unable to deal with it?”
Rodney snorted. Seriously wet behind the ears, Woolsey.
“He'll let us know,” was all Ronon said, cryptic even to Rodney but he would go along with it if it meant getting Woolsey off of Sheppard's back. Woolsey meant well, Rodney got it but, again, Woolsey didn't get Sheppard. Having Woolsey breathe down Sheppard's neck and force therapy on him wasn't going to help matters.
People like Sheppard you don't force anything on, healing especially. It was the equivalent of pushing him into a corner and, trained soldier that he was, of course he was going to push back. The trick to helping Sheppard was to go with the flow – if it was normalcy Sheppard wanted, it was normalcy Sheppard got, no matter how many elephants in the room had to go ignored.
Being there, so far, had proven to be the most effective way to help Sheppard; not talking or sharing feelings or anything that was going to end up making everyone uncomfortable. Just being there.
----------------------------
The tricky part was knowing when to be there. Four days of barging into Sheppard's room for a game of chess or to kick his ass at Resident Evil would get on anyone's nerves, Rodney supposed. Rodney forced himself not to take offense when twenty minutes into a zombie massacre Sheppard announced his sudden fatigue. Maybe he was feigning, but Rodney liked to think he wasn't. Sheppard still looked tired, bags under the eyes and everything, and most of the time when Rodney barged in he found Sheppard as little more than a lump under the blankets.
Then Rodney would quietly pad out to his lab or his own room and wait. He was always waiting; he wasn't sure what for: a knock at the door, a lieutenant colonel with a question he forgot because he was in denial, maybe even a panicked Sheppard, followed by beer out on the pier. Rodney was resigned to the fact that that wasn't going to happen – this was Sheppard, and all previous displays of utter vulnerability had been the fault of drugs. And, yet, still he waited. Maybe it was only fair that Sheppard show a moment of weakness after nothing but moments of weakness days before, and it sucked that it wasn't happening. Rodney had showed, damn it. It was Sheppard's turn, now.
The fifth day Sheppard was sleeping less but still not in the mood for much company. It was making Rodney nervous, wondering if, maybe, Woolsey was right: this was one trauma too far and Sheppard couldn't deal. Or, maybe, Sheppard was tired of all the hovering. Rodney had reveled in all the attention lavished on him after the brain squid incident, but after a week had been ready to throw the nearest object at the next person to waltz through his door. That person happened to be Jeannie. He was still e-mailing apologies and a promise to buy her something nice. Even as an adult she still knew how to manipulate.
That's what it was – jadedness to attention. Sheppard was just people-jaded.
Satisfied with that answer, Rodney gave up on sleep and headed to the mess for an after midnight snack. All this attempt at fathoming what was going on in Sheppard's thick skull was turning him into an insomniac. It made him sigh. If he was going to lose sleep, there were more productive ways to go about it.
He found Sheppard in the mess, hunched in sweats and his jacket against a chilly night as he picked at a bowl of grapes. He was back to having a normal appetite but too soon for there to be enough padding on his bones to keep him warm without a little help.
Rodney sat down across from him. “This a private party?”
“Nope.” Sheppard pushed the grapes toward him. “Thought I was hungry. Guess I wasn't.”
Lying fink. Five days of nothing but sleep and Sheppard was still sporting an un-fetching shade of gray under his eyes. But at least he wasn't so damn pale; that had to count for something.
All the same, Rodney seemed incapable of stopping himself when he asked, “Bad dreams?”
The gaze Sheppard flicked at him was brief in its anger before flattening into indifference. He shrugged. “A little.” Then he added, too quickly, “I'm fine, though.”
Rodney, grape pinched between thumb and forefinger, stared at Sheppard. Sheppard wasn't fine. A person would have to be blind, deaf and on another planet to not see that he wasn't fine, and he wondered if that was what Ronon had been talking about when he'd told Woolsey Sheppard would let them know. In which case, Rodney felt like an idiot. Of course Sheppard would let them know he wasn't fine. When Sheppard wasn't fine, he wasn't dealing. When he wasn't dealing, all facades started to crack like old glue.
