Title: Roses are Red, Bruises are Blue
Genre: Gen, angst, HURT/comfort
Rating: T, 15, PG13
Word Count: ~5800
Summary: Happy Valentine's Day, Rodney! Or not... ouch (set in S3)
A/N: Shameless whumpfic. It's whump for the sake of it, because sometimes things really suck big time and I need someone to take it out on (come here, Rodney!) This was worryingly fun to write, I might write more stuff like it. The usual medical disclaimer also applies – I know nothing!
Rodney knew it was going to be a bad day from the moment he woke up in the labs with a laptop keyboard embedded in his face and crease marks on his numb arms and hands.
He washed away the morning fuzz in his mouth with a wince and half a mug of stale coffee from the night before. He blinked a few times around the room. It was 7am and only a couple of people were already in. They had let him sleep, knowing he would be grouchy if they had woken him up. They had probably taken photos of him drooling for blackmail purposes, the bastards.
He rubbed his eyes, only making them sorer, and forced them to focus on his impromptu pillow - the desk in front of him. He frowned at the red envelope and wrapped box that had appeared beside his computer in the night. It wasn't his birthday as far as he could remember. The dates all ran into one on Atlantis, so he had to be reminded when he got a present from John each time it came round.
He looked around the room, but the other scientists were ignoring him, so he hummed curiously and grabbed the envelope. He opened it, sure the sound would attract attention from the others there, but they were well trained, so carried on working. There was a small piece of card inside, red on one side and white on the other except for the words. Rodney's eyes quickly tracked along the lines as he read:-
Roses are red
Your eyes are blue
I love every word said
I want to eat you
He was scowling by the end and he muttered, "Bad grammar, but at least it rhymes."
He turned the card over and studied the envelope inside and out, but there was no signature. Most work on Atlantis was done on computers. Paper was rare, especially such specialist paper. He didn't recognize the writing either as very little was done by hand and whiteboard formulae were hardly like a person's real writing anyway.
He opened the red ribbon on the pink box. It was only small and when he opened it, there were four chocolates inside with a pre-printed card. He checked it carefully, but there were no citrus ones. He sighed, and thought that at least they would tide him over until breakfast. He rested the small card on his computer so that he could see it while he worked and allowed himself a small smile. A secret admirer! Him: the fury of the science labs; the maker of all people to cry at least once a month. Wow!
He rebooted his computer and started working on what he had fallen asleep on the night/early morning before.
He absent mindedly ate one of the chocolates while he worked. It had a horrible taste to it - a bitter tang. Tang? Citrus! He spat it out, but it was too late. He choked as his mouth and throat swelled up and cut off his air. He didn't even have time to reach his radio before he couldn't breathe at all. He slid from his chair, but the other scientists had finally started paying attention to him as they quickly came over. One caught him before he did himself an injury on the desk or floor and the other hit his radio, his voice muffled through the panicked, rapid rushing of blood past Rodney's ears.
There was a sharp pain in his thigh, then his vision faded to nothing.
xxx
Rodney woke up in the infirmary a while later with Carson leaning over him. The man jumped when he saw Rodney blinking up at him. "Oh, Rodney. How are you feeling?"
"Like I'm on a summer holiday," Rodney croaked. "How do you think?"
"You sound fine to me." Carson fussed around some leads and said, "We caught you just in time. Good thing you spat it out or it would've been a lot worse."
"Is he up for having some breakfast, doc?" Sheppard's voice, then hair, then the rest of him entered Rodney's awareness where he was slouching against a wall well out of the way of Carson doing his rounds.
"Aye." Carson turned to Rodney. "I'm letting you go for now with some pills and strict orders that you're to take it easy for the rest of the day. Call me if there are any after effects."
xxx
Rodney left the infirmary on wobbly legs and with a box of pills clutched in his hand.
Once they were clear, John asked, "What happened back there?"
