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Rapid thudding ripped Rodney from the best dream he'd had in days – buxom, blond Amazons offering to help fix the stupid shield and show Rodney how to build another one, until one of them began rapping the top of his head with her fist. His skull sounded oddly like wood....
Rodney snapped his head off the pillow with a snort. Awake, the thudding was hard and far more obnoxious. He lay there, on his stomach, staring at the headboard and hoping that by ignoring the thuds, the thuds would go away.
The thuds thudded harder. With a sigh that morphed into a whimpering groan, Rodney rolled from his prescription mattress, planting once-warm feet onto ice-cold hardwood floors.
“If the building isn't on fire, I'm turning the hose on 'em,” he muttered and shuffled out of the room. The thudding was constant, as though the one doing the thudding had a right to be annoyed.
“I'm coming!” Rodney shouted. “So just hold your damn horses!” He gave a hard twist, flick, and yank to the deadbolt, knob, and chain, but the pounding wouldn't stop. “I said hold your damn....” He yanked the door open and yelped, “Sheppard!”
Hunched, shivering, and grinning that insufferable grin of his, John Sheppard lifted a thin-fingered hand in a small wave. “Hey, McKay.”
Rodney couldn't respond, only gape, blink, and take in pointless details like the dark gray sweater John wore that was too big and the white windbreaker that was too short in the sleeves. The cuffs of a pair of black track pants bunched on top of a pair of weather-worn Nikes. Had it not been for Sheppard's pale complexion darkening the shadowed flesh under his eyes, it would have been deliriously easy to assume he was out for an evening jog.
Sheppard stuffed his hand back into his pocket and rocked on his heels. “So... you gonna let me in? It's pretty damn cold out, and I'm starting to lose feeling in my toes.” He shrugged. “Kind of forgot to grab socks.”
Rodney continued to stare. Apparently taking it as a yes, Sheppard shouldered his way in, his head in constant motion as he took in his surroundings.
“Nice digs,” John said, so casual, so easy going, so John Sheppard.
Who so wasn't supposed to be here.
“What the hell!” Rodney shrilled, shoving the door shut behind him without ever taking his eyes off the lieutenant colonel – no, former lieutenant colonel. Sheppard, in the meantime, continued his casual perusal of Rodney's home. When he wandered into the living room, his eyes went saucer round over the plasma screen.
“Really nice digs.”
Rodney's heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest. He was dreaming; that had to be it. Sheppard wasn't here; it was just a dream. And to prove it, he pinched the soft flesh between his thumb and forefinger. He squeaked from the pain.
Sheppard finally turned to face him, all mild concern, like the old John, the not-so-insane John. “You okay, buddy?”
Rodney's jaw dropped. Shock crumbled immediately beneath anger, at last, because anger made it possible to speak and think. Anger Rodney could work with, and right now he was feeling incredibly pissed.
And scared, but more pissed.
“Okay?” Rodney spat. “Okay! No, I am not okay, Sheppard! What the hell are you doing here!”
Sheppard's expression turned into blatantly feigned hurt. “What do you mean what am I doing here? I came to check on my friend; that's what I'm doing here -”
Fury rose another scorching degree, smothering fear over the fact that Rodney had a potentially violent and suicidal man standing in his living room. He lurched forward, feeling like a blazing pillar of anger, and tried to crowd Sheppard, only to have Sheppard recoil as though Rodney had his fist raised.
Rodney ignored the reaction. “I mean, Sheppard – why the hell aren't you in a certain psychiatric hospital having your veins pumped full of sedative to keep you a happy little lunatic? That's what I mean. Last time I saw you, you were trying to chew your own fingernails off.” He glanced at Sheppard's bandaged fingers. “And by the looks of things, you still are.”
Sheppard's hands went back into his pockets, while the muscles of his jaw jumped and twitched, fighting to keep his expression neutral. Rodney witnessed a plethora of moods flash through Sheppard's eyes – anger, fear, sadness, fear, more anger, more fear, an even deeper melancholy that – for a moment no longer than a second – made McKay believe that Sheppard might actually cry. Then the hazel gaze went blank, and an obviously painful smile split Sheppard's face.
“They let me out.”
Rodney managed to refrain from slapping his own forehead. Or Sheppard upside the head. “They let you out?”
Sheppard nodded. “Yep. Gave me a clean bill of mental health and let me out this morning. Thought I'd drop by to give you the good news in person, but it kind of took me forever to get here -”
“They let you out?”
