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Dr. Keller has video of Rodney looking at her, saying 'I love you'.
John knows about it. And honestly? He's not surprised.
He hasn't told any of them what he saw of the future, what Rodney-the-hologram had told him. He'd been keeping that revelation for the day before Rodney's wedding, when he'll get to say, 'you were always going to do this, buddy,' and be able to smirk when Rodney starts spluttering about 'how' and 'why' and 'what the hell are you talking about'.
He's not surprised that Rodney has fallen in love with Jennifer Keller. He's not even surprised that Rodney confessed to it. He is surprised at certain unforeseen circumstances that have arisen.
He's not sure if Keller ever noticed the signs of someone going through the video documentation of Rodney's deterioration. If she did, she hasn't said anything.
So maybe she doesn't know. Or maybe she does, and if she does, John's just really glad she hasn't wanted to ask him about it. He doesn't talk about his feelings. Not to anyone. Never did, never does. Never will. Not even to the people who currently matter the most to him.
Except.
He looks at Rodney sometimes and wonders if Rodney remembers.
He has no video footage of his own. That's a good thing most times. But then he doesn't get what Keller has, he doesn't get to look back. He doesn't get a record of his own 'I love you'.
And Rodney doesn't seem to remember.
John did wait, in the days after the surgery, for Rodney to have that light-bulb moment. He waited for Rodney to stop short and look at him, terrified and shocked and trying to hide it, but there was nothing.
So John remembers for the both of them.
"I love you," Rodney had said, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
And John had stumbled over his own feet. That had made Rodney laugh. Rodney, turning into someone childlike and innocent, who could laugh at people falling over like it was the highest form of comedy.
"Right," John had replied, mind going blank, "Like a friend. Yeah, buddy. That's great."
"No." Rodney had shaken his head. "Not a friend."
Just enough self-consciousness left to make his eyes tired.
John had swallowed.
"I know the soldiers have that, that, that thing... that... that word... other words..." Rodney had snapped his fingers a few times. Like he'd often done before when he'd needed tools or help or just an audience. And John hadn't been able to help him out because his own brain hadn't been working all that well and he hadn't known, not then, what Rodney had been talking about. He hadn't been able to think.
"Damn." It had been tired and soft. Nothing like Rodney's usual tantrums. "I can't remember it. It's there; I just... can't remember."
"It'll come back to you," John had said.
And they'd ended the conversation there.
But John still thinks about it. He thinks about Rodney standing there, trusting in John and unable to defend himself either mentally or physically, just telling him what he felt.
"I love you."
He would have thought a guy couldn't forget saying that to someone, not if he really meant it.
He wonders if Rodney said that to anyone else. He knows about Keller. Maybe Rodney said it to Teyla, too, and to Ronon. John's chest squeezes tight with the need to burst out laughing every time he thinks of Rodney telling Ronon that he loves him 'not like a friend'.
But Ronon's the reason that Rodney is back. Well, Ronon and Jeannie and Jennifer. And he knows Rodney can admit to loving the women.
He's not sure about himself. Where he fits.
All he could do for Rodney was just... stick around. Talk gently, kid him a little, and be the guy who didn't challenge his fading intellect.
And wasn't that a kick in the pants.
John remembers that, remembers deliberately biting back the old, familiar sarcasm once it became obvious that Rodney couldn't keep up.
He'd known what Rodney had meant, that night on the pier, but it hadn't been practical. Remember Rodney the way he had been? Hard to, when what Rodney had turned into was right in front of him, blue eyes wide and blank, slurring his words, hands moving aimlessly, unable to comprehend anything very much.
John had tried so very hard to keep Rodney connected but in the end, he'd just been talking to himself. Rodney hadn't seemed to care, so long as the tone was calm. John could have told him anything.
So John had. He'd told him some things... he still isn't sure what dragged them out of his mouth. Started out just being little things, like jelly or soft blankets or whether the room was cold. Ended up being gunfire and pain and death.
John doesn't remember himself why he'd ever thought it was a good idea to recite the names of every one of the people they'd lost in Atlantis. He thinks he was vaguely hoping the guilt would be strong enough to bring some semblance of Rodney back, for just a second or two, just enough to nod once and know it was Rodney looking at him. In hindsight, that had been a bit of a bastard move. He's glad it didn't work. Not even for Grodin or Gaul, both of whose deaths Rodney had taken so personally. Rodney had just blinked stupidly at him and then looked away, like the conversation had happened to someone else.
John had looked around and found Jennifer watching him, face blank.
At the time it had been embarrassing, and now it's just something else she doesn't mention. Vague uncertainties. Almost-truths. Information culled from the reactions of a man who wasn't himself and doesn't remember, half-reliable and half-suspect.
And in that light there is another incident they don't mention, not least because it's far more explosive; that morning when he'd got there to find the nurses short handed and short tempered, with a team in the infirmary and Rodney needing so much care just sitting submissively in his hospital bed and looking at people walk by.