"What does it look like? I got chocolates and a slightly psychotic poem from someone who wants me dead!"
They stepped into a transporter and John pressed the button near the mess hall. Materialising a few moments later, they stepped out and John said, "We checked the lab very thoroughly and didn't find anything except the one you spat out. Ew, by the way."
Rodney frowned. "I'm alive aren't I?"
"So whoever gave you those gifts took them away before we got there. Who was in the lab with you at the time?"
"I don't know their names!" Rodney protested, rubbing the bruise on his upper leg with a grimace.
"Could you point them out from a line up?"
"I doubt it. They ignore me and I ignore them. It's an unspoken rule we have in place this early in the morning."
John sighed, "Help me out here, Rodney."
"It might not have been any of them and maybe whoever left it didn't want to kill me."
John led him into the mess hall and they grabbed breakfast. They took their usual things and sat down at a table together. Ronon and Teyla soon joined them.
"How are you, Rodney?" Teyla asked. "We heard what happened."
"Aside from my sore throat and near death experience? Just great."
"Who did it?" Ronon asked.
"Why do you always assume the worst?" Rodney said. "It was probably just an accident."
John frowned. "Uh huh," he drawled. "Someone accidentally tried to kill you?"
"It wouldn't be the first time."
It was nearly 9am, so there weren't many people left in the mess hall, but several men and women came up to the team and passed cards and gifts to Teyla, John and Ronon. A deeply blushing woman gave a card to Rodney before running away. It was one of his scientists, but he couldn't remember her name. He made a mental note to make someone photograph and tag everyone so he could find out. The sickly card wasn't signed and there was no horrible poem either.
"What is all this?" Rodney asked.
"Valentine's Day," John said with a smile as his eyes moved along lines of text. His expression turned into a dirty smirk and he quickly shut the card.
Rodney rolled his eyes. "A commercialised attempt at misguidedly wooing affection and making the lonely feel lonelier once a year."
"At least you got one," John said.
"My second. You got loads as usual. Even Teyla and Ronon got more than I did."
Ronon growled and hoarded his cards possessively while Teyla's facial muscles tensed.
"Anyway. I'm going to have a shower and do some work."
"Good idea, McKay," Ronon said.
"I'll see you later."
xxx
Rodney limped back to his quarters, his leg was still quite painful from the epipen injection. They could at least have jabbed it in gently, but no, stab was more appropriate for what they'd done to him and he bet they enjoyed it.
He stripped off his dirty clothes and studied his leg. There was a fairly impressive area of dark purple with a tiny red dot in the middle. He grimaced as he touched it. He knew he should leave it alone, but he was fascinated and couldn't help himself. He stopped with a hissed breath when it throbbed and then he made his way into the shower.
He thought the shower on and to the right temperature. It felt a bit hot to him, so he tried to think it cooler. His Ancient gene failed him, for it only got hotter. His skin started to smart and tingle and then became painful. He tried turning the dial down manually like those unlucky enough not to have the gene take, but that didn't work either. He never put his head under until it was the right temperature, so he didn't scald his eyes or head.
"Ow," he said, his voice bouncing back from the wall of burning water.
"Y'ouch!" he said louder. The water tasted strange when some went into his gasping mouth. It didn't feel hot, but it did hurt.
He gave up on the shower and turned it off before stepping out. He'd have to get someone to look at it, or he might test it himself later to find out what was wrong.
He patted himself down with the towel, but the pain wasn't going away. He checked his normally pale skin and found it was red and blotchy all over. Some patches were red raw and blistered and beads of blood were appearing on the less hairy parts of his body – his upper arms and sides were particularly bad. He grimaced. It wasn't heat, but most likely acid in the water.
His towel was red by the time he'd finished and the pain was like the worst sunburn he'd ever had. He stepped out into his quarters and stopped when he saw the red writing on his wall:-
Blisters are red
Lightning is blue
I hope that really hurts
I hate everything about you
"Huh, that one doesn't even rhyme."