Rodney swallowed, suddenly wishing they'd discussed in more detail what to do when Sheppard wasn't fine. Be around, yes. But was it really enough? Crap, Rodney really should have thought this all through better...
Sheppard sighed, leaning on an elbow and rubbing his face. “It's no big deal. They come and go and, sometimes... sometimes I just forget where I am. I just need fresh air, to be awake for a little while. I'm fine after that.”
All Rodney could reply with was in inquisitive grunt, then popping a grape into his mouth, pinching it between his teeth until juice hit the back of his tongue. “What about sleeping pills?” he asked.
“Then I can barely wake up at all. Few more nights of this, though, I might be willing to make an exception. Like I said, it isn't all the time. I'll get over it. Always do.”
Rodney nodded, stuffing his face with more grapes. He should have kept stuffing, because he just had to ask, “So you eventually stop having nightmares?”
John pursed his lips ruefully. “I don't think anyone ever stops. I've never stopped,” which the last part Rodney had the feeling wasn't meant to be said, but if that were the case, Sheppard was either too tired or beyond caring to, well, care.
“What helps?” Rodney asked next. He really wanted to know.
John's rueful pursing became a rueful smile. “Exhausting the hell out of yourself until you're too tired to dream.”
“Ah,” Rodney said, grinning. “So there is motivation behind all that running at unearthly hours in the morning. See, you should use my method – unraveling the mysteries of the universe until the crack of dawn. Far more productive.”
“My method allows me to haul ass. Which, if you haven't noticed, we happen to do a lot of around here.”
“Yes, well, my method will eventually make it so that we never have to haul ass again.”
With an inquisitively raised eyebrow, Sheppard passed his gaze around their surroundings. “Funny. Don't seem to see the end results anywhere.”
Rodney threw a grape at him. “Shut up.” All it did was make Sheppard chuckle. Then Sheppard yawned until his jaw popped and decided he'd had enough fresh air. The grape bowl empty, Rodney decided to escort him back since it was on the way to his own room.
Sheppard was obviously too exhausted to consider things like personal space, with barely a centimeter between them. Sometimes their shoulders would bump, not hard enough to knock Rodney off course, so he ignored it and Sheppard didn't seem to notice. When they reached his quarters, instead of going to the bed, Sheppard went to his desk and grabbed his laptop.
“Wanna watch a movie?”
“I thought you were tired?”
“I said I had enough fresh air.” He set the laptop on the end of the bed. “I got the Dark Knight disk already in, sodas in the cooler. The good stuff, lots of caffeine.” He smirked. “Should keep you up 'til the crack of dawn, saving us from hauling ass.”
Rodney opened his mouth to inform him that, as a matter of fact, he'd been in bed trying to sleep.
“Also got some beer and chips. Just because beer’s out for me doesn't mean everyone has to suffer.”
Rodney snapped his mouth shut, then shrugged. Why not? A light buzz had a way of conking him out for a good eight hours and then some. Plus Sheppard was finally in the mood for company, and wasn't it typical that it happened to be at an awful hour? The man was sadistic when it came to time. Rodney imagined that if he could, Sheppard would never sleep, and Rodney would be there right along with him reveling in forever being awake. Oh, the work he could get done, the dreams he could stop dreaming...
Rodney grabbed a beer and a bag of chips, pulled up a chair and parked himself. “Let's do this.”
By the end of the movie, Sheppard was on his side, asleep. Rodney thought about leaving then decided against it. He should probably stay a little longer, just to make sure Sheppard didn't go searching for more “fresh air.” Besides, Rodney wasn't tired yet. In passing, after popping in another movie, Rodney patted Sheppard's shoulder. Sheppard sighed like a man having finally reached his destination after a long, arduous journey.
Rodney grinned. He liked bedside vigils.