Keller had been so over-protective. She'd rarely left Rodney's side for days. Except that morning. So John had found himself getting Rodney up and into the bathroom, sat him down on a ledge and he'd talked to him, gently, while he'd lathered up Rodney's chin and upper lip and cheeks and jaw. Rodney had made some sounds, tried to talk, and he'd swallowed some lather so John had had to help him spit and wipe away and he'd had to start again.
"Now just hold still," he'd said, and put a razor against Rodney's skin.
That close Rodney's eyes had still been bright blue but nothing close to the focus, nothing close to the intensity. But still blue. Something still there. The same man who had refused to call himself a doctor- Mr Rodney McKay- because doctors were smart.
Oddly enough, John's smile hadn't been faked. Nor had the calm and the care. And if John had deliberately not let himself think that he'd always been good with kids, Rodney hadn't been able to notice anything different.
They'd ended up playing with the lather, just to keep Rodney distracted. He'd dabbed some on the tips of Rodney's fingers and Rodney's grin at such simple physical stimulation had been huge. This hadn't been something he'd needed to understand, just feel. And John's reward had been to see Rodney look so happy. So ridiculously happy, even more than when Keller was around or when Teyla was telling him stories.
And so John had kissed him.
He still isn't sure why. And most times he hates himself for it.
He hates that he'd been the one to lean forward, to tip Rodney's smiling, happy, vulnerable face up and kiss him.
A part of him wonders when he went from completely straight to complete pervert. Predator. Just because Rodney had said 'I love you'? Rodney could have said the same thing to everyone in Atlantis. Rodney had trusted him, had been unable to defend himself, and John had taken advantage of that.
He hopes Rodney doesn't remember. He prays for it.
In his defence, he hadn't meant anything wrong by it. He'd meant it the way he'd once imagined he would kiss his kid when he had one. No sexual tension involved.
Except.
Rodney had reacted.
Rodney had made some sound, like a cat, and he'd leaned in and he'd been like an octopus, all hands.
"John," he'd kept saying, "John, John."
Rubbing his damp, smooth cheek against any part of John that he could reach and his hands, oh God, his hands, once so precise and confident, now just awkward and uncontrollable, fingers all crooked out of position but trying, trying so hard.
John had almost fallen backwards onto the floor to get away but it had broken his heart.
"John? John!"
"Rodney, buddy, stop. Just stop. It's okay. It's alright. Rodney?"
Second childhood.
Deteriorating mind but Rodney's body had been adult. And he'd had an erection, barely visible with the loose hospital gown rucked up around his thighs.
"John. Please?"
Please.
A hand, stupidly strong because Rodney had been too far gone to control his own strength, grabbing at John's tshirt.
"Rodney, just stop!"
John thinks about that, thinks about that weird playtime-turned-danger, thinks about how hard he'd tried to make sure they were never alone together after that.
He'd taken him back to Keller and she had looked down, noticed the awkward way Rodney was walking, the way the hospital gown was wet and draped in weird ways, and she'd snapped a look at John that he hadn't been able to read. The fact that he was flushed and his hair was ruffled, his tshirt clearly crumpled- he'd imagined that everyone had to know what had happened. And they'd blame him. No doubt about that. He'd have blamed him and he'd known his own intentions had been pure, if very stupid.
She'd taken over efficiently, and John had fled.
Weeks after Rodney is healed, John wakes up some nights and he thinks he can hear Rodney's 'John, John' clattering full-tilt down the corridor outside. He jerks awake expecting to hear banging at his door and Rodney outside, panicking and losing himself and looking to John for help, trusting in John to do something. Anything.
He wakes up, looks around, hears nothing that requires his attention, and then he goes back to sleep.
He needs his sleep most nights. He hoards it. Sleep in Atlantis is precious. For all of them. They've had too many nights without sleep for various reasons- work, injury, fear, grief. Loneliness.
He tells himself this is what it is. Loneliness. He's had no one permanent since Nancy. He doesn't regret his divorce; if he'd been stronger, he would have gotten it sooner. When they'd loved each other, they'd loved each other fiercely. Burnt it at both ends- sexually, emotionally, physically. He'd have done anything for her back then, been anything for her. But when it had cooled, they'd had nothing left.
This love isn't the same.
This love is slow, and easy. It barely makes itself felt. It slips in and out of the cracks of his awareness. It wraps itself around his heart sometimes and squeezes, only sometimes, when Rodney looks at him and calls him 'Colonel' with that affectionate 'you're either being funny or an idiot' intonation.
John doesn't know if Rodney remembers. He doesn't know if Rodney even feels the same emotion, not with his brain back online and his inhibitions back up. All he knows is what happened. And he knows that there is no record of it. Not like with Keller.
Which is why he snuck into her lab. Why he watched the footage. He did it to see if Rodney had ever said anything to her, had explained what he'd said he felt for John. Instead John had found himself a name among other names.
And Rodney's face, growing less aware, more tired, more vacant as the video rolls, had looked to the unseen woman behind the camera. And he'd said, "I love you," like it was it was the most natural thing in the world.