He pulled on a dark coloured loose shirt in case the blood went through and trousers to match even though it hurt. He headed out of his quarters. He dismissed it as just another malfunction the poem writer had caused. He didn't want to bother John with his trivial problems, especially not when hundreds of ladies would be swarming around his friend on this most special day.
Rodney swung by the infirmary on the way to the labs. Carson wasn't there and he was grateful. He explained that there had been a shower malfunction. The doctor on duty wanted him to submit to a full examination, but Rodney refused, thereby hiding the full extent of his injuries. He wasn't going to let a crazy stalker ruin his day or get to him. He had work to do.
He added the tub of special cream for his skin and bottle of painkillers to his increasing drug stash and swiftly fled the infirmary before Carson made a reappearance. The man was probably off concocting some potion or another.
xxx
There were flowers on his desk when Rodney got to the labs. He contemplated turning around and pretending he hadn't seen them, but it was too late. Besides, maybe they weren't from his ineloquent torturer. His heart fell when a card with now familiar, but messier writing on it fell out:-
Sunrise in red
Comet tails in blue
Go boil your head
No one can save you
He sneezed and his eyes watered from the pollen as he tucked the card into his pocket.
Radek came over. "Are you alright, Rodney? I heard what happened with the chocolates."
"Great, as usual. Lemon death, bad poetry and acidic showers are all in a day's work. Who left the flowers?"
"I do not know. They were here before I came in this morning. They are very nice, someone must like you a lot."
Rodney grimaced and swiped at his eyes with his sleeve. "Enough to give me an allergic reaction again?"
Radek furrowed his brow. "I am sure it was unintentional. I will keep them then if you don't mind."
Rodney waved him off. "Please get them out of here." Rodney leant against the table, coughed and spluttered, his chest feeling tighter by the second. He downed some more allergy pills and Radek removed the offensive plants and gradually his breathing eased.
He grabbed a toolkit and vowed not to do his usual routine today. No more lab work and no more interaction with any human beings. There was the faulty puddle jumper to fix and the botanists had been complaining about a broken water pump in the large hydroponics bay.
He grabbed a couple of power bars to keep him going and left the lab. Radek hadn't even asked about his burnt skin, but maybe the other scientist just assumed it was to do with the allergic reaction? Rodney didn't mind. He'd rather people didn't ask too many questions as he could deal with this himself.
xxx
Rodney pulled down the crystal tray in the rear compartment of the Puddle Jumper to assess the damage. It was parked up in the bay and from the looks of things, he was lucky it had made its way back up there. Several of the crystals were black, some were cracked and others flickered.
He sighed and winced as his abused skin stretched around his chest in breath. "Not good," he said as he eyed the damage. It looked like the ship had been hit by lightning or crashed, or both.
He fished around in his kit and tested the damaged crystals, sitting on the bench to repair the ones he could and throwing the rest into the unsalvageable scrap pile for attempted recycling.
It reached lunchtime without incident and Rodney munched on a couple of power bars as he kept going. No one had interrupted him and he was starting to relax. Even the burns weren't as painful anymore and his stomach only rolled a little as he ate - in the aftermath of the allergic reaction that morning.
He finished his lunch and reached up to put the fixed crystals back in place when a current ran through the tray and shot out. It struck him in the chest and he was thrown backwards with a yelp. He kept his eyes closed tightly as he slithered to the floor and lay gasping for a few minutes as his heart beat rapidly. The Ancient power systems were different to Earth electricity or it would've stopped his heart, but as it was, he was more badly burnt and bruised than before, but still alive.
He opened his eyes and rubbed them as they watered and then placed a shaking hand against his painful chest, wincing as he did so. He crawled to the opposite bench and pulled himself up onto it. He was about to carry on working when he saw another card on the floor. He squinted at it and read:-
Puddle Jumpers fly
The sea is deep blue
You're going to die
Your hours are few
That meant that whatever crazy person had taken it upon themselves to spend all day hurting him had now found him and decided to continue their campaign. He asked, "What is this, Death by Bad Poetry Day?"
