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Back to Pt. 5
Rodney tore himself away from Sheppard's comatose body and headed into the kitchen. He passed Daniel just as the archaeologist was shutting the door after Lam.
“Carolyn asked me to emphasize one more time about how this might not be a good idea.”
“Noted,” Rodney said, making for the fridge. Daniel followed him as far as the island, dropping onto the nearest stool.
“And also for the record, bringing Sheppard to the SGC will do more good than harm.”
The pickings were slim in the fridge, down to condiments and a half carton of milk that the expiration date made questionable. So Rodney turned to the freezer and the emergency TV dinners for when he was too tired and broke cash-wise to order takeout. Debit and credit cards were a necessary evil, used when necessary and the rest of the time ignored. His first night back on Earth after the miraculous arrival of the Daedalus their first year in Pegasus, Rodney had been bombarded by commercials on identity theft. He'd been paranoid ever since.
“Maybe,” Rodney said, tossing a chicken dinner onto the counter. He pointed at it. “Want one?”
When Daniel shook his head with a mild grimace, Rodney tore the box and popped the plastic tray into the microwave. He hit the numbers and leaned forward with hands on his hips, tapping his finger against his belt, watching the dinner rotate and start to bubble, pop, and hiss. Three minutes in then he needed to stir the potatoes, flip the chicken, and cook it all for another minute and a half. There was something rather pathetic about having it memorized, Rodney knew.
Ten seconds in to the cooking process, Rodney crossed his arms tightly across his chest. “So are you changing your mind? You think we should take Sheppard in?”
“I think we should wait to see what Carolyn has to say,” Daniel said.
Rodney nodded. “I doubt Sheppard will be quite willing otherwise.” And Sheppard giving the green light to call the SGC didn't count, not the way Sheppard had been looking when he'd said it.
“For now, you should look into getting Sheppard to eat something,” Daniel continued.
The microwave dinged two seconds after. “He should sleep first, as much as he can. And what do you mean me? You were in visual range of my fridge. You could see it wasn't exactly Denny's... unless Sheppard has a fetish for ketchup in a bowl then he's in luck.”
With a quiet exhale, Daniel rested his jaw on his upturned hand as though he was the monumentally exhausted one, and like hell he was. No way was anyone as exhausted as Rodney right now... except Sheppard, of course, but the semi-lucky bastard was sleeping it off at the moment.
“Soup?” Daniel said.
Rodney froze on opening the microwave door. “Actually... I might.” He finished his original intent, stirred, flipped, shut the door, and let the meal finish cooking as he rummaged through the cupboards beneath the counter, slamming several cans of Chunky's soup on the fake Formica surface.
The total count was fifteen cans, leaving Rodney wide-eyed and momentarily speechless. Momentarily.
“I had no idea I had that much soup. I must have gotten sick of eating it or something,” he surmised. It was a rare occurrence for any food to wear on him, but it did happen on occasion, and every single can was beef and vegetable. That kind of monotony could jade even a starving raccoon.
As Rodney prepared a can of soup, eating his own nuked meal in between dumping the stuff into a glass bowl and slapping it into the microwave, Daniel moved to the couch where he flipped through the channels on the plasma screen.
“What about soup?” Rodney asked, removing the dish when the timer dinged. “Want soup?”
“Um,” Daniel said with a dubious twist of his lips, “maybe later. But thanks.”
Rodney pressed his lips into a tight line, wondering if Daniel was just being a gracious guest or if Rodney's selection of meals was a turn-off to the appetite. It made him realize with a sharp pang of guilt what a massive, ungrateful ass of a host he must be. After all, he was the one who kind of, sort of, in a way dragged Daniel down here by poking into his private past. Although it was Daniel's own fault for walking into the bedroom at the wrong time instead of just leaving. Except that probably wouldn't have happened if Rodney hadn't gone into the bedroom to check on Sheppard in the first place, forcing Daniel to go in as well to tell Rodney he was leaving...