“I said yes.”
Rodney scowled, his fists clenching until his fingernails bit into his palms. He couldn't believe this. Could not believe what he was hearing. Psychotic or not, there was no possible way John Sheppard could think Rodney that stupid. All the years they'd known each other, all the impossible crap Sheppard had asked him to do, all the impossible crap Rodney was able to achieve....
It was undeniable, irrefutable proof that Sheppard really had lost his mind.
“Do you,” Rodney said, enunciating each word like he did when speaking to the less than intelligent, “honestly think I believe that? No, wait, let me rephrase that – did you think I would believe that? Did you sit in... whatever brought you here, make yourself a long list of cover stories, and decided that ‘they released me’ was the superior choice? And yet didn't consider all the little facts that you used to find so important like, oh, say, the hospital giving me a call to let me know ahead of time that they were releasing you? Considering how often I used to badger the hell out of them, trying to convince them you were sane, which you're clearly not -”
“Yes, I am!” Sheppard snarled.
Rodney flinched, tripping over his words until they drifted away, letting him finally take notice of Sheppard giving the floor a long, hard stare that somehow made him seem both terrifying and vulnerable at the same time. A hard shudder shook John's body, and a shaking hand tore through his hair.
Then he said, more reasonably, “And, no, I didn't think you'd buy it.”
“Then why did you try?” Rodney had to ask. Sheppard wasn't an idiot, and a delirious man wouldn't have been so honest… or so Rodney supposed. That still didn't change Rodney's opinion of the state of John's mental condition. Exhaustion may have deepened the color of Sheppard's eyes, but Rodney could practically feel the vibrations of John's high-strung tension. The man was edgy, anxious, and that made him dangerous.
Sheppard shrugged. “Thought it sounded more believable than the truth.”
“And what, pray tell, is the truth?” Though, in all honesty, Rodney wasn't looking forward to hearing it.
John's hand went to his neck, gripping the skin white. “I... I escaped.”
And that's why Rodney hadn't been looking forward to it. “Well, I can see that since they obviously didn't let you go. Care to enlighten me on why you did that?”
Sheppard's eyes never left the floor, as though he could stare holes into it, take out all his frustrations and pain out on it, and again Rodney saw those same contradicting flashes of emotions run through his gaze.
“They... weren't exactly nice to me,” Sheppard said
Rodney opened his mouth, prepared to tell Sheppard how, yes, it would seem like that, but sometimes people had to play rough for the sake of the one they were being rough with. Sheppard stopped him with a raised finger before one word could get out.
“Just hear me out McKay. Before I go into details, I want you to think about something. I've been missing from that hospital for a day and a half. And I'm assuming, by the way you went ballistic rather than tried to play nice like you've been expecting my company, that they haven't called you about it. Am I right?”
Once again, Rodney was shocked momentarily speechless so could only nod.
Sheppard nodded back. “Good. Keep that in mind.” Then he began to pace, his hand back to his neck, clenching and unclenching. “I don't think... I don't think what they were doing to me was normal procedure. All the blood taking kind of clued me in – it's not like I was sick. And they kept giving me this stuff... wasn't medicine. Sure as hell wasn't medicine because it made me worse. It made me….” He pulled his hand from his neck long enough to gesture at his head with spread fingers. “It made me... not me. It made it hard to think. Made me sick and angry all the time. And they kept asking me questions about iratus bugs and the retrovirus and....” He looked at Rodney imploringly. “Are they even supposed to know about that? I kind of assumed it was because it's medical stuff. Still, it's all they liked talking about. They didn't even ask how I was feeling unless they injected me with something. It wasn't right, McKay. I don't know what they were doing, but it wasn't right so I got the hell out of there. This nurse helped me....”
He stopped, stilling, his expression melting from intense to confused but trying not to be. He looked again at Rodney, questions pouring from his eyes, then licked his chapped lips and turned away.
“That's the situation. I came here 'cause, you know.” When he looked up at Rodney for a third time, his smile was more genuine, albeit tainted by a modicum of timidity that so wasn't Sheppard. “Who else would I go to?”
Rodney barely managed to keep from flinching. “Yeah. Who else,” he echoed. Who else indeed who wouldn't lock John away in another facility just for talking about iratus bugs and retroviruses?
Except Rodney had meant to say “why me?” Why the hell come to me and make you hate me when I call the facility to haul your scarecrow ass back into that place?