It was time to go. He'd spent too long in the Jumper as it was. He radioed Radek to send up a team more suitably equipped to deal with potentially dangerous power surges and made his way out to the next task on his list. The hydroponics bay in the South Pier.
xxx
The transporter tried to kill Rodney on his way over, but he was quick to release it before he suffocated. His chest really hurt afterwards though, far more than it had before and he struggled to pull in a breath even as the clean air washed over him. The pain seemed to be increasing too, but he resolutely ignored it. After he'd fixed the water pump, he was going to bed and would sleep right through until tomorrow.
A new poem appeared on the screen to make his afternoon even better and he couldn't help but read it:-
The air is so clear
Breath is nigh silent
You cower in fear
Your life is now spent
Maybe it was a bad idea, being out in the city alone like he was. But he wasn't going to let a stalker disrupt his schedule, so he kept going.
xxx
John went in search of Rodney when the man didn't show for lunch or answer his radio. He tried the labs first and spoke to Radek.
"He has been getting threatening notes today," Radek reported grimly. "So he went to fix a few things around the city, hoping he would avoid more notes and threats."
"What threats?"
"The cards he tries to hide and the wall in his quarters. He said his shower was slightly acidic today, so I sent a crew over to fix it and found a threatening poem on the wall."
John started to get angry. "And why didn't you call me?"
"Rodney said it wasn't the first time in his life that he's had them and it's usually a joke."
"I don't find death threats very funny. Where is he now?"
"He was fixing a Puddle Jumper but said the power supply is dangerous, so he went to fix the water supply unit in the hydroponics bay."
"Let me guess, he went on his own?"
Radek nodded grimly.
xxx
The hydroponics bay was twice the size of the Jumper Bay, with a glass roof that allowed sunlight through. It was warm and humid to allow the plants to grow. Rodney usually avoided it like the plague as he had a very low tolerance to the high temperature. He bore it today though, anything to avoid meeting anyone. They would never know he was here.
The plants themselves were big leafy ferns that gave the illusion of the room being a miniature forest and the soil underfoot was several feet deep. There were water pools everywhere today – signs that the pump had been offline for a while.
The latest crime against poetry was barely legible where it was written in thick black marker pen on the inside of the lid Rodney levered off the box to access the water pump. He closed his eyes before he read it as his sore chest tightened in fear. He pried them open in morbid curiosity and then found himself barely able to breathe at what he saw this time:
Your blood is red
Your bruises are blue
You'll soon be dead
Your time is now due
It took Rodney several minutes to compose himself and will his heart to beat more slowly. He was eventually able to sigh. "Give me a heart attack? That'll work."
He jumped when a man spoke behind him. "Why will you not die!"
Rodney stood up and turned around slowly. The man facing him was a scientist. Rodney couldn't recall his name, but had seen him in passing. Rodney said, "I'm just like that. Can't keep me down. Especially not you, Dave." He couldn't hide the tremor in his voice from how his pulse hammered in his throat and his mouth went dry. Sweat ran down his face and back and stung his burns.
The man took a step forwards. "My name is Don Astle and that will be the last thing you ever learn. I've tried to kill you so many times, but here you are."
The man brought out a knife and Rodney quaked before he snapped, "Well, that's not very intelligent! What are you going to do with that?" Rodney swallowed nothing and contemplated the best way he could reach up and tap his radio to call for help. He decided that there was no way to do it without putting himself in mortal peril, not that he was particularly safe as it was.
Astle's eyes flashed before he turned over the blade, studying it carefully. "It's not very clever, no. But a very effective way of inflicting pain on another person, such as you."