So, once again, what it all came down to was that this was really Sheppard's fault. But McKay was just as much to blame for not being a little more aware that he was now entertaining two people in his house... kind of, sort of, if you could call it that (which Rodney most definitely wouldn't but didn't know how else to put it).
“You know, you don't have to stay,” Rodney called around a mouthful of breaded chicken. “This far in, it probably doesn't really matter, and the SGC is probably wondering where you are.”
“Not really,” Daniel said. “These days, I'm always coming and going. Besides, I called them, said I wasn't going to be in, that you had a lot of questions and needed the emotional support.”
Rodney choked on his chicken. “What! You told them what?”
“They bought it pretty easy. They kept offering to call back every ten or twenty minutes if I needed an out. I told them not to worry about it.”
Rodney glowered darkly. “Gee, how considerate of them. Did they give you any pointers on how to tune me out, too? Hm?”
“Relax,” Daniel said. “You should have heard what'd been said about me my first year back from Abydos. We're scientists, intellectuals – someone's always going to have a low tolerance of us. Besides, even you have to admit,” he shut the TV off and looked directly at McKay, straight in the eyes, “we excel at being pains in the ass on the right occasions.”
“I prefer to think of it as a difference of opinion,” McKay said.
Daniel shrugged. “I prefer to think of it as being a pain in the ass, but it took Ascension, de-Ascension and sorting through my own memories to realize that. I remember looking back like I was seeing everything for the first time. Sometimes I was right, sometimes I was kind of right but could have handled it better, sometimes I was wrong, and sometimes I was really wrong. But whether I was right or wrong, I always stood my ground. Jack reassured me that was a good thing. I told him it was a miracle he hadn't kicked me off his team. He then told me the team would probably be dead if he had. I think that's the weird thing about us – intolerance doesn't necessarily equal dislike. Well, okay, maybe at first because even Jack admitted he really, really didn't like me when we first met. He thought I was an egg-headed little prick.”
Rodney stabbed the remainder of his meat with his fork, trying to recall what Sheppard had first thought of him. But he couldn't. Not counting Sheppard's lighting up the chair as though it had been waiting for him all this time, Rodney hadn't actually met Sheppard in the formal definition, with handshakes and name exchanges and so forth. There'd been the chair, then the city, then Sheppard dropping by the labs asking what this did and how that worked, then Sheppard asking Rodney to be on his team because he wanted the smartest scientist the expedition had to offer.
Looking back, Rodney remembered his first impression of Sheppard clear as day – several first impressions, actually: skinny-as-a-rake flyboy meant to be hated because he, a military goon with the mental capacity of an eleven-year-old, could work Ancient tech like it was super malleable clay. After the Athosian rescue and waking the wraith, Sheppard had been like a lost puppy wandering from lab to lab asking his obnoxious questions and making a general nuisance of himself with his perpetual hovering. It was actually Carson who had made the puppy analogy and Carson's fault that Sheppard had turned his sights on Rodney to annoy.
“I think the lad could do with someone else to talk to besides me, and I know you can do with someone to light up devices. Plus you know how most of your staff are around the military. If they clam up any tighter they'll form pearls on their tongues,” Carson had said. Rodney had then informed him that it was oysters that formed pearls, followed by how he didn't have the time nor the desire to deal with any local grunts except on a professional level. Carson had then replied with a “I don't give a bloody damn because I'm not going to be your damn guinea pig if I don't have to be,” all while waving a syringe around, effectively ending the matter.
Somewhere between that conversation and Rodney getting the ATA gene therapy, hanging with Sheppard had proven itself to be something that wasn't really a chore. Then Sheppard had explained why he'd wanted Rodney on his team, and Rodney mulled over the possibility that maybe Sheppard had more between his ears than just that psychotic bush he called hair.
Nowhere, in any of those recollections, was anything Rodney would call a negative reaction – not until Doranda. Even then, with every reason to boot Rodney off the team, Sheppard had kept him around.