John, however, in all the infinite logic that Rodney had once, long ago, thought him incapable of before getting to know him, had bought himself some time. A shattered mind will see conspiracy theories everywhere, but there was still the matter of the hospital having kept their mouths shut about John having escaped, most reasonably to cover their own asses, and that already wasn't sitting well with McKay.
Sheppard returned to pacing. “I just need a place to lay low for a while and, um...” He gave a nervous chuckle. “…figure out what to do next.”
Rodney just nodded, trying to figure out what to do himself. If that hospital was incompetent enough to lose Sheppard and not tell anyone... hell, what would they have done when Rodney dropped by asking for John? Make up some story or feel kind enough to let Rodney in on the truth all while chalking it up to miscommunication?
We tried to call you but you can be a hard man to reach sometimes, Dr. McKay.
Although that sounded pretty dang plausible considering how often Rodney went off-world then basically ignored everything around him except his projects when he wasn't. Still, Rodney wasn't the only emergency contact on the hospital's list. Landry and Sheppard's brother were included as well, and McKay highly doubted Landry would keep Sheppard's escape to himself, even if the hospital asked nicely.
On top of that, what kind of VA hospital trained to handle Special Ops casualties and guys who can kill a man by flicking them in the face loses a patient? Maybe that's why they hadn't called. It would be quite the scar on what might be an otherwise flawless image to admit to a fallibility of that magnitude.
So if the hospital was being “mums the word” to cover their own asses then contacting them was out of the question. That left the SGC, though Rodney was a little reluctant with them as well. Landry probably wouldn't buy into the hospital's excuses of why and how they lost Sheppard, but Rodney wouldn't put it past the IOA to nod their heads and hum in careful consideration. If not because they would actually believe the tripe but because it would be easier than trying to find some place else to stick John.
“McKay!”
Rodney jolted right out of his thoughts to Sheppard staring impatiently at him.
“I said,” Sheppard said, “where's your bathroom? My eyeballs are swimming here, McKay.”
Despite the frightening absurdity of the situation, Rodney still grimaced in disgust. “Too much information, Sheppard.” He looked the finally still – sort of – former colonel up and down. The man was shivering hard, and Rodney wouldn't be surprised if his fingertips and toes were blue. “This way.”
Rodney, keeping his head angled just enough to have the escaped mental patient still within sight, led John down the hall to the bathroom on the right across from the bedroom. Sheppard moved toward the toilet without shutting the door. When Rodney leaned in to shut it, Sheppard reached out a hand and stopped him.
“Leave it open,” he said like an order.
Rodney, again, grimaced in disgust. “Why? Suddenly claustrophobic?”
The “what do you think” look Sheppard gave him made Rodney's hackles immediately rise. “Oh, are you saying you don't trust me? Is that it?”
“I trust you, McKay,” Sheppard said. “I trust you to do what you think is right, and right now what you think is right is to call someone and tell them that I'm here.”
Rodney's heart thudded, and it took a little scrounging to replace fear with irritation. “Paranoid much?”
“Extremely. Look, I'm not going to make you stand there. I just want the door open so I can hear it if you try to whisper into a phone. That's all.”
McKay sighed. “Fine. Whatever. If it's any consolation, I won't be making any calls as I'll be too busy digging up some clothes so you don't drop from hypothermia and force me to call an ambulance. If I'm going to rat you out, I'd prefer it in less noisy and attention-grabbing ways. So hurry up and take care of business.” He then quickly left before Sheppard changed his mind about forcing him to watch.
Rodney unearthed the largest sweater and longest pair of draw-string sweat pants he could find, both of which were going to make Sheppard look like he'd hit a growth spurt while on a semi-anorexic diet. He tossed the clothes to John when he was sure Sheppard was finished then turned his back to the man so as not to suffer another potential peep show.
“So, how'd you get here?” Rodney asked, just to be conversational, as well as keep Sheppard's mind too occupied to think delusional thoughts. “That hospital is about two hours away.”
“Hitchhiked.”
Rodney sneered. “Lovely. Dare I ask how you escaped?”
“Had help. I'd rather not say who. Can't have them taking the fall with me when you turn me in.”
“You know, you're being oddly realistic for an insane man.”
“I'm not insa – damn it!” Sheppard hissed
Rodney turned. “What? What is -” and gaped.