Rodney's eyes darted around looking for an exit, but he knew he wouldn't get more than a few paces before the knife got stuck in somewhere he'd rather it didn't. It didn't help that his eyes kept being drawn back towards the shiny blade, making sure he knew exactly where it was at all times. It wasn't one of the standard issue combat knives, but a smaller one, like a dinner knife, but with a black handle. It was enough to kill and maim, because the human body was fragile such that even deceptively small things could cause fatal injuries. If it cut across his throat, he was dead. If it nicked an artery, he was dead.
It didn't leave a lot of options. He could run and hope he was fast enough; tap his radio and hope someone got here before he was gutted and bled to death. Maybe he could try fighting the man and hope he disarmed him before he was cut, but he wasn't Ronon.
None of the options were very tempting, so that left the usual plan: using his voice to stall and see if he could blab his way to freedom.
"I've been bruised, burnt twice, electrocuted, gone into anaphylaxis and had my air cut off. Isn't that enough for you?"
"No. You should be dead by now and it's a shame you aren't because I have to do this the hard way."
The man lunged at Rodney who, despite his current injuries, was able to dodge at the last minute. Rodney then ran as fast as he could, weaving in and out of plant and fern and skirting around pools of water courtesy of the damaged system he had yet to fix. He ignored the pain in his chest and the uneven thumping beat of his heart as he ran on protesting legs. The heavy breaths of the man pursuing him were close and Rodney hit his radio. But his hands were burnt like the rest of him so he'd lost the dexterity he needed, add to that his fright, and he only succeeded in knocking the radio off his ear and it was lost in the mud.
He soon ran out of places to run and hide in the foliage and felt a hand grab him from behind, spin him around and slam him into the trunk of a nearby alien plant.
Rodney saw the knife flash before his eyes, then the blade vanished entirely as it was buried in him. There was a shock of cold and then a sharp pain deep in Rodney's belly and he cried out. His breaths were still fast and sped up as the man leant his free forearm against Rodney's chest to keep him pinned.
"You don't deserve to be alive," he said as he slowly twisted the blade and Rodney stifled a scream as he pushed ineffectually against his torturer with his hands.
"Wh-what did I do?" Rodney gasped as blood soaked through his shirt and dripped from the knife.
"You're still alive and I want to see you squirm."
He forced the knife deeper and Rodney wailed. "Why?"
"Because you're a weak little man, but you think you're everything, the way you shout everyone down in the labs every day. You're nothing but an irritating know it all who stole all his ideas from his subordinates."
Rodney protested, "I didn't steal anything!"
Astle glared at him. "I'm smarter and better than you'll ever be. I'm stronger. I bested you and that will never be forgotten."
"What, by killing me? That's intelligent." Even through all the pain and his watering eyes, Rodney couldn't help but be sarcastic to the bitter end. "And those poems were really bad. A two year old could write better."
The man turned the blade again and Rodney squirmed soundlessly as it further damaged him. He took a sharp breath, but the cold steel didn't flinch or give like his insides did where it cut into him.
Astle pulled the knife out and released the pressure over Rodney's chest. Rodney clutched at his abdomen, but the pain was so intense and the blood loss so rapid that his legs gave out and he pitched forwards to land face down in a pool of standing water. There was a splash and he felt jolts of agony from his middle and his labouring heart before the world became dark. His last thought was that he hoped somebody found him before plants started growing around and over his body.
xxx
John heard a very human sounding cry of pain the moment he entered the hydroponics bay. It was a large room, so he grabbed his life signs detector and ran as fast as he could towards the two dots he saw.
There was another agonised cry, slightly weaker than the last one, but it was unmistakably Rodney. John doubled his pace and grabbed his gun. He didn't have a tac vest, but the gun was hopefully all he'd need.
"Medical team to the hydroponics bay," he uttered into his radio as he went. Better to be safe than sorry.
His fears were realised when two life signs became one. A dot had just winked out. The second dot remained where it was, and John was not exactly being quiet in his passage through the greenery.
When he broke through the final massive leafy shrub, he saw two things and quickly aimed his gun at the offender. Rodney was lying facedown in a pool of rusty water and a man was standing next to him – a scientist by the looks of his uniform. John didn't recognise him. The man was holding a red knife and a glob of sticky blood dripped from the end.
"Drop it!" John shouted. "Drop it and move away from him!"
The man didn't obey, but merely watched as Rodney turned the water redder by the second.
John shouted again, "Drop it or I will shoot you!"
Again, nothing. Rodney's time was running out for revival if it was even possible at this stage and John couldn't risk himself being attacked or the man deciding to more thoroughly carve Rodney up into an irretrievable state.
John shot the man twice. Once in the arm so that the knife fell and in the leg so he couldn't cause any more harm. The man fell and curled up tucking his shattered arm to himself and sobbing. John thought the man should thank him for his restraint - he should've killed him.
John rushed to Rodney's side and pulled him from the water, turning him as he did so. He dragged the soaked, dead weight of his friend up and onto the flat soil. Rodney's skin was pale and blotched with red like sunburn. There was a hole in his shirt and a deep abdominal stab wound underneath. But Rodney had neither breath nor heartbeat so John hastened to start CPR. He counted the breaths and compressions numbly, his system going into shock at finding his friend like this. Why had he not seen the signs sooner? He should've been following Rodney or should've assigned someone to check up on him then this would never have happened.
Rodney suddenly coughed, and John rolled him over onto his side as he vomited water and blood out onto the grass.
Now that his heart had started again, fresh blood seeped into his shirt from his abdomen. John had nothing to bind him with - no tac vest and therefore no bandages. He tore off his own shirt, his embarrassment forgotten at the thought of losing Rodney again. He wadded up the material and pressed it against Rodney's belly.
Rodney gasped and his eyes shot open, they were startlingly blue against his pale face. He looked at John and frowned before he asked in a small voice, "Why aren't you wearing anything?"
John looked down to where he was holding the ruins of his shirt against Rodney's midsection. It was now covered in blood.
Rodney followed his sightline. "Oh." His face scrunched up. "Hurts."
"I know. Carson will be here soon."
Rodney winced and shut his eyes, turning his face away from the pain and from John.
"You're alright. You'll be alright."
Rodney looked up at him in disbelief. "Easy for you to say," his voice was weak and he coughed painfully. "You haven't just had a blade run right through you!"
"It didn't go right through."
"Feels like it."
Carson's team swarmed in around him and relieved Rodney from his shaking hands. Rodney looked at John with wide, frightened eyes, accusing John of abandoning him.
John quickly stood up and squeezed Rodney's hand where it hung limply from the side of the gurney. "I'm here, Rodney. Let Carson take care of you."
Carson was giving directions, "Johnson, Ramirez, stay with the other man and call a second team down here."
John gritted his teeth, but knew that Carson's duty as a doctor was to all people, no matter how evil they were, so kept silent.
One of Carson's team passed John a blanket and he wrapped it around his upper body. His shirt was on the floor where Rodney had lain.
Carson said, "Come with us and get cleaned up, lad."
"I'm not hurt."
"But you could do with a wash."
John looked down at himself and saw that Carson was right. His hands and arms were covered in rusty-red coloured blood and some splatters had even found their way onto his torso. He grimaced and took Carson's advice. It would be a while before Rodney was out of the woods, if he even left surgery alive.
Carson's team left with Rodney then, pumping air into him through the intubation tube and with IV lines in his arms and proper bandages against the stab wound. They'd cut open his shirt and there were bruises and burn marks all over his pale chest. John clenched his fists tightly and stalked off before he forgot himself and more accurately shot the man who had caused Rodney's injuries.
xxx
John had a quick shower and then joined Teyla and Ronon where they were waiting in the infirmary. Two guards stood outside the door where Dr Astle was in surgery for the shots John had fired to subdue him. But all three pairs of eyes were firmly fixed on the second door behind which Rodney was in surgery.