And Rodney couldn't help but wonder why? Why had Sheppard kept him around? Why had he asked him to join his team in the first place? Why had Sheppard ignored every one of Rodney's attempts to shoo him away their first couple of nights on Atlantis?
What the hell had been Sheppard's problem? Unless he'd been just that desperate for someone to talk to – for a friend. Now that Rodney thought about it, stepping through an intergalactic portal to another galaxy, killing your CO, waking up a race of man-eating aliens, and all while not that long ago having lived an existence where the mere concept of it all had been nothing more than sci-fi – that had to be scary to some extent, Rodney didn't care who you were.
That still didn't explain why Sheppard had kept him around. He had Teyla, he'd had Ford, he had Ronon. He didn't need Rodney as someone to hang with, and yet hang with him he did.
Rodney must have done something, or was doing something, right. Or maybe Sheppard didn't give a damn whom he made friends with. Either one wasn't such a bad reason.
Rodney polished off the potatoes and vegetable medley. By then, the soup was warm but not hot. He spooned some into a bowl – more broth than meat and vegetables – placed it on a tray with another bottle of water and a spoon, and carried it into the bedroom. It was when he stepped through the door that he was hit like a kick to the gut with the realization that he was serving Sheppard lunch in bed. The colonel owed him oh so big.
The first discomfort was smothered by a secondary, larger discomfort when it took two minutes to rouse John. The colonel's eyes opened, but it was clear from the glassy quality that a part of him was still in dreamland. It took a lot of man-handling to maneuver Sheppard upright, and even limp as a doll and twig-skinny he was heavy. Rodney had to pull out extra pillows and stuff them around John just to keep him sitting.
“Okay, Sheppard, you heard what the nice lady doctor said.” Rodney placed the tray on Sheppard's lap. “Eat or slip down the drain the next time you take a shower.”
Sheppard seemed to only hear the “eat” part. He looked down at the soup, stared at it incomprehensibly for a second or two, then lifted the spoon in his a shaking hand and filled it with broth - thick broth, thank goodness, or none of it would have reached his mouth. He was the complete antithesis of the man who, only a moment ago, had radiated the capability of ripping Rodney a new one. This, now – the painfully deliberate motions and excessive weariness after having done nothing but sleep - was a hell of a lot scarier.
“Sheppard.” Rodney snapped his fingers in front of Sheppard's eyes. “You with me?”
Sheppard blinked with a tiny, groggy flinch, and that was good enough. “Yeah, just... don't think I was done napping.”
Or it was getting harder for Sheppard to wake up the next time around. Rodney swallowed, keeping it inaudible. So it must have been the look on his face that betrayed him when Sheppard narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
“I'm not any worse, McKay,” he said. “I don't even feel queasy.”
“Well, good, but now you just jinxed yourself. I give it ten minutes before your stomach starts complaining.”
John's next bite had him actually licking the spoon as though savoring it. “You know,” he pointed the completely empty spoon at Rodney, “I never got that. You turn your nose up at the mere mention of organized religion, but the moment someone says 'what could possibly go wrong,' you're heading for the hills.”
Rodney's mind went straight to Doranda, and he shifted uncomfortably. “Yes, well... I will always prefer hard evidence, but there are days one does have to wonder. And there's no harm in being a little extra cautious, especially in a vampire-infested galaxy.”
“Good point,” John said. He looked down at his bowl, almost forlornly it seemed, for a second then pushed the tray toward his knees. “Probably a good idea that I put that theory into practice right now. You know, just in case I really did jinx myself.”
Rodney removed the tray, setting it on the floor. The half-full water bottle he moved to the nightstand within easy reach. “I doubt Dr. Lam would be happy, but I say it's better than nothing.”
Sheppard only nodded in reply. He winced and sighed, his body sagging like a discarded stuffed toy.
Rodney licked his lips nervously. “You okay?”
“Headache,” Sheppard sighed again. “Better lay down before my gut gets any ideas.” And he did just that with Rodney's help, not so much lying down as collapsing, leaving most of the work on getting comfortable up to McKay.