Sheppard's bare back was an abstract mess of bruises, old to fairly new: some long, some round and a suspiciously boot-shaped one running diagonal across the spine. Thoughts of self-inflicted injuries whispered in Rodney's mind in a pathetic attempt at reasoning, but even Rodney knew no one was ambidextrous enough to be able to step on their own back. Sheppard was also doubled over, clutching the right side of his ribcage and breathing hard.
“Sheppard?” Rodney said. He reached out, not quite sure why, then pulled his hand back when Sheppard waved him off.
“I'm good,” he said. He glanced over his shoulder, angry, frustrated, but more than that, humiliated. Sheppard was still as thin as Rodney remembered – that gamey kind of skinny that wasn't emaciation but wasn't a healthy look on him either. At the hospital, it had always made him seem like something wild – an aggressive dog no one could get near. Here, he was more like a dog kicked one too many times, harmless unless you back him into a corner, frail but no less dangerous.
Rodney swallowed convulsively then chuckled uneasily. “Um... you honestly expect me to believe that, too?”
After a moment, maybe ten seconds, Sheppard smiled a tired but genuine smile that made him appear only frail without the danger. Clearing his throat, Rodney pointed to the cupboard beside the bathtub.
“There's a med-kit in there. Some bandages if you need them.”
Sheppard nodded. “ 'Kay.”
Rodney cleared his throat again. “I can help you if you need it. I mean, since you don't trust me not to rat you out, I might as well make myself useful.”
Again, Sheppard nodded. Rodney, nervously, nodded back then squeezed his way through. “I'll just... get it out then.”
Sheppard stepped aside, still hunched, shaking and holding his side. But there was something about it, something more timid, something less about pain and more about being braced and ready, and it recalled the shame to Sheppard's face. There were also more bruises on his front, way too many from collarbones to hips, disappearing past the cinched band of the sweat pants. Rodney pulled out an ice-pack, cracked it then handed it to John who pressed it to his side. Maneuvering around Sheppard to set the kit on the sink, Rodney's elbow brushed Sheppard's arm, and the pilot cringed and shuddered.
Rodney decided to just back off and remain hovering in the doorway. It took a while, more than ten seconds, for John to start moving and put the dark brown hooded sweater on. He slipped the icepack under the shirt to return it to his ribs.
“Thanks, McKay,” Sheppard said without looking at him.
Sheppard's insanity was scary, but this subdued attitude was even scarier in light of all the bruising. Rodney's inability to figure out what to do scared him even more. He wracked his brain for how to proceed... hell, what to say. The rational part of him hissed to call someone – the SGC, a hospital that wasn't the hospital – but the irrational side was afraid that if he did anything or said anything, Sheppard would either snap and attack him or shatter where he sat. The man looked utterly exhausted – sick, even – and yet it wasn't enough to free him of that tension that made his shoulders hunch, kept his back painfully stiff, and made the muscles of his face jump.
McKay wondered if it involved lingering medication. “You hungry?” he asked, feeling it a neutral enough question.
Without taking his eyes off the sky-blue floor tile, John shook his head. “Not really.”
Rodney scoffed. “Oh, come on. All that hitchhiking and you're telling me you're not hungry?”
Sheppard pulled the icepack around front to fiddle with its edges. “Haven't had much of an appetite since... you know. Since I was taken there.” When he lifted his eyes, it was to the wall across from him, not Rodney. “What the hell happened, McKay?” Then he did look at Rodney, and Rodney wished he wouldn't. There were those questions again, the ones that McKay already knew he wouldn't be able to answer.
Strike that, didn't want to answer.
“I was fine when I got to Earth, during the rehab,” John said. “Then I start seeing these freakin' iratus bugs....” Shaking his head, John pulled his gaze away. “I don't know what happened.”
Rodney rubbed his eyes, feeling incredibly exhausted himself. He couldn't do this. If Sheppard had another freak-out, Rodney wouldn't know how to handle it. He'd probably end up killing Sheppard after knocking him over the head to keep Sheppard from killing him. Neither could he bring himself just yet to call the SGC, not without making sure they didn't stick Sheppard back in that hospital. Rodney recognized a foot-shaped bruise when he saw one, but that wouldn't stop the hospital from pinning its origins on the acts of another patient.
Well, except that the doctor had told Rodney that he'd been keeping John isolated from the other patients for everyone's safety. Unless he'd been lying about that, too.