The first hour passed, then the second. Eventually a nurse came over and spoke to them. "Dr Beckett says it's going to be many hours before he's finished. There is a lot of damage.
"We're good," Ronon said.
"We do not mind waiting," Teyla added.
John nodded. "We'll stay if it's okay with you."
The nurse smiled at them kindly and then walked away.
Carson did eventually come out, but it was many hours later. Radek had joined them by then after he had completed his investigation to retrace the steps Rodney had taken that had led to him being so critically injured.
Acid showers and electric shocks were added to the list of traumas he had suffered and John seethed - not only at Dr Astle who had caused the injuries, but at Rodney himself for not reporting them. Radek showed him the poem card death threats that he had gathered up and photos of the one on Rodney's wall and the one in the water pump.
Carson looked tired as he stopped in front of them and said, "He's not out of the woods yet. Rodney had some very serious injuries: burns, bruises, several cracked ribs…"
John shrunk a little.
"But that knife wound..." Carson trailed off and his face turned grim. "We found evidence of twisting."
Ronon clenched his fists and Teyla gasped. Radek flinched a little and grimaced. John's expression hardened.
Carson continued, "I think we repaired all the damage, but it was extensive and we might have to perform more surgery if the bleeding starts again."
"His heart stopped?" Radek said in a small, shaky voice.
"Aye, Colonel Sheppard was able to perform CPR and revive him."
Radek showed his computer to Carson. "We detected a power surge in one of the Jumpers just before Rodney called the better equipped team to deal with the dangerous power discharges."
Carson frowned. "The power surge looks enough that it might have caused an arrhythmia. It was likely that Rodney suffered increasing chest pain and his heart would've given out eventually even without that knife speeding him along the way." Carson sighed. "These next few hours and days are crucial. I need to go back in to monitor him and run some more scans. You should all go and get something to eat and have some sleep. It will be tomorrow at the earliest before you can see him."
Teyla said, "Thank you, Dr. Beckett."
"Aye."
xxx
A few weeks passed and Dr Astle was sent back to Earth to face the consequences of what he had done. The bullet wounds he had received from Sheppard were healing and he had been in solitary confinement with two round the clock guards ever since his arrest.
Rodney woke up and slowly healed with his team around him. When he had been very thoroughly poked and prodded by all of Carson's minions in turn and interrogated by Heightmeyer on many occasions, he was finally released from Carson's clutches. He slept in his quarters that night, but could be found sitting in the labs the very next day with a grimace on his sweaty face and a hand over the healing hole in his well-bandaged abdomen.
John, Teyla and Ronon came by to cart him off to the mess hall to enforce his prescribed rest schedule.
Teyla gave Rodney a sealed envelope with a bright smile. "I had meant to give this to you before, but you were so badly hurt."
Rodney furrowed his brow and opened the envelope. It was a Valentine's Card and Rodney blushed deep red - not that it took a lot as his face was constantly pale now from the pain of his injuries.
John laughed, "Are you two an item now?"
Teyla frowned and looked confused. "I thought Valentine's Day was when women gave men cards and gifts and vice versa."
Ronon chuckled while Rodney looked a little hurt.
John said, "I think you need another Earth cultural lesson."
"Do not fear, Rodney," Teyla said quietly when the others had gone away to fetch the food. "You are very handsome, do not let Dr. Astle..."
Rodney flinched a little and snuffled a short breath.
"…or anyone else," she was looking at John and Ronon as she spoke, "tell you otherwise."
Rodney nodded with his face blank as he stared off into space.
Ronon and John soon came back with the food and they ate. Rodney occasionally shot off a sarcastic comment during the tales of sparring and twenty laps running around the city, and set their minds at ease, but it was going to take him a while to fully recover from what had happened.