Rodney adjusted the blankets back around Sheppard's shoulder. “Look, it shouldn't be that long before Dr. Lam gets the results of your blood test. Coupled with all those lovely pictures of you having had the snot beat out of you, you're a shoe-in for staying the hell away from that hospital.”
Sheppard quietly grunted. “I know.”
“Although you do know it means having to go to the SGC eventually?”
Sheppard's hair and skin whispered across the pillow when he nodded. “By then, it'll be cool, like you said.” His languid eyes rolled up, meeting Rodney's. “I can't really remember if I said thanks, by the way. I may have, I... anyways, if I didn't, and in case I forget, thanks McKay. Thanks for all of it. And I'm... sorry... sorry I dumped it on you. I really am.” He closed his eyes, maybe because he was tired, maybe in that much pain, but Rodney didn't hold it past him that it was more to close the conversation before it became anymore hair-rippingly awkward. It was just Sheppard. Hell, it was just the both of them, and Rodney had never really appreciated just how convenient and... nice... it was to have someone else around who truly understood the agony of opening up emotionally – not matter how mild the attempts.
Rodney clapped the bony shoulder, avoiding words to keep the discomfort at a tolerable level without sacrificing acknowledgment. As overwhelmed and exhausted as Rodney felt, he didn't want Sheppard to know it. That is, if Sheppard didn't already know it. He was pretty out of it so there was still a good chance he didn't.
After picking up the tray, Rodney went back to the kitchen where he found Daniel indulging in the remaining soup. Rodney set the tray on the counter then moved the bowl to the sink.
“You really don't have to stay,” Rodney said. “You said you come and go from the SGC so I doubt they'll think anything of it if you show up. You can just tell them you managed to escape.”
Daniel shook his head. “I find that life's easier when you stay as honest as possible. Except when you have to lie then it's not. In this case, I see no point in lying. Besides, I still think I can be of help. You never know when you may need it. Trust me – been there, done that, and needed the help at the time.”
Rodney nodded, frowning, uncomfortable. But what else was new? “Do you think... do you think keeping Sheppard here, instead of taking him to Stargate Command when Lam told us to, is a bad move?”
Daniel set his spoon down, back in the bowl. Taking a deep breath, he said, “Probably.”
“So why didn't... don't we?”
“Well,” Daniel began. “For one, you said it was Sheppard's call. Has he said yes?”
“Kind of. Well, he gave it his blessing, but I didn't think him particularly sincere about it.”
Daniel's head bobbed in understanding. “I don't know,” he then said. “Personally, for me,” he placed his hand on his chest, “I kind of have this bad habit of not discounting anything, no matter how ridiculous or far-fetched it may sound, because that would make me a hypocrite. So when Sheppard said he was being experimented on, I considered it, along with all the other supposed excuses we came up with for not sending him back. I also believe that the stress of being at the SGC and not knowing what his fate will be - whether he'll be sent back to that hospital or somewhere else – might not be good for him. Yes, I'm not a physician, but I don't have to be to know that your body is happier when you feel safe. As for your reasons,” he retrieved the spoon, “they're your reasons, and none of my business.”
“Do you even know what my reasons are?”
Daniel shrugged, the spoon pausing halfway to his mouth. “You don't want Sheppard ending up in another mental facility.” The spoon completed its journey, and Rodney rolled his eyes.
“Oh, come on. You confess to not being a physician yet have no qualms about playing psychiatrist. Do not even begin to psycho-analyze me -”
“I'm not,” Daniel interjected. “I'm just putting myself in your shoes. If I were standing where you are now, with Jack or Sam or Teal'c in that room... it's what I wouldn't want to see happen. It's just logic: no one wants to see their friend in a bad place.”