Taking into consideration all possibilities was giving Rodney a headache. He was tired, it was late, and contrary to popular belief, he didn't function well on little sleep – at least not without coffee and impending doom to back him up. So he really had only two choices – whip up some coffee or slip a sedative into some water and knock Sheppard out so they could all get some sleep.
Or maybe not. Sheppard's body was starting to bob in that way when the body was past its limitations and running on fumes. Escape and hitchhiking could really wear a guy out, even an insane one, and Rodney had always gotten the feeling that Sheppard had never really slept at that hospital. The man didn't need a sedative; he'd pass out on his own just fine, curled up and freezing on the tiled floor.
Rodney breathed out heavily, dropping his hand. “Sheppard, why don't you go lay down? You can even take the bed. And I won't rat you out.”
Sheppard snorted so Rodney glared.
“I won't. Look, Sheppard, you're exhausted, and you're obviously not going to last much longer. I'll admit I don't quite buy into the whole ‘they're experimenting on me’ excuse for why you broke out. However, I don't disagree that they were doing something rather unkind to you. Plus you make a good point about them not alerting me to your Steve McQueen response to the unkindness. It's late; I'm tired and in all honesty have no desire to deal with anyone right now – the SGC especially. So I won't call them on the condition that you don't freak out and try to kill me or anything. Deal?”
The smile on John's lips, though on the weary side, was so Sheppard that it was rather painful to look at. Good old not-insane Sheppard, except that he was insane.
“I used to have a freak-out every day,” Sheppard said. “I haven't had one since I got out.” He looked at Rodney. “In fact, I've been feeling pretty mellow.”
Rodney didn't feel any more bolstered by that although John had yet to nibble on a single non-existent fingernail, nor bring his hands to his mouth for that matter, nor let his eyes wander the room as though afraid iratus bugs were going to jump out of the wall at any minute. But that could be due to the exhaustion.
“You mean it, McKay?” Sheppard asked. He looked at him imploringly. “You won't call anyone? Not the SGC, not the police, not the damn hospital?”
“Especially not the hospital.”
Imploring became hopeful – painfully, vulnerably hopeful that almost made Rodney turn away so he wouldn't have to witness it.
“I can sleep?”
Rodney's stomach pulled in as though someone had given him a hard poke. “Yeah, yeah, you can sleep.”
Sighing in relief, Sheppard pushed himself onto shaking legs. That was always the problem with sitting down after having been on the move all day – the body took it as its cue to shut off. Rodney hurried forward to take Sheppard by the arm, the bone feeling too close to the surface, and placed his other hand on Sheppard's back, feeling his ribs even through the sweater. He felt like he was helping an old man shuffle back to bed. Rodney even went so far as to pull the covers down and to keep hold of Sheppard's bicep as Sheppard lowered himself onto the mattress. When curled up on his less-damaged side, Rodney covered him up, tucking him in. It was weird.
“I'll leave the door open so you can hear me in case I rat you out,” Rodney said. At Sheppard's penetrating look, added, “But I won't. I promise.”
Sheppard's body eased, the prevalent tension still present but not as painful. When John was all “tucked” in, Rodney headed to the kitchen to grab a water bottle that he placed on the nightstand. As promised, he left the door open then moved into the living room and dropped heavily onto the couch.
Arms draped over his knees, Rodney stared at the blank plasma screen and whispered, “What the hell am I doing?”
Protecting a friend obviously. Something was rotten in the state of that hospital, and no way in hell was John going back there. That still left a mentally unstable soldier sleeping off the weariness holding back that instability in Rodney's room. McKay was in over his head, and Ronon and Teyla were billions of light years away where they couldn't offer advice... or take John off his hands. Rodney had promised not to call the SGC and planned to keep that promise until he was sure the SGC was on his side and not eager for a quick fix.
But Rodney needed to talk to someone. Not tell them anything just... talk, casually, with well thought up and carefully worded questions asking for advice without really giving anything away. He needed direction, a grounding point, something to coddle the voice screaming in his head “this is bad. So very, very bad!” Forget going berserk, what if John was hurt a lot worst than just bruises and a possible cracked rib? What if it was a broken rib? What if all that hitchhiking and being out in the cold had made Sheppard sick, giving him pneumonia, packing his lungs full of mucus until he couldn't breathe?
Or making him so delirious with fever that he broke Rodney's neck in the night?
Groaning, Rodney planted his face in his hands. He might as well make coffee because there was no way he was sleeping for the rest of the night.
TBC...