Wasn't that just the painfully honest to goodness truth – yet another Rodney hadn't let himself think about. There was a lot Rodney refused to ponder, a lot he would eventually have to ponder when speculation turned into fact, but, until that time came, he still didn't want to think about it. It's not like there was anything he could do about it at the extreme moment anyway – unless he never brought Sheppard to the SGC. But that, too, was inevitable if Sheppard's health took any more of a nose dive.
A thump followed by the harsh sounds of choked retching carrying to them from the bedroom made Rodney sigh. “Be right back.”
“Need any help?”
Rodney shook his head. “I'm good.”
TBC...
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Date: 2008-06-14 05:08 am (UTC)From:Looking forward to the next posting! (You live in KS right? Hope you did okay with the recent tornadoes that stormed through there. My parents live in KS and narrowly avoided mass damage to their neighborhood.)
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Date: 2008-06-14 05:19 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-06-14 05:20 am (UTC)From:The tornado was a pretty close call. We had rotation, I think, but it didn't touch down. We still ended up in the cellar for a short time. We also had a large branch fall off our tree, right where the car would have been had we not put it away in the garage :O That had been a... very interesting night :S
Kansas - if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes, then you'll really have a reason to hate it ;)
no subject
Date: 2008-06-14 05:21 am (UTC)From:I so want to explore the early days of the exploration, especially John, but have never been able to come up with a more concrete story for the concept.
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Date: 2008-06-14 05:38 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-06-14 06:18 am (UTC)From:I feel for John, he really is in such a corner, depending on others which I know must be so difficult on him.
*hugs him*
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Date: 2008-06-14 06:49 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-06-14 11:56 am (UTC)From:Dangit...now I must wait til tomorrow. LOL
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Date: 2008-06-14 01:25 pm (UTC)From:Your Lam was spot on - prickly and haughty, yet decent to her patient.
Would like to see you explore the Early Days some more, in another effort. When John, Rodney and Carson developed their friendships. The little glimpse you gave was a nice tease :)
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Date: 2008-06-14 02:06 pm (UTC)From:Great story.
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Date: 2008-06-14 02:46 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-06-14 05:38 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-06-15 12:43 am (UTC)From:For some reason I find Rodney's stockpile of soup hilarious...maybe because I've done the same thing. Minestrone. Not quite 15 cans though. :)
"Rodney mulled over the possibility that maybe Sheppard had more between his ears than just that psychotic bush he called hair." Psychotic bush! Teehee!
I'm also liking the Daniel/Rodney conversation and eagerly awaiting the next part. Well done :)
no subject
Date: 2008-06-15 12:53 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-06-15 03:24 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-06-15 03:29 am (UTC)From:I kind of feel John the type who is subtly lonely, in that being by himself doesn't bother him too much, while deep down inside, if he had to choose, he would prefer having friends. But considering that he knew nothing of the Stargate program or that there even was such a thing as a Stargate (while everyone else seemed to have some kind of previous experience with it), I think stepping onto an alien city would have made lonliness a little harder to handle. Or so I imagine *shrugs* And Rodney, well, I don't see him as the type who would fully grasp that - at least not right away, and not all at once. He did have Carson as a friend at the tie, so was pretty much good to go.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-15 03:34 am (UTC)From:I think my secret SGA fic dream is to have a cross-over with each of the SG-1 gang. I've done Teal'c, Sam, now Daniel. So pending is Jack, Mitchel, and I even have an idea for a Vala and John friendship piece.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-15 03:35 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-06-15 03:42 am (UTC)From:The muses are already starting to mull over an idea for an "early days" Atlantis fic, though I make no promises. There's so many kinds of stories I've been wanting to write, but can never seem to get a firm graps on the plots. It's been like trying to hold a wriggling fish :/
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Date: 2008-06-15 03:42 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-06-15 03:44 am (UTC)From:Nah, I'm too lazy to take over the world.
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Date: 2008-06-15 03:46 am (UTC)From:Yes, I'm afraid poor Shep has to get worse before he gets better ;)
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Date: 2008-06-15 03:47 am (UTC)From:Sheppard's hair is love